Wildwood is lovely, but sometimes the creek is pretty smelly. Scenic, but odiferous. I wonder if the woodrats are bothered by that.
wood rat den
Tag: nature journaling
look up
First I noticed all the bird poop on the ground. So I looked up … and this is what I saw.
birches
I’m currently attending the Wild Wonder Nature Journaling Conference. The first session was taught by Sushma Hegde.
infographic
I had a go at creating an infographic. I suspect it’s too wordy to be effective as such. What do you think?
dove comparison
I have been looking at the doves silhouetted on the power lines, and wondering which of the two common species they are. Now I know that the tail shape is a strong indicator—the mourning dove’s tail is tapered while the Eurasian’s is square.
Bolitoglossa colonnea
I went down a salamander hole and discovered mental glands. Who knew?
Eucalyptus cinerea
We went to nature journal orchids, but I spent my time down memory lane with a silver dollar eucalypt instead.
Pepsis mildei
Fun times with the nature journal club. Turns out that adult tarantula-hawk wasps eat milkweed nectar, when they’re not catching tarantulas and laying their eggs in the paralyzed bodies. How sweet.
Calochortus plummerae
We found a late-blooming Plummer’s mariposa in a rocky part of Serrano Canyon, as well as running water! We’d crossed the dry creek bed several times on the way up there, so it was a real surprise to see Serrano Creek blurbling along at this point. It seemed a good place to stop for a while, then head back.
Murgantia histrionica
I had seen adult harlequin bugs* before, but never the nymph stage. Both life stages are a major pest of cabbage and related brassica crops, feeding on the stems and leaves with their piercing-sucking mouthparts. That didn’t seem to be happening on the bladderpods today, as far as I could see. But who knows that those sneaky little mouth-straws are doing!
*This is different from the insect known in Australia as a harlequin bug, Dindymus versicolor.
