East of San Diego, Anza Borrego State Park is California’s largest state park, so big all the other state parks could fit in it with room left over. Most visitors see the palms near the visitor center, but there are many other backcountry native palm groves that have few visitors except mountain lions and coyotes. Driving 50 miles south of the visitor center we found a vague sandy turnoff, parked the camper and began hiking up Surprise Canyon – and what a surprise it was. First one grove, then another, and finally the canyon opened up into an entire bowl full of them – 100’s of native California fan palms. We had never seen so many in one place.
It wasn’t the number of palms, but the cool and ethereal silence we felt here, and at the same time, the place was alive and vibrant. You could clearly see open areas where countless generations of Indians had made their homes under the trees. Dates were hanging everywhere, and several dozen western bluebirds and finches were flying from tree to tree, munching as fast as they could and chattering away. Date seed piles were everywhere too, showing that coyotes hang out here enjoying the same fruits, and sure enough, one big alpha male studied us from the ridgetop. Then, Nancy spotted a little nest on the ground, blown out of a palm by a recent storm we were sure. Judging by the size, it could have been made by a gnatcatcher or maybe a bushtit, but if you look carefully, you’ll see that every piece of the nest is actually a fishhook cactus spine. They’re all intertwined and tightly fitted, and each ‘hook’ is stiff as a needle. You’d need pliers to cut it. We can’t imagine how a tiny bird could have managed this construction feat. Just getting close enough to grab the spine is one issue, but how the bird broke off each spine, brought it here and wove the nest is beyond reality. I pictured a bloody and punctured bird when it was finished, and, of course I hoped it was a male. I thought it amazingly smart because what predator would attack an armored nest like this? Any ideas?
So why are these palms here at all? Native California fan palms are usually found where water is forced to the surface by an underground solid rock ledge. They need their feet wet but tops in the sun – and brutal sun this is. Young palms have wicked red spines along each frond stem, but older trees don’t. It’s thought that Pleistocene mastodons couldn’t reach any higher that about 18 feet, and so young palms adapted spines to ward off the huge browsers. With Climate Change, who knows what will happen to these last few groves of our only native desert palm. They could easily go the way of the mastodon.