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.

Mindego Gateway - A New Trailhead to Russian Ridge

A rainstorm at the Mindego Gateway parking lot   

There's a new kid in the neighborhood. Mindego Gateway is a new trailhead and parking lot in the Russian Ridge Open Space Preserve. In addition to connecting with ten miles of existing trails to popular locations like Borel Hill and the Ancient Oaks, the Gateway will provide access to a new trail in Spring 2016 that will climb Mindego Hill. For those who like short walks with gorgeous views, there is also a path from the new parking lot to a tiered deck.

While building the parking lot, we discovered hidden plants and animals, and clues that many others have touched this land before us.

Spring 2015 - Full Throttle Ahead

Just another photo of California poppy.
First poppy blooming this year at Dipper gate.
Does that look like a February sky?
Eschscholzia californica, 2/12/15.      

Since we haven't had a winter (sorry, Boston), it's kinda disingenuous to say that spring is early in California and moving quickly.

Bioblitz - the wet part

California slender salamander. Tiny but if you look, they are ubiquitous in even the smallest of damp locations. Robert Stebbins found that the total number and perhaps the total biomass of either this slender salamander or another common small salamander, the ensatina, was greater than any other resident vertebrate in a Berkeley redwood forest,  (Stebbins and McGinnis, 2012).   

The bioblitz at Golden Gate National Parks continued through Saturday, March 29 with the official deadline for submitting all observations of plants and animals in the parks at noon. On Saturday, it was raining. Real rain like we actually live on the edge of a giant reservoir of water and arbitrator of weather - the Pacific Ocean. Rain like we haven't seen in two years. Rain that cut the number of attendees at the inventory hike Naiad and I led at Rancho Corral de Tierra from the 30 who signed up to five brave souls.

We led those five brave hikers into the park in the rain, past the fungi, insect, bird and botany teams, and into a forest. Many of the Monterey pines had foam streaming down their trunks in the rain which formed frothy piles at the base of each tree. I've seen this phenomenon before but never with so many trees.

Hanging Out with California Natives

Blue oaks (Quercus douglasii) have large gaps in their canopy through which you can see the stars. Growing only here, blue oaks are California natives.

I'm working on this idea that it takes a long time to know a place. So if you want to know California better, you better hang out with California natives, not just the native plants and animals but also the people who were raised in this state.

Santa Teresa County Park - Wildflower Hotspot #7

Santa Teresa County Park featuring California poppy and gypsum spring beauty

Santa Teresa County Park is in the Santa Teresa Hills of south San Jose. Skip the golf course and head further up Bernal Road to the less developed parts of the park. There are winding trails through grasslands and oaks with attractive trail names like Hidden Springs, Coyote Peak and Rocky Ridge. Many of the local neighbors use the park for early morning or evening hikes and rides and a quick conversation at the trailhead or on the way may steer you to their favorite view or a spot with current blooms. Last year, one of those locals told me, "Santa Teresa has a lot of serpentine areas and the Stile Ranch, Rocky Ridge and Bernal Hill Trails are usually very good in April and May."

Zugunruhe

These are all photos I took while camping in Yellowstone and Tetons National Parks in September. Wildlife abounds.

I took a journey to Yellowstone and Tetons National Parks a few weeks ago and I'm still feeling spellbound by the days of wildlife watching and grand landscapes that we saw. The muse has taken over my mind for nearly 12 hours a day since then and in the wee hours of the night, I have been trying to read and write simultaneously about the late summer changes of our local Santa Cruz Mountains and the ecological forces reshaping Yellowstone in response to the reintroduction of both wolves and fires. Although gray wolves and pronghorns are not part of our local natural history heritage, there's something there - I just can't quite get the words out yet. I am hoping by the Thanksgiving and Christmas holidays that I will have the time and vocabulary to share some of these grand western experiences and photos with you. Or maybe that's just dreaming.

