Anza-Borrego State Park

This is the Anza-Borrego State Park Headquarters located in Borrego Springs. The park is over 600,000 acres in size covering a vast expanse of desert. The summer temperatures can reach 120 degrees at times so the building is underground to provide some respite from the heat. During the summer the visitor center is only open on weekends.

This is a typical view around Anza-Borrego. Wonderful scenery and the vastness of the land are quite something to see. If the December Rains come then there will be wildflowers here. If there is not adequate moisture at the proper time then no wildflowers. Such is life in the desert.

So we did put out some bird seed to see what kinds of birds we could attract. When there is food available you will attract all types of wildlife. This black-tailed jack rabbit came in along with several of his friends. We also had antelope squirrels and kangaroo mice along with other critters.

This fellow sure has some big ears. I imagine he could hear quite well and would need that ability to survive in such a hospitable environment.

A visit to Borrego Spring must include some time to drive around and look at the myriad of life size and large than life size metal sculptures. There are a wide variety of critters of all shape and form. This Grasshopper and Scorpion had been added since we were here last year. Quite fascinating.

There is a lot of information on the web about the sculptures. You can also CLICK HERE to view a picassa album we put together of many of these sculptures.

There are some great birds around here though it is not the best time of year. Spring is much more productive for bird life and a wider variety of species can be found then. This Black-throated Sparrow is a rather small sparrow of the southwest and is seen fairly commonly in our travels about.

So when we put out the bird feeder mentioned above we also attracted a lot of birds. Not a huge variety of species but large numbers of some species. This is a White-winged Dove and they came into feed in large numbers. Also we had a lot of California Quail. At one point we had 34 Quail and 14 Dove along with other finches and sparrows all feeding at once. You can imagine that the seed bill could get out of hand. That many birds can go through some seed really fast.

There is a seven tenths of a mile paved walking trail that goes from the visitor center to the campground that you can see here in the distance. Dogs are only allowed in improved areas, concrete, asphalt, or dirt roads. They are not allowed out on the desert hiking trails. We walked this trail with the boys several times. Good exercise for both them and us.

Anza-Borrego is a great place to visit, lots to see and do here in the winter but a bit too hot for us in the summer.