Bighorn Sheep at Palm Desert’s Living Desert

Christmas weekend was our third or fourth visit to the Living Desert in Palm Desert, California, but it was the first time I actually saw any bighorn sheep close enough to photograph. Bighorn sheep are famously shy with regards to human contact—for good reason. Every once in a while, one could see them at a great distance wending their way across some remote crags.

Once, at Capital Reef National Park in Utah, we saw a group of them close up. But this is the first time we saw any of them in California, though I’ve looked at Anza-Borrego Desert State Park, Joshua Tree National Park, Death Valley, and other places over the last thirty years.