The Black-crowned Night Heron is a medium sized heron with a long head and a funny way of making its neck disappear when at rest. A juvenile was hanging out at Legacy Park this morning. I loved the lime-green legs.
These birds are among the seven heron species observed to engage in tool use. They lure or distract fish by tossing edible or inedible buoyant objects into water within their striking range. Smart!
Suzanne and I wandered around the pond at Rocky Oaks, marvelling over flowers, spiders, toads, birds of prey, lizards and insects. Attracted to these shelf fungi on a burned-out oak stump, I perched on a rock in the middle of a patch of nettles to sketch them.
I only had a few minutes to sketch before work, and in the time it took me to draw a Foothill Penstemon, the Merlin app identified 19 nearby bird songs. I can recognise seven (maybe eight) of those birds by ear; I plan to keep studying their calls, and one day know them all.
I’ve been seeing the osprey hanging about this month, but my eyes and camera aren’t up to the task of recording the finer details. Big thanks to local birder-photographer Chris Tosdevin for this great original image; I had fun sketching it.
Striped shore crabs (Pachygrapsus crassipes) live along the west coast of North America, from Baja California, Mexico, to central Oregon. Measuring 4 – 5 cm across the carapace, they can be found in estuaries, tide pools, mussel beds, or scuttling along shoreline rocks. These, and hermit crabs, are the most common crustaceans I see at my local tide pools.
Though they feed mostly on algae and phytoplankton, they are opportunistic and will also eat animals including dead fish, limpets, snails, isopods, worms, and mussels. They will even eat recently molted specimens of their own species. They are prey for seagulls, octopuses, rats, raccoons, and humans.
Though most crabs and many shore crabs spend the majority of their time underwater, P. crassipes is an exception. They apparently spend more than half their time on land, though they typically stay close to the water’s edge.
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.
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?
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!)
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