Today, while waiting for a budget meeting to start (yah, biologists gotta do that too), I learned the word zugunruhe - a fall nervousness as the tension to migrate builds up. I'm trying to behave, I'm trying to get along with people, but sometimes these human affairs are just soooo pedestrian in comparison to predators and the dissolution of rocks and I want to fly away. Now I am wondering if the swallows collecting by the thousands on the telephone wires on the Dipper Ranch ridgelines are making snotty little comments to each other and if that rattlesnake that buzzed me in the backyard two nights ago is just suffering from too much late summer fat accumulation. Hah, I trapped that rattlesnake in a bucket with a locking lid! It is not a monster like The Roper has in East Bay but the largest I have seen on the Dipper Ranch, so it may take a few days before I work up the courage to move it far away from the house. Rattle, rattle, write, read, write, please do not disturb me with your politics.

Extra Toes in the Redwoods

Large tracks on Windy Hill Open Space Preserve
(no longer sure whether these are mountain lion or not, see comments)

The San Francisco Bay Area Tracking Club will be holding their September tracking event at the Dipper Ranch on Sunday, September 9, 2012, 8 - 11 am.  Casual potluck afterwards for those who want to stay longer.  You do not need to be a member of the tracking club to attend this event, just interested in learning. Read on for details.

Art Like Djerassi Art

You look into the Djerassi forest and there is a sprite looking back at you.
Or is this your forest reflection?
Faeries: Friend or Foe series, Derek Jackson, 2002

Because I got the days mixed up for the cats' vet visit, I was walking away from the recycling bin just when a ranger realized he couldn't go on the Djerassi sculpture tour. So the Pixie and I got the tickets instead. And there was more to that day. We checked a Sudden Oak Death research site, saw albino redwoods, hung out with cute dogs who gave us poison oak, heard the fledgling barn owls, and the Pixie showed off her cat whispering skills. Yep, that was a magical day. Was it the art or was it pixie dust?

Letting Go at Point Lobos

Brandt's cormorant and nestlings on Guillemot Island at Point Lobos State Natural Reserve. Both male and female parents tend the nest. The nest is a pile of vegetation cemented together by guano. Cormorants wrap their webbed feet around the eggs to incubate them.  

In mid-June, I was passing up the California coast after attending the Navigator's graduation at Cal Poly. I drove coastal Highway 1 all the way from Morro Bay (after a brief visit with the peregrine falcon families at Morro Rock) to Pescadero which is the turnoff to the Dipper Ranch. It took all day, it was lovely and I stopped at Point Lobos State Natural Reserve to check on the Brandt's cormorants. I was tickled to see the cormorants still squatting on Guillemot Island.

Coastal Romance on the Rocks

Male Brandt's cormorant in breeding display - head tipped back over back, distinct bright blue gular pouch inflated, wings fluttering, tail cocked.

I took a photography workshop with Nate Donovan at Point Lobos State Natural Reserve in mid-March. I thought that I had been to Point Lobos in Monterey County before, after all, I moved to the central coast of California from Florida over 25 years ago. We got to the park early and I zoomed down the closest trail for a preview before the rest of the students arrived. Colorful rocky cliffs, foamy waves, wind-sculpted cypress trees and the dense bushy habitat of coastal scrub promising birds, lizards and small mammals with the sun's encouragement.  No, I'd never been here before. Not sure how I missed it.

I've toured the grassy hills of Palo Corona Regional Park above this section of the coast with fellow ecologists, and pulled ice plant at Garrapata State Park to the south, but never had I witnessed this rough and jagged shore with numerous small coves and changing vistas. Coastal California has so many beautiful places, it's hard to keep them all straight. The big clouds of a storm front were blowing in over the ocean and making large waves, so it looked like it was going to be a day of photographing white spray and aquamarine droplets flung at the rugged rocks. Except I got distracted by nature which tends to happen to me at nature photography workshops.

Wildflower Hotspot #6 - Coyote Lake - Harvey Bear Ranch County Park

Go now. Go anywhere in the Santa Cruz Mountains now to hike in the fresh air and catch the spring wildflower bloom because it is moving fast. We had lower than average rainfall this winter, so the fields are not heavy with flowers.  Still, there is a good variety of colors and shapes to enjoy, just more widely spaced apart.

