I’m a total sucker for a bird with spots, so of course the gorgeous Northern Flicker is one of my faves. I was so happy to hear and see them on Friday’s hike.
Caloptes aurates
Tag: malibu creek state park
Tapia Spur
A beautiful early-morning hike, birds out in profusion and the damp ground alive, popping with mushrooms.
Afterwards, I was at a holiday party for the park volunteers, and someone said that his house (like mine, and so many others’) had burned down in January, and that the people in our organization had really helped him to heal. I had to add that nature itself has been my greatest healer. Just to be able to walk under those massive oak trees, and watch the deer watching me, and see the red-tailed hawk fly so close — the natural world is truly a huge aid to trauma recovery.
So thank you greenery, thank you birdsong, thank you thank you moss and fungi.
creeky
I’m preparing to lead a Welcome Walk at Malibu Creek State Park, so I created this graphic to explain the creek action. It gets a bit confusing as you walk the main trail because at first the water is flowing one way, but then it’s suddenly flowing the other way. They are actually two different creeks!
Omphalotus olivascens
We saw these huge, gorgeous, rich orange-gold mushrooms growing among the roots of a coast live oak. Apparently this species is bioluminescent! And poisonous. Says Wiki: ”while not lethal, consuming this mushroom leads to very severe cramps, vomiting, and diarrhea.”
i see faces
Allison had just finished telling a story about a comedy show featuring vegaliens, when I noticed some oak tree bark doing a good imitation of a vegetative alien.
Quercus lobata
The squirrels are happy. But the acorn woodpeckers are going to have drill bigger storage holes!
Andricus quercuscalifornicus
A little something I’m working on for school walks at the state park.
Phainopepla nitens
I’m not really a birder. I don’t have a life list. But I was pretty excited to see my first phainopepla.
Phainopeplas live in the southwestern U.S. and into central Mexico. They eat mostly berries, along with small insects. One of their cool traits is a special mechanism in their gizzard that separates berry skins from the rest of the fruit, sending the skins to a different part of the intestine to help with digestion. So far, they’re the only bird known to do this.
Their favorite food is the fruit of the desert mistletoe. These berries don’t have a lot of nutrients, so phainopeplas need to eat a lot of them—sometimes many hundreds in a single day. The berries move through their intestines in just about 12 minutes. They rarely drink water, getting almost all the moisture they need from the mistletoe berries.
Phainopeplas are also great mimics and can copy the calls of around a dozen other bird species.
Sialia mexicana
It was such a delight to watch this Western Bluebird swing back and forth on a hanging twig. Just sitting there, swinging in the breeze …
tshirt design
I’m happy to be in production with a shirt I designed. Also it’s fun to attend a press check again; it was my favourite part of my print producer job.
hashiworks 