Quiet Owls

Well, I’m way behind and trying to catch up…

I wanted to visit Monte Bello to see if we could refind the Long-eared Owl that we had heard on a night hike last year. It was earlier in the year (2/5 versus 3/10/12), but time, unlike the owls, had flown by. Six of us were able to go.

The evening was foggy. We walked the usual route and had dinner at the “gravel pit”, starting out at 6:00.

There were a few mushrooms, coral fungi, popcorn flower, a tick, 9+ deer, Band-tailed Pigeon and Wild Turkey. The sag pond at the nature trail intersection barely had any water; the area around it was soggy.

Near the gravel pit, three newts rambled into three separate holes in a row in the side of some raised dirt near the trail. We saw around ten newts altogether.

We heard distant Northern Pygmy Owl, and some Western Screech-owl calls, but no other owls.

Surprisingly, we saw a bat. Not surprisingly, the fluorescent millipedes (probably Xystocheir dissecta in the order Polydesmida), were out. Other finds were turret spiders, harvestmen, some small beetles, tiger beetle larvae (Omus), California Slender Salamander, Arboreal Salamander, and distant treefrogs called. We found some different fluorescent lichens.

The highlight, for me, was when we reached the old walnut grove. A Western Banded Glowworm (Zarhipis integripennis) larva or larviform female, was in the middle of the trail! Unfortunately, it wasn’t glowing.

Western Banded Glowworm (Zarhipis integripennis)

This was the first one of this family that I’ve seen on MROSD preserves. Here is a paper on their natural history. Page 244 says actively hunting larvae don’t glow. In the excitement of the moment, we (I) forgot to look for compound eyes or genitalia, which would distinguish the female from a larva.

We got back at 10:00.

Night on Froggy Mountain, Skyline Ridge

2/24/12, Friday, was warmer than on our scouting hike. The temperature ranged from about 63F down to 55F. The sky was clear, but got partial clouds later. Out of 31 people who made reservations or were on the waitlist, 13 canceled, 11-16 expected, only 4 showed up, including a friend of one of the two docents (JW and LE) who joined us.

We started off at 4:40. We stopped at the northwest corner footbridge of Alpine Pond, and found a pair of newts in amplexus. Rounding the corner, we stopped to check the view, and found a male Bufflehead, Ring-necked Duck, and a female Hooded Merganser sharing a resting spot. Red-winged Blackbirds were singing, and one treefrog called briefly.

At 5:00 we came out into the open on Ipiwa Trail. A coyote, presumably the same one that we’d seen on the 18th, patrolled the ridge, and a few deer were downhill. We examined the various animal scats along the way. It was clear enough to see the ocean as we approached the overlook. We turned left to have dinner at 5:20 along the wide trail above, deciding not to disturb the curious deer ahead of us by making another left. Three heads peered over the rise of the trail, and a few browsed to the north.

Sunset over Ipiwa

Close to 6:00, around sunset, we proceeded back down to the overlook and around the chaparral. Silk Tassels were showing tassels, manzanita had blossoms, and buckbrush was in bloom and fragrant. We stopped to have a sniff of a Holly-leafed Cherry (Prunus ilicifolia) leaf, which smells like almond. According to the USDA, native peoples did use parts of this tree as food and medicine, prepared properly. Parts are toxic, and the leaves contain hydrocyanic acid (explaining the smell). A question came up about other organisms with cyanide, and I mentioned the millipedes we often see. We also had a discussion about  using wild plants (in places where it is legal to collect/pick) for food, and the possible dangers of doing so.

We heard a Great-horned Owl briefly; as we waited unsuccessfully for more calls, a pair of Wrentits in the shrubs near us had a long twittering conversation.

At 6:15 we reached the Sunny Jim intersection, and at 6:40 we stopped before turning right to go to Horseshoe Lake. Venus, Jupiter and the crescent moon were up. A bat or two flew by. [edit: There was also a brush rabbit who, in typical rabbit style, remained mostly motionless even though out in the open with eyeshine reflecting off my red flashlight. ] We could hear the treefrogs calling, and we played calls of Sierran Treefrog and California Red-legged Frog for the participants. Someone asked about bullfrogs, and we explained that they aren’t native here in California, and eat the native frogs and other animals.

This time we walked along the shoreline trail, but in one spot that was accessible, I didn’t see any newts or frogs. We went back to the bridge, and while some were star watching, I checked the area below the bench. There were a couple of newts in the water, but I couldn’t find any treefrogs visually, despite a few of them calling from nearby. The bulk of them seemed to be calling from the other sides of the lake, and many more called than on Saturday. It was far short of being deafening though. KG spotted a large owl flying by high overhead.

