Take a Break

Chorro Creek bog thistle on a reserve on the Cal Poly-SLO campus.   

2019 UPDATE:  I've now moved to San Luis Obispo (SLO) County farther south along the California coast.  After taking a break from blogging for awhile, I hope to start blogging about SLO adventures and will share that new blog address here when it's ready.  I also have more stories and photos to share about my former decade at the Dipper Ranch (more foxes, more pumas, more weeds!).  Thank you dear readers and remember:  GO OUTSIDE AND PLAY!

Original 2017 post:

I'm on crutches and have one foot encased in a boot brace for a few weeks. Not the best situation for a field biologist. Fortunately, I just finished a fine series of spring hikes.

We did an April bioblitz on a coastal prairie in rural San Mateo County. From sunrise to sunset, thirty  biologists combed a 900-acre grassy ranch with ponds, streams, and brush patches. On that one property on one day, we recorded 1290 observations on iNaturalist consisting of 326 plant and animal species. We already knew that some of the ponds supported California red-legged frogs, a threatened species, and I was fairly certain I had spotted the rare artist's popcornflower on the property in previous years, but the bioblitz gave us a better idea of where they occur.

Artist's popcornflower is quite a name. The easterly team reported seeing its tiny white flowers filling swales and I was a bit jealous I didn't get to see the large sweeps of it this wet spring. However, the expert botanists I sent to that side of the property confirmed the tentative identification I had made from scrawny plants in the previous drought years. My west-side team had a view of ocean cliffs and we saw interesting coastal residents too.

Vote for the 2016 Walnut Label

Windscorpian   

It's walnut harvest time. There's going to be a big crop and lots of neighbors and friends to share the bounty. Everybody gets to vote on the critter that goes on the label for the 2016 Dipper Ranch walnuts. Usually the label features one of the snakes that appeared on the ranch during the year, but there weren't many snakes this year. Why? Maybe because of the gray fox family that moved into the barn. Yes, foxes eat snakes. If you don't believe me, check out this video from the Camera Trap Codger.

I'm stubborn and even without a huge selection of snakes to choose from this year, I am not going to put some cutesy animal on the label. Instead, you get to choose among local animals I saw in 2016 which have a reputation of being creepy or strange, but really aren't. Mostly reptiles, spiders and bugs, but also some strange mammal tricks.

Leprechaun Day

Female timema from oak tree, 3/14/15  

Oaks have spring flowers too. Yellow male catkins dangle from the tips of oak branches the better to release their pollen in a breeze. Oak flowers don't have decorative petals because they are wind-pollinated and have no need to attract insects.  While examining the catkins of a coast live oak, a tiny green critter jumped onto my hand.

Long Tall Timema Green

green

segmented

bunch of legs

antennae

kinda squishy
That makes it a bug, right?   

I say, "I don't do bugs" but the long, tall green one that clung to the Adirondack chair on my porch in May was just too interesting. I'd never seen an insect like this, so maybe it was one of those freaky larval stages that mimic the colors or markings of the adult insect but all the parts are twisted around to do something else. Like the transformer toys I would find wedged in the back seat of the Jeep after long trips with the boys. Alien yet disturbingly familiar. The god in charge of metamorphosis must be a boy.

Green Thing May 2014

Check this thing out. I've been researching it but haven't had the time to write about it. The more I read about it, the more complicated and fascinating it gets.  Thought I would give you a chance to ponder this mystery before I get my writing shoes on.  For reference, it was about 2 cm long (not including antennae), was hanging vertically on my Adirondack chair on my porch on the Dipper Ranch in May. I have never seen one before.

Wolf's Milk - A Bioblitz Preview

Wolf's milk - actually not a fungus or a Hostess pastry - a fact I learned while browsing iNaturalist   

The National Park Service is having a bioblitz at the Golden Gate National Recreation Area in the San Francisco Bay area on March 28 and 29, 2014. Sponsored by National Geographic, it's gonna be huge. They expect thousands of citizens to join over 300 scientists observing and documenting the plants and animals of Marin, San Francisco and San Mateo Counties at 12 locations of GOGA (the National Park Service's four-letter code for this park).

A bioblitz is an event where animal and plant species are identified in a specific location over a short period of time. The eyes and ears of students and citizens are led by scientists to cover as much area in the park as possible and to confirm identifications. The inventory is useful to understand the park's ecology but it is also a great way for everyone to experience the biological richness of our public lands and the techniques of scientific inventory.