Go this weekend to Coyote Lake - Harvey Bear Ranch County Park because its serpentine meadows are entering their second phase of flowers. The cream cups and goldfields are starting to dry up and form seed but the poppies are coming on strong.

Flower Links

I found this minute flower on Russian Ridge Open Space Preserve last week.  I have never seen this flower before, so I was excited.  By using the wildflower ID tools on the Links page, can you discover the flower's name?  Educated and wild guesses welcomed in comments.  You can ask any questions about the plant that will help you identify it and I will respond in the comments.

I've updated the Links page (select Links tab at top of page) to add many resources about wildflower hikes and identification.  Because we live in an amazing biologically diverse area, there is no one site that will magically tell you the name of a flower you found.  Sometimes you have to hunt and peck around.  That is called discovery.

Discovering Wildflowers in the Santa Cruz Mountains

Discover trails - Russian Ridge Open Space Preserve

The winter season was on the dry side this year, so the wildflowers are blooming several weeks late in spring 2012 and not as abundantly as in wet-warm years. But the time is now - go for a hike and you will still find the beauties scattered about and maybe some surprises.

Here is a list of places I recommend for wildflower viewing in the Santa Cruz Mountains of California, primarily in San Mateo and Santa Clara Counties with a few farther locations added at the end. Edgewood Park, Coyote Lake, Santa Teresa, and Russian Ridge are particularly recommended through May.

Let the Spring Begin

Western leatherwood (Dirca occidentalis), a rare native California shrub, has distinct sprays of bright yellow flowers in the late winter.  Notice the sharp point behind the flower.  This feature often remains behind the flat tip of the branch after the flower falls and is one way to distinguish this plant from the similar osoberry (Oemleria cerasiformis).

Spring has begun almost without a winter.  The local chapter of the California Native Plant Society (CNPS) has several hikes coming up that will feature the earliest of the spring wildflowers.  If we don't get more rain this winter, we may have a short wildflower season, so get an early start and shake that rain stick.  Select "Read more" below for info and links on these hikes.

Wildflower Hotspot #5 - Bean Hollow and Pescadero State Parks

Flowers, rocks and sea life at the edge of the continent.

When the hills and valleys of the Santa Cruz Mountains get summer dry and the spring wildflowers go to seed, there are still places to see local wildflowers - the cool San Mateo coast.  Coastal parks stay moist with summer fog, and the spring/summer wildflower bloom is later and longer there.  Because much of the San Mateo coast is undeveloped, you can visit not only the ocean and beach, but also coastal prairie and coastal bluff scrub.

Pescadero State Beach and Pescadero Marsh Natural Preserve are 15.7 miles south on Highway 1 from Half Moon Bay.  On one side of the highway is the ocean, beach and sandy bluff.  You can follow the winding edges of Pescadero Creek under the highway to trails along brackish and freshwater marshes, creekside forests and brushy habitat for more variety of plants and good birding.  Docents with the San Mateo Coast Natural History Association lead hikes to Pescadero Marsh on the first Sunday of the month at 10 AM and the third Sunday of the month at 1 PM.

Sierra Azul Open Space Preserve - Wildflower Hotspot #4

Sierra Azul Open Space Preserve - Woods Trail and Barlow Road

Above the town of Los Gatos, my favorite trails in the 17,600-acre Sierra Azul Open Space Preserve are Woods Trail and Barlow Road.  These connected trails are interesting and botanically diverse because together, they carve a 360-degree circle below Mt. Umunhum in open grassland, chaparral and shady forests with rocky outcrops and small headwater streams.  You get to see many different types of vegetation and most wildflowers are presented to you right alongside the trail, even at eye level.  There is one location along Barlow Road where I often see  red larksur (Delphinium nudicaule, shown above) growing shoulder to shoulder with a deep purple larkspur.

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.