It took from 7:20 to 7:40 to get back to the big intersection, then to 7:55 to the overlook. We found newts still in land phase, around four from here back into the woods. One, near the overlook, was right next to a very cold banana slug. It had gotten windy, and we didn’t hear any more owls.

We looked for the small dirt turret with two beetle larvae holes, and found those along with some nearby small, fluorescent honey mushrooms. There were around seven Polydesmid millipedes (probably Xystocheir dissecta taibona, common in Santa Clara County according to Rowland Shelley). The first one was in the area that we had stopped at, and I picked it up to show. This one felt threatened for some reason, as it released defensive secretions, a brown goo. Someone remarked that it had pooped, so being me (and knowing that some millipede poop looks like pellets), I smelled it to see if it had the odor of almonds. It did, so everyone had a sniff. It was a nice connection to the Holly-leafed Cherry. These millipedes don’t have eyes, and they produce hydrogen cyanide.

Back at the Alpine Pond crossroads at 8:45, we went around the east side this time, stopping at the deck to try for bats over the water, without luck. Some frogs called.

We arrived back at the lot a bit before 9:00.

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See  Secret Weapons: Defenses of Insects, Spiders, Scorpions, and Other Many-Legged Creatures , page 43, by Eisner for more on millipedes and cyanide.

Skyline Ridge OSP, Alpine Pond to Horseshoe Lake

Despite the temperatures reported by a couple of websites, it was chillier in the Russian Ridge parking lot. KG and I scouted a new route for our frog hike. We talked to the ranger for a while, then crossed over to Skyline Ridge at 5:00.

We noticed that much of the cattails seem to have been removed along the east side, leaving a clear view of Alpine Pond. A Wrentit called softly from the top of some remaining cattails. We continued up the hill to Ipiwa Trail. We dawdled a bit by finding spider turrets and tiger beetle larvae burrows. One spider turret was decorated with lichen–not just stuck on the sides, but Usnea along the rim of the turret, clearly purposely arranged.

Six deer

As we came into the open grassland at 5:30, we heard a Great Horned Owl, and six deer grazed uphill. We weren’t perceived to be a threat, and one deer came down to graze on the trail in front of us. When the breeze was just right, I could hear her chewing. As I listened with my ear cupped, I couldn’t hear anything so I looked up to find the deer alert with ears forward, looking uphill. At the top of the ridge, a coyote intently watched something unseen. It made its way downhill through the oats, finally making its way to the curve of the trail. The deer had moved uphill by then. The coyote looked over its shoulder three times at us while continuing up the trail.

Some scratching caught our attention; the outline of a Spotted Towhee’s kicking revealed duff flying in the air behind it. Two California Towhees joined it nearby.
When we reached the intersection near the overlook, an unexpected newt crossed the trail, heading downhill. Even more surprising was a banana slug in the middle of the trail, and another on the side. A few more steps past the overlook, and another newt had already crossed the trail, also heading downhill. Both newts’ eyes popped out from the outline of the head when viewed from above, and they had bumpy skin, probably making them California  Newts.

At 6:15, we reached the big intersection with Sunny Jim Trail. As we approached, a few deer pronked away down into the woods. We wondered if they were the same ones we saw earlier. We turned right down the hill to the lake. It was past sunset by 25 minutes. One or two treefrogs gave land calls as we hiked down.

Arriving at the bridge at 6:40, we decided to sit and eat. My small thermometer said ~40F. I hadn’t put my light gloves on for a while, so my hands were cold. A Northern Saw-whet Owl tooted distantly as we ate. Only one or two Sierran Treefrogs called from the water.

Half an hour later, we started off to check the water level at the footbridge. It seemed more open here as well. I checked the water at a few places along the trail, but didn’t see anything in it. In one spot by one of the benches, a bat flew over the water in the beam of my flashlight. We found a few fluorescent millipedes under UV. The footbridge now has railings, something added since the last time I was there. There was no water below, so we turned around.

As we hiked uphill the way we’d come, a coot grunted, a few more frogs called, and a Barn Owl shrieked. It was far enough away that we couldn’t hear the entire range of the call; it sounded more like one note. Out in the open, Jupiter and Venus were bright in the western sky, and Mars in the east. There was no moon, but the ambient light made it possible to walk without flashlight much of the time. However, we didn’t want to step on anybody crossing the trail, so we had our lights on most of the time.