One Part Rain, One Part Sun

Southern alligator lizard (Elgaria multicarinata) sunning next to filaree seedlings.

Last week we got the first rain of the season on the central California coast, almost one inch of precipitation over three days.  I was in the Sierras, so I saw it as snow.  Upon my return to the Dipper Ranch, Sunday morning was bright and cool, so I took a walk to see how the rains changed the coastal hills.

As with last year, filaree seedlings were the first to pop up after 3 dry months.  The tunnels and dens of the underground must have been cold and wet because I saw quite a few reptiles basking in the open.

Tatting Caterpillars

A lacy doily made out of petals of a cudweed

I have crafty caterpillars in my farmyard.  My five sisters inherited our grandma's skill in the fabric arts, so I notice these things.  My grandma used to decorate her fancy sitting room with doilies, so I was surprised to find doilies on the cudweed bush behind the Dipper Ranch barn.

Spilling out of the old pig pen, the bank on which the mysterious farmyard doilies appeared used to be a weedy jungle, a common problem around farm buildings where the soil gets enriched by animal waste.  The pigs are long gone and the pen is falling down, but every year I spend a few sweaty days there pulling out manure-robust mustard and thistle plants.

Almaden Quicksilver County Park - Wildflower Hotspot #3

Almaden Quicksilver County Park

Almaden Quicksilver County Park is located in south San Jose around the former mining town of New Almaden.  Here you get a view of nature reclaiming the mined lands with several of the park entrances right out of residential neighborhoods.  A dreamy afternoon can be spent reading about the wild ways of the New Almaden mining days in the first chapters of Wallace Stegner's Pulitzer Prize winning book, Angle of Repose, and then hiking further into these very same hills.  Or you can just go the Almaden Quicksilver Mining Museum after your hike.

Trails wind through open stands of valley oak and blue oak trees with Chinese houses, farewell-to-spring and other colorfully-named wildflowers waving in dappled light, and California quails calling from mossy rocks and crumbled brick foundations.

Edgewood Park and Natural Preserve - Wildflower Hotspot #2

Edgewood Park and Natural Preserve, Redwood City, California

Edgewood Park and Natural Preserve balances on the edge of San Francisco's suburbs and the rugged, undeveloped mountain valley that stores water for the 2.5 million humans living along the Golden Gate and San Francisco Bay.  Once it was scarred by motorcycle trails and destined to become another golf course.  But a stubborn group of local botanists kept finding small, unusual plant treasures there and reversed the fate of this county park.

Edgewood Park is the most consistent and reliable place to see the spring wildflower display in the Santa Cruz Mountains and it can be easily reached from any city between San Francisco and San Jose by taking Edgewood Road east from Highway 280.  Highway 280 is sometimes described as one of the most beautiful highways in the world, and in addition to the darkly forested slopes to the west often crowned by great banks of cascading fog, the bright patches of Edgewood wildflowers to the east are likewise visible from the highway each spring and subtly remind the speeding motorists that they are following the course of a major faultline between two giant sliding landforms.

Coyote Ridge - Wildflower Hotspot #1

As you travel on Highway 101 between San Jose and Morgan Hill, you may have noticed bright patches of spring color on the hills to the east - this is Coyote Ridge.  Serpentine rock, part of our unique California fault-shaped geology, forms Coyote Ridge and soil high in some minerals and low in plant nutrients.  Some California plants have evolved to be tolerant of these conditions.

Poor soils often make for good wildflowers.  Coyote Ridge supports a colorful spring bloom of wildflowers including more than a dozen rare species.  It is also one of the few remaining habitats for the threatened bay checkerspot butterfly (Euphydryas editha bayensis) which is dependent on a few small native plant species for adult nectar and caterpillar forage.  Increased deposition of nitrogen from the air, probably primarily from automobile exhaust, is changing the unique soil conditions that create the serpentine grasslands and is allowing European annual grasses to spread on Coyote Ridge and outcompete the colorful native color that also supports the rare butterfly.

International Rock Flippin' Day

International Rock Flipping Day is today (September 12).  Go ahead,  flip a rock, record what you observe, and send info including photos, sketches, notes, sound effects to link at end of this post.  Make sure you are careful with the critters that live under rocks and put the rock back gently where you find it.  Good tips at link above.  I'll post whatever I find under rocks at the Dipper Ranch.

