Bodie and I did a few laps of Legacy Park this morning, past all the mosaic statues. (Wow, looking at those photos I’m delighted by how different the park looks after 14 years of native plant growth.) We viewed the burned hills above town—the Franklin fire came right down to City Hall. We are so lucky more structures weren’t lost. Thank you, firefighters!
Kate Rutter is one of my favourite people in the nature journaling community. She’s smart, creative, generous, kind, and “rambunctiously experimental”. I enjoyed her zoom session today on creating a concertina journal to record daily data relating to weather, day length, moon phase, temperature, precipitation and more. Not sure if I want to do it myself for 2025, but I’m thinking about it.
I won’t call it a sewing fail, maybe just give it a C- or D+. I thought I was making an elegant layering piece, but instead it feels like a uniform. Luckily the fabric was from the remnant rack, so only cost a few bucks.
Today I returned to an old favourite, dog-friendly, fossil-laden canyon for a lovely winter hike. The landscapito at the top was sketched from the turnaround point, looking east.
The woolly bush is a shrub native to the south coast of Western Australia. We planted three here in 2017; one eventually died but the other two are doing well. This fine-textured, upright shrub or small tree typically reaches a height of 6 to 10 feet. The wispy stems are adorned with soft, gray, needle-like foliage that feels velvety to the touch and displays pink hues in its new growth. Small red flowers emerge intermittently throughout the year at the base of the leaves. They are so obscure that I wasn’t even aware the bushes were currently flowering until I noticed the hummingbirds having a feast.
We had no electricity for 48 hours while the Franklin wildfire has raged nearby. Things I did while the power was out:
We’re grateful for the fire fighters and their technology. For now, we are out of danger but the fire is still burning and the winds could shift, so we are staying alert and prepared.
The lower parts of Solstice Creek are well-visited, but not many people climb Sostomo Trail to enjoy the gorgeous crossing on the upper creek. The three of us settled into a bed of fallen sycamore leaves and enjoyed the quiet shade. I liked seeing the little backswimmers (Notonectidae family) — I’d also observed these aquatic insects in Australia.
Backswimmers, as the name implies, swim inverted, using their long hind legs to paddle vigorously. They prey on organisms as large as tadpoles and small fish and can deliver a painful “bite” to humans—actually a stab from their sharp proboscis. These insects inhabit still freshwater in lakes, ponds, and marshes, and can also be found in garden ponds and occasionally in swimming pools. Despite being primarily aquatic, backswimmers are effective fliers, allowing them to easily disperse to new habitats.
Low-flying great blue heron at Malibu Creek State Park. These large, elegant birds are a familiar sight at the Park, hunting for fish, gophers and ground squirrels. Ardea herodias is the largest heron native to North America.
Before I’d opened any doors or windows, I heard some rather loud, scratchy, dzeee dzeee alarm calls in the living room. This little beauty had clearly spent the night in the house, and wanted out!
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