I got back last night from a fabulous week of nature journaling on Pt. Reyes Peninsula, a place I had never been. About 30 of us stayed in the funky old four-storey retreat house of St Columba’s in Inverness, and we had many field trips and exciting nature sightings. I’ll post pages over the coming days.
At our nature journal meetup today, I trialled a class I’ll be offering in a few weeks. The participants enjoyed it and gave valuable feedback. I really loved hearing all their observations and poetry. What a great way to spend a few hours.
Mountain mahogany is one of my favourite chaparral shrubs. Right now, clusters of yellow flowers are attracting hummingbirds, butterflies—and nature journalers! It’s especially notable for its long, feathery seeds that curl like delicate spirals and glisten in the sunlight. The name Cercocarpus translates to “fruit with a tail,” a nod to these distinctive seed plumes. Despite its name—given for the dark, mahogany-colored bark—this native plant is actually in the Rose family.
I went nature journaling with Ojai Valley Land Conservancy and Channel Island Nature Journalers, and focused on very small things.
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.
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.
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.
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!
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.
hashiworks 