--------

And here is what I found.  Mid-September in summer-dry California requires strategic thinking for rock flipping day.

Still Raining

 Rain beetle with interesting orange-red combs on its antennae.

It's still raining gobs in May which is unusual for California.  I feel like I'm still in Florida with the gators and moss.  I'm not complaining.  To show my appreciation for this unusual supply of precipitation, I'll share some info on one of the less common rain critters before moving onto spring wildflowers.

Dragoning

--- Pacific spiketail devouring a wasp or similar insect
as detected by the yellow & black parts dropping from its mouth. ---

Dragoning is to dragonfly watching as birding is to bird watching. Frogs were hard to find round here in September, but the Dipper ponds were buzzing with swimming and flying insects. So a-dragoning I did go.

The amphibious frogs, toads and newts spend their larval days in the water, and spend some or much of their adult life on land. Dragonflies and damselflies spend their larval days in ponds, gobbling up other pond critters, and then they metamorphize into swift predators of the air. Both the amphibians and aquatic insects return to water to breed.

--- Dragonfly wing position on left;
damselfly wing position (hard to see as they are held against the abdomen) on right. ---

Dragonflies and damselflies together as a group are the Odonata order of insects, commonly referred to as the odes. The basic way to tell the difference is that the dragonflies, which are usually larger and stronger fliers, hold their wings out flat from their body like airplane wings when they are resting. Damselflies, which are usually smaller and frequently rest on the ground or vegetation, hold their wings folded against their sides like a closed fan or above their body in an erect 'V' when they are resting.

--- Odes mating in the "wheel" position.
The male (above) is gripping the female behind her head with special appendages on the tip of his abdomen. With the tip of her curled abdomen, the female is picking up sperm from a special segment on the forward part of the male's abdomen. ---

I am curious whether the 3 summer ponds at the Dipper Ranch support different odes. Based on my rudimentary knowledge of ode biology, my guess is that the following conditions affect the type and number of odes at each pond throughout the summer: size of pond at time of survey and change since the beginning of summer; amount of open water surface; whether water is moving or still; absolute and relative amount of submergent, emergent, floating and pond edge vegetation; and amount and variation of insolation.

Factors which can be highly variable at the time of each survey and thus influence which dragonfly or damselfly species are seen at any one moment are: air temperature, wind speed, time of day and lateness in the summer season. I expect the number of ode species I see to increase as I gain experience with dragoning.

Here is my initial prediction on ode populations and results from my first dragoning adventures in the last hot days in September. Below, you will find a brief description of the general conditions of each pond, my predictions and then photos of odes seen at that pond with a summary of habitat preferences for each species as provided in Kathy Biggs' field guide. These are preliminary identifications as I am dragoning novice.

The Woods Pond is shallow (1-2" deep) throughout the summer and its surface is about 80% covered by emergent vegetation, mostly cattails and cyperus. In September, water was slowly trickling out of the earthen bank at its head, spreading through the small pond and draining downhill through its outlet, although there were periods of no outflow in midsummer. I would expect the Woods Pond to have fewer total numbers of odes, lower diversity, and to support species that like slow moving water. In addition to the species shown below, a large bluish darner was seen.

--- Pacific spiketail, Cordulegaster dorsalis deserticola, hillsides, small wooded streams. ---

--- Vivid dancer, Argia vividia, seeps, streams.
The triangular shapes on the abdominal segments along with the pinched stripe on the thorax help identify this species among the many blue dancers.
Dancers hold their wings above their abdomen which helps distinguish them from the bluets which hold them alongside their abdomen. ---

The Plum Pond is a small pond in bright sun. It starts the summer with 1/2 open water and 1/2 dense cattail stand. By September, the cattail thicket is surrounded by narrow band of water covered by azolla and smartweed. No above ground inflow is evident and there is currently no outflow. My guess is that the depth is up to one foot in late summer, and the combination of sun, plants and water results in lots of odes and lots of different species. In addition to the species shown below, I saw a species of forktail damselfly and the wheeling odes shown above at the Plum Pond, but I could not identify them.