As we headed toward the chaparral, Great Horned Owls called from the canyon. When we rounded the corner, we heard more, as well as another Saw-whet. A Western Screech-owl joined the chorus. I wanted to record that, but my batteries weren’t cooperating and by the time I got things working, they had stopped. There was a lot of air traffic.

Entering the woods again, a couple of wailing calls came from the trees. It sounded like another Saw-whet, but I wouldn’t have expected one there. It wasn’t that far from where we’d heard the toots in the chaparral though. Here are some toots and wails from an owl at Gazos Creek.

I refound the spot where we’d seen some turrets, including one small undecorated one. A spider perched at the entrance, and two tiger beetle larvae waited at the mouth of their burrows for prey to stumble by. A few more millipedes showed up.

It was pretty quiet at Alpine Pond also; only a couple of treefrogs made themselves known. We didn’t have time to check out the water in other parts of the pond.

When we got back to the car, I noticed the back window was frosted. The paint felt icy, and when I looked at the top of the car, it had a pretty good layer. I had to scrape the front and back windows. When I got home, I checked the Alpine Road Weather Underground station, which said 36F. Some other La Honda temperatures said 46F, but given the icy car, at least some areas were that cold. Perhaps that’s partially why the frogs were relatively quiet.

More photos are here.

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Last year’s frog hike at Picchetti Ranch was cold also. You can read about that here.

In Search of Slime

We had no winter rain when we did our scouting trip on 1/9/12. JO, DP and I hiked the Stevens Creek Nature Trail loop from 10:25-3:10 and found few slime molds, and some dried up fungi. On our old Madrone, we found a couple small patches of yellow slime mold fruiting bodies, and the Stictis and tiny fungal bells that we’ve seen in previous years.

Stictis at El Corte de Madera

We saw another set of fruiting bodies, few milkmaids in bloom, a small slug, Slender Salamanders, and a couple sets of puffballs in different places. The highlight of the scouting trip was a new millipede species for us, under a log. There was also a strange, stiff hair-like bunch of something on the cut end of a log. The water in the creek was very low, and the small sag pond was only damp.

The rain came on 1/19-20, but there wasn’t enough time to allow for much to happen by 1/21. The temperature was in the low 40′s according to weather.com; it was certainly less than 50F, partly cloudy. Two participants joined us, including one other docent.

We started off at 12:45. Someone spotted a large, rose-like Polypore, of which there were a few at the bottom of a tree. We found several instances of Tremella, a yellow jelly fungus that is parasitic on other fungi. The hair-like stuff was now pliable due to the recent rain. There was also a brown jelly, slime mold sporocarps, Calocera cornea which had rehydrated, and a white jelly resembling Pseudohydnum gelatinosum. This time we saw three newts, one Slender Salamander, and one small slug.

Once we reached the creek crossing, we knew that we had passed the best section for slime molds. The group decided to finish the loop but walk at a faster pace. The small sag pond now had some water, but it was brown and still low.

We did see birds’ nest fungi on the Canyon Trail, and the bottom layer of a patch of slime mold fruiting bodies on a piece of fallen wood. When near the large sag pond, we heard a Pileated Woodpecker. We arrived back at 4:30.

You can see more photos here.

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For more on slime molds (Myxomycetes), see The Eumycetozoan Project.
Another gallery can be found here: Photo Gallery of Myxomycetes.

Monte Bello OSP

After the previous night hike at this preserve, I wanted to take another look at the Legionary Ants we found. I joined KG and PB on their scouting trip on 10/21. I hadn’t been up to Black Mountain since we did a group overnight a couple of years ago.

Many tiny fence lizards ran across the trail. The busy harvester ant nest had little or no activity. Perhaps the army ants drove them away.

One of the Calisoga burrows by the sag pond had housecleaning done; silky dirt with debris encircled the hole, the one that was “stuffed” with silk the previous week. We didn’t see any babies in the other hole.

Before 5:00, we crossed paths with a male tarantula. His abdomen was small, but didn’t have a bald patch like a lot of the ones we’d seen in Mt. Diablo on 10/12. We found several holes on the way up, including at least two tarantula burrows. A female tarantula hawk (Pepsis) was checking a trailbank for prey.

Yet another male tarantula crossed the trail, and we watched him go the opposite way from where we found a burrow. As we were taking photos, he turned around and climbed up a steep, almost vertical dirt trailbank. Last year we saw one tarantula, and before that we hadn’t seen one for a few years.

Some odd repeated calls came from the canyon, maybe wild turkey hens.

There was a very large deadman’s foot kind of fungus, shaped like a ball, but with cocoa-like spores.

We got to Black Mountain around