Tag: malibu creek state park

digger bees and bee flies

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Digger bees, although solitary, nest in large aggregations. Each female digs her own tunnel, which can be up to a foot deep and have several branches. Each branch terminates in a chamber where the female lays a single egg, providing it with pollen and nectar collected from flowers. The larvae hatch and consume the stored food, then grow into pupae and then into adult bees, all while underground.

Next spring or early summer the adults will emerge, mate, and do it all over again … Right now we‘re at the mating stage, by the looks of things! I don’t know if they will re-use the existing tunnels or dig new ones. I‘ll keep checking on them.

There are also a few bee flies (possibly tribe Villini) hovering about at ground level. The larval stages of bee flies are predators or parasitoids of the eggs and larvae of other insects. The adult females usually deposit eggs in the vicinity of possible hosts, quite often in the burrows of beetles or wasps/solitary bees. So I’m pretty sure that’s what they’re looking to do! It’s a fly-eat-bee world.

the meadow

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Once a year, the docents from Topanga Canyon and Malibu Creek get together for a weekend of camping, learning, and socialising. And here we are, at the 37th Field Ecology Weekend, beside the meadow* in Malibu Creek State Park.

*Location of ‘the hunt’ in the original Planet of the Apes movie.

fostering plant love

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We kicked off the 2023 Junior Ranger program at Malibu Creek State Park today, with my session on plants. We had 23 kids in our target age group (7 to 12 yrs old) plus another 40-odd parents + older/younger kids. Many questions were asked. Many leaves were fondled. I think we all enjoyed ourselves—I know I did!

One enthusiastic young miss informed me that she wants to be a veterinarian. And because she loves animals, she also loves plants, because animals need plants. And we humans need both animals and plants. We are all connected. Yes, wise one, we are.

Quercus agrifolia

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UPDATE 5.6.23: I incorrectly showed the position of the female flowers. See this post.

It promises to be a great year for acorns around here! Most of the coast live oaks are currently sprouting thousands of yellow fingers, male flowers on their long catkins. Their female counterparts are hard to see, but if you look closely you can find them wedged in the angle between leaf and branch.

California’s oak woodlands sustain higher levels of biodiversity than virtually any other terrestrial ecosystem in the state. More than 300 species of birds, reptiles, amphibians and mammals depend on oak woodlands for food and shelter, and that doesn’t count the many hundred species of insects, spiders, mosses, lichens and fungi.

Like so many other habitats, oak woodlands are under severe threat from development and climate change. But for this year, at least, we can look forward to a healthy acorn crop. Yay!

Salvia columbariae

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Our local wild chia (Salvia columbariae) is closely related to commercial chia (Salvia hispanica). It was a favoured food of the Chumash and other Native American peoples, being high in both protein and fat. The seeds were gathered in large quantities, stored and traded, then roasted and ground into flour. The seeds were also used medicinally and ceremonially. It is an annual herb, and is flowering now in the Santa Monica Mountains.

Thomomys bottae

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Yesterday morning in the Park, some people found a newborn gopher in the middle of a wide, well-traveled trail and didn’t know what to do with it. The blind, hairless little thing was shorter than an adult thumb. It was way too young to try to rehabilitate, so we advised them to return it close to where it was found, just in case the mama came back for it.

I’ve had the same thing happen myself, with a newborn rabbit. In both cases the mystery was how the baby got to the middle of a bare trail. Was it dropped by a bird of prey? Carried there by its mother?

April 1

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Lots of folks are out enjoying the State Park this weekend. We had 230 through the Visitor Center in four hours yesterday; that’s the most I’ve personally served while on duty there.

The most-asked question was: “Why can’t I get to the M*A*S*H site?” (A: The bridge across the creek was removed at the start of winter to prevent it being destroyed by flood. It’ll be re-installed soon, probably later this month. Come visit again in May!)