under oak
Tag: nature journaling
mud wasps
We had a dinner disaster last night, when the old stove’s exhaust vent suddenly rained a flood of debris down into the skillet of beans and asparagus. Dinner went to the compost, and I remained grumpy for a while. But today I took the cover off the vent and banged the pipe to try to completely clear it. A lot of what emerged was mud wasp nests.
Mud daubers fill their nests with spiders to feed their larvae. Unlike some wasp species that fill a nest cell with one or two large spiders, mud daubers pack up to two dozen smaller spiders into each cell.
To capture a spider, the wasp grabs it and delivers a sting. The venom from the sting doesn’t kill the spider, but it paralyzes and preserves it, allowing it to be transported and stored in the nest cell for later consumption by the larvae. The mud dauber typically lays its egg on the prey before sealing the nest cell with a mud cap. Afterward, the wasp moves on to construct another cell or nest. The young larvae survive the winter inside the nest.
I’ve now sealed up the vent with foil (the exhaust fan is non-operational) so hopefully there’ll be no more dinner mishaps from that direction.
Anthracobia
I went off trail, down by the creek, and watched the little fishies, while listening to birdsong. Then I noticed this interesting fungus that reminded me of confetti sprinkles. iNaturalist tells me it’s in the Anthracobia genus.
Salix lasiolepis
It was so good to meet with SMMNJC again this past weekend. Due to vacation, holidays, and wildfires it had been four months since I’d got to hang out with the gang. We welcomed four newcomers, and all enjoyed our time in the sun. I got curious about the arroyo willow flowers and identified male/female. Did not identify the odd stem growth, but mysteries are OK by me.
Phoradendron
Now that the sycamores have dropped their leaves, it’s easy to see the parasitic plants. I wondered how mistletoe seeds can get a hold on the underside of their hosts’ branches. Turns out the seeds are sticky!
map your walk
Lovely winter’s morning hike with many moments of delight. Lots of shades of buff, tan, and grey, but also some surprising new green popping up, despite the lack of rain so far.
Epilobium canum
I notice, I wonder …
looking closer
I thought I knew the eucalypts on our block! I went out to observe and record the rate of fruit (gumnut) drop, and to my surprise learned that adjacent trees are actually different in significant ways.
This process, and learnings, delighted me … and engendered even more questions, to be explored in the future.
Penstemon centranthifolius
I’m pretty sure these were scarlet buglers (Penstemon centranthifolius) in great profusion in the northern part of Cheeseboro Canyon. We’ll have to go back in spring to be sure.
seasonality journal
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.