--- Common green darner, Anax junius, fields & waterways.
I don't know what the black thread is beneath its abdomen. ---

--- One of the all-blue mosiac darners, Aeshna or Rhionaeschna species. ---

--- Common whitetail, Libellula lydia, marshes, streams. ---

The Mallard Pond is a medium-sized pond surrounded by tall trees. It looks several feet deep. It has a small island covered with several small trees and rose thickets. The pond and island edges are crowded with cattails, overhanging tree limbs, and the long dam face is bare earth. Even by the end of the summer, as much as 75% of the water surface is open with patches of floating vegetation. I suspect the pond is slowly fed in the summer by underground springs and there was no outflow in September. With these varied conditions, I expect the Mallard Pond to have more odes and a greater diversity of species, but the general closed margins might mean more damselflies and less dragonflies (the later being stronger fliers and perhaps preferring to have nearby grasslands for hunting).

--- Probably the blue-eyed darner, Rhionaeschna mulitcolor, ponds, lakes, slow streams. ---

--- Striped meadowhawk, Sympetrum pallipes, ponds and lakes.
The four velvety spots where the wings meet the body are distinct. ---

--- Western forktail, Ischnura perparva, weedy ponds. ---

--- Desert firetail, Telebasis salva, shallow water with algae scum.
Only all red California damselfly in Biggs' field guide---

After a preliminary set of late summer odes surveys, I found:

• The Woods Pond had 3 species of odes, with only one of those being a damselfly, matching my expectations of lower numbers and diversity.
  
• The Plum Pond had 5 species of odes, with two of those being a damselfly. I was surprised that the sun power didn't provide more odes, but it could have been the weather on the day I surveyed or my inexperience.
• The Mallard Pond had 4 species of odes of which 2 species were damselflies, a lower ode diversity and damselfly balance than I predicted.

These are very preliminary results, and I plan to go dragoning again next spring and summer.

--- Flying odes are hard to photograph.
One gets dizzy following them with binoculars or camera. ------

See also:

Kathy Biggs' California Dragonflies and Damselflies website with links to her excellent field guides

--- One of the blue darners.
They sometimes turned to face the camera when the focusing mechanism whirred ---

The Dusty Cusp of Summer

First rain Sunday night. September and maybe October will still have hot, dry days of Indian summer, at least our western version where the seasons are more about wet/dry periods than hot/cold temperatures. There have been subtle signs of the end of summer, but as with most changes, we don't recognize them until they are well underway. Some evenings are cool and the bare skies have occasional cloud visitors.



Most of these preliminary signs are plants throwing in the towel after a 4-month stretch of dry weather. In rocky and sunny places, the poison oak leaves are turning bright red and dropping. In shadier spots, they take on soft pinks and yellows. Soon, the canyons will sport deep red gashes where poison oak grows in its bush form. Be ever careful around poison oak. Even without the leaves-of-three, the urushiol oil is still present on the stems and can give you a rash if you brush up against them, particularly if you break a stem and the milky sap touches your skin. Identify leafless poison oak plants by the short stubby side branches that are arranged opposite of each other. Also, by the evil glow that always surrounds it.



The oaks are starting to drop their acorns, and the deer gather under the productive trees even in the daytime to snack. This first drop is of the punky acorns - infested with bugs or otherwise undersized. The trees throw them off while they pour their summer juice into the good acorns still fattening on the branches.

--- Dot 1 and Dot 2 - their coats are fading in step with the annual grasses. ---

The deer have a restlessness and are shifting their daily patterns, whether from the start of hunting season or the upcoming rut. This year's fawns are losing their spots and the shyness that previously sent them springing away at any new sound.

--- This yearling buck creeps out of the willow thicket for a quick drink at dusk and dawn and is probably Button. He no longer associates with his doe, Bump. She may be the single doe who has now taken up residence in the shade of the oak trees above the house. ---

The young fawns will stay with the does, but year-old bucks are now by themselves and in deep hiding. Their small antlers set them apart from their original doe-led family, but are too puny to stand up to the mature bucks.



Even the redwood trees have a special color this time of year. Small clusters of yellow and brown leaves stand out among the green boughs. Evergreen trees have to replace their leaves now and then. This happens gradually throughout the year, but most evergreen species also have a period when many of the older leaves are shed to make room for fresh leaves.



It is also the season of bugs. Crickets take over the night sounds. Huge dragonflies patrol the ponds and nearby grasslands. During the day, small flies annoyingly hover around your eyes and I often first spot a fawn by its constantly flicking tail.



