California desert landscape and big city lights

Joshua Tree National Park

This park is located in the Mojave Desert and is named after the Joshua trees (Yucca brevifolia) that are found throughout the park. We first visited it after dusk and the Joshua trees were like ghostly skeletons standing in the dark. It is a breathtaking landscape of rock formations and rolling desert dotted with hardy plants.

Female hummingbird

California scrub jay (Aphelocoma californica)

Northern phainopepla (Phainopepla nitens)

White-crowned sparrow (Zonotrichia leucophrys)

Salton Sea

A short distance from Joshua Tree is the Salton Sea – an endorheic rift lake, that is located directly on the San Andreas Fault. It was an amazing sight to see and it’s hard to believe that it can support so much life – even called the “crown jewel of avian biodiversity”.

Los Angeles

While spending a couple of nights in LA, we visited the Griffiths Observatory and I managed to snap some night photos of Downtown LA. Only when the lights came on after dark did a get a sense of how massive the whole of LA actually is!