Veratrum californicum (California corn lily, white or California false hellebore) is a beautiful but extremely poisonous riparian plant that I encountered in the Sierras. Its steroidal alkaloids can cause serious birth defects in animals such as sheep, horses, and other mammals that graze upon it. I’m guessing pregnant humans shouldn’t munch on it, either.
Wolf lichen is my new favourite lichen. The Klamath Indians in California soaked porcupine quills in a chartreuse extract of Letharia vulpina to dye them yellow; then wove the quills into their basket patterns. The pigment is actually vulpinic acid, which is relatively toxic to meat-eating mammals as well as insects and molluscs (but not toxic to rabbits and mice). It’s been used historically as a poison for wolves and foxes.
Just one of the many new-to-me wonders in the Sierra Nevada.
The Sierra Buttes are a dramatic formation fairly close to the SNFC. We didn‘t hike up to the fire tower perched on the peak, but I‘d love to do that another time.
We had fun exploring the Sierra Nevada Field Campus site from a cross-sectional point of view.
On our second full day at the retreat, we left camp at 4:10am to catch the sunrise at Sierra Valley Preserve, and spend the morning birding. I also did my sharing of “insect-ing” and “plant-ing”.
One of the goals for my time in the mountains was to learn to reliably identify a handful of alpine trees. Here are three that I got to know (some more intimately than others).
I stopped in Grass Valley for lunch on my way to the Nature Journal Retreat in the Sierra Nevada.
We didn‘t know anything about Arroyo Hondo Preserve before we showed up at the gate; we just saw it on the map and decided to hike there. We were unaware that entry was by reservation, on only two weekends a month. By a stroke of luck, it happened to be one of the right weekends, and they graciously let us in.
This place is a delight! We hiked for a couple of hours, with Allie following her nose (“Smell that? Sulphur!”) to hunt for a hot spring. I don’t know who killed the great blue heron, but their wildlife cam shows several possible suspects.
Due to the construction of a fish ladder under the 101, Arroyo Hondo has one of the only creek populations of southern steelhead trout along on the coast. This is definitely a place to return to.
It was a first-time visit to the Santa Barbara Museum of Natural History for all of us; we were surprised and delighted by the extent and quality of the collections and the beautiful grounds. The animatronic dinosaurs under the trees are pretty awesome. We got to look at the sun through a telescope! This place is a hidden gem.
Alli and I had a lovely afternoon enjoying the best of Gaviota.
hashiworks 