I get wistful at the end of summer. Did I do everything I wanted to do this summer? During the long days of outside work, did I pause often enough to allow the colors, sounds and smells of the breeding season to enter my consciousness? I regret not finding the time to write about wildflowers, raptor flight, and lizards, but I can store those observations away for comparison next year. Will I see another summer? As I turn to face the fall, I look over my shoulder and cast a wish to be a student of summer again.

Tarantula Hawk

Got lucky today and had a camera when I saw another tarantula hawk. It could be either a Hemipepsis or a Pepsis species. A knowledgeable entomologist would be able to tell primarily by close examination of the vein pattern on the wings. This large wasp was frantically searching the ground and difficult to photograph.

I was beginning to wonder how many tarantulas live at the Dipper Ranch when I read that tarantula hawks also attack other large spiders. It seems like a lot of work to sniff out, challenge, sting and drag a large spider underground for one egg. I wonder how many total eggs a female tarantula hawk lays and thus how many spiders it must attack. No wonder they always seem so busy.

Turns out the sting of a tarantula hawk is quite painful to humans, even more so than the infamous bite of a tarantula. The bright orange wings, aposematic coloring, are a warning to predators of dire consequences. While I was trotting behind a tarantula hawk last week, my cat came up for a friendly rub, then charged at the bright, flickering bug. I pulled him back just in time. Cats may not see red colors very well.

See Also:

Desert USA amusing description and video

Tarantula Hairs

--- Notice the red hairs on the tarantula's abdomen. ---

I was driving a hot country road one evening last week. 96 degrees Fahrenheit and I thought the road was melting. Until I saw a tar bubble move. It was a tarantula crossing the road. Screeeech, I pulled over at the next curve, grabbed my camera, and ran back.

--- Hazards of Page Mill Road ---

Recently, I've noticed two peculiar holes in the ground next to the red barn at the Dipper Ranch. They are about one inch in diameter with a silky carpet that drapes over the lip and lines the inside. I had a vague recollection that these might be tarantula lairs. When I peeked in the holes, day or night, and gently poked around with a grass stem, I was unable to stir up a resident.

--- Possibly a tarantula hole ---

So, I was excited to follow the real 8-legged critter, even if it was taking its time to cross the hot asphalt. After waving a car full of chattering boys around the beast, I nudged Mr. Hairy Legs with a long stick to the road shoulder, a safer place for the legs, my camera and curiosity.

--- Run faster! ---

When the tarantula paused on the grass, I walked around to photograph it from the front side. It raised its abdomen. I wasn't sure what that meant, but since its fangs were on the ground side of its body, I didn't worry too much. Eventually it trundled off into the grasslands and I headed back to the car. I crossed the road for a safer line-of-sight, only to find another tarantula on that side of the road. As the sun set, I got a few photographs of the second tarantula. Figuring it was a good night for sightings, I shined a flashlight down the barnside holes when I got home, but still, no Dipper tarantulas revealed themselves.

I've also been on the alert for tarantulas since spotting several tarantula hawks in the last few weeks. Tarantula hawks are large, colorful wasps that prey on tarantulas. They sting a tarantula, drag it down a hole, lay one egg on its body, and the larvae hatches and eats away at the paralyzed spider.

[Can't find my tarantula hawk photo. Do you have one? The ones we have in coastal central California are black-blue body with orange wings.]
New photo of tarantula hawk added on next day.

Since my tarantula adventures the other night, I've researched tarantula behavior. I am less scared of them now, but advise more caution because of some of their peculiar, dare I say hairy, behavior. I think the roadside tarantulas were Aphonopelma iodius because this species has a dark triangular patch around the cluster of eyes at the front of its head, and it is widespread in California. These were probably males which leave their burrows this time of year to search for female mates.

Tarantulas otherwise spend most of their time in their burrows, and through vibrations transmitted by the webbed collar, they detect the outside passing of insects or other small prey. Then, they dash out of the burrow, sink their fangs into the prey and inject a venom which paralyzes and prepares it for spider digestion. We hear wild stories about the tarantula's bite, but all the tarantulas in the United States have a bite similar do that of a wasp or bee.

--- Preparing for hair warfare? The black triangle marks this species' compound eyes. ---

Tarantulas have an unusual defense against larger creatures attacking them - they throw hair. Many tarantula species have hairs on their abdomen that are barbed and mildly venomous. If a mouse or skunk gets too close, the tarantula will press or use its legs to throw these hairs into the face of the threatening animal where they irritate the sensitive mouth, nose and eye tissues. So, maybe Mr. Hairy Legs was raising his abdomen at me in preparation for hair warfare. Fortunately, I was using a long lens on my camera and did not get too close. I advise you don't get within hair throwing distance of tarantulas.

