Also the Desert in December? - 2 / 3

Continuing from last week's views of the desert in december, here is a totally different view. A few days after visiting parking lots and bottle tree farms in 70 degree weather, we visited a local park - Apollo Park. In case you were wondering, these are not natural lakes, so this isn't a "natural desert" environment. However, it does host a huge amount of varied wild life. It was 60 deg F on this day.

still brown and blue, but now with water and trees!

and lots of water fowl, mostly looking for handouts

the light still make for some amazing views

even though there is a lot of water, there isn't much extra irrigation for the plants

they wanted food. 

ducks!

while there is some man made stuff besides the lakes, it's not a super developed park

Some up-close shots of unique residents:

This is a nice place to visit on a mild winter day, but when it's windy or hot (or both, which happens a lot), it's less nice. But it does point out how important water is for all the wildlife in the area.

I was going to leave these next pictures off, but they really underscore that last point. On the same day that we visited Apollo Park, we also visited one of the few natural lakes in the area. These pictures are not as nice:

all the water is gone

this area has been hit twice - by drought and wild fires

 As the rain falls today, it's easy to think our drought is over. And it is true that the desert is adapted to long periods of no water, and some areas tend to recover quickly when our seasonal rains come back.

still blue, brown and mountains

But there's a difference between rain being gone for a season, and rain being gone for years. It will take a long time before this area recovers. And while humans can go visit our made lakes, Nature can't.