---Short tibial hook on male tarantula.---

Male tarantulas have a spur on the front pair of their walking legs (tibial hooks) which they use to keep the female's fangs out of the way while they mate frontside. I won't go into tarantula mating behavior further; here's a link.

--- Second tarantula showing his pedipalps between front legs
and distinct red hairs on his abdomen.---

I've read that male tarantulas use their pedipalps (shorter leglike appendages near the mouth mostly for handling food) to drum on the webbing outside the female tarantula's burrow. If the beat is right and the female is receptive, then spider nightlife . . . well, see link above.

This explains a mystery I have pondered for many years. Once I took a hike with a friend in Pinnacles National Monument. This friend repeatedly pointed out tarantula holes. When we challenged his claims (afterall, he was an ornithologist), he said he could prove it. At the next silk-lined hole, he carefully stripped a grass stem and gently lowered it into the hole. As he pulled the stem out, there was a tarantula clinging to it. To the delight of the kids, he was able to repeat this magic trick at four more consecutive holes, however, none of us could do it. I always thought he was getting the spider to grasp the stem out of irritation. Now I realized he must have known the tarantula mating drumbeat. I wonder what ever happened to that guy.

See also:

American Tarantula Society

ENature article on tarantulas

ENature article on "Spittin Hairs"

Basic tarantula facts from desert website

Tarantulas at the Beetles In the Bush blog

Come Visit, Then Leave

Plants use flowers to communicate with aliens. Over eons of meticulous research, the most creative plant families have developed countless new and intricate products. Each floral brand is refined to most effectively capture the attention and to direct the visitation of a specific sector of the mobile animal population - bees, flies, moths, ants, beetles, rodents, bats, birds, etc. - or the mobile inanimate vectors of wind and moisture.

These colorful products are embedded with coded messages to influence their target audience. The simple part of the message is "Come visit. Then leave."
Plants post billboards of brightly colored petals, some done up in infrared hues that are only visible to the compound eyes and rudimentary brains of insects. Refreshments might be offered as further enticement. In the front lobby, there are billowing columns of pollen. For the more discriminating patron, nectar glands are hidden deep within the recesses of the florid establishment. Some plants even offer honeydew-colored aphid slaves for ants to harvest and move about the plant kingdom. As far as I know, musical entertainment is not offered by flowers.

Meanwhile, the unwitting alien visitor is tricked into doing the plant's bidding: "Fertilize my intimate plant parts so that I can reproduce and spread."
Sometimes, controlled timing of the blossoms or trapdoor apparatus on these attractive flowers manipulate alien visitors to bring pollen from another plant rather than allow self-pollination. In this way, the plant stealthily refines its message and furthers its goal of reproducing and even to adapt over generations into a new design.
Humans tend to misinterpret the messages of wildflowers. Most humans are innately attracted to the colors and scents of wildflowers, and assume these complex designs are created for their human enjoyment. The ungodly among us strip the flowers into their functional parts (petals, sepals, pistils, stamens), count and measure the parts, describe small details and then organize the wondrous variation of wildflowers into human-defined families, genera and species. Humans of a spiritual bent see God's hands and gifts in the fascinating complexity, ecological persistence, inspiring beauty and mystery of wildflowers.
Yet humans are only able to see, smell, taste and feel a small fraction of the intricate and minute detail of the floral world. Basically, humans don't get it - flowers are highly evolved rituals of plant sex and the only role humans play are to occasionally assist in the hand-off, which, by the way, fairies are better at.
In order of appearance:
common popcorn flower, Plagiobothrys nothofulvus, Dipper Ranch, April 2009
gum plant, Grindelia sp. and beetle, north of Salt Lake, Utah, 2006
checker lily, Fritillaria affins, Rancho San Antonio Open Space Preserve, 2002
pipevine, Aristolochia californica, Angel Island, March 2009
arroyo lupine, Lupinus succulentus, Dipper Ranch, April 2008
California poppy, Eschscholzia californica, Dipper Ranch, April 2008
currently unidentified fairy, Dipper Ranch
Chinese houses, Collinsia heterophylla, Bear Valley, Colusa County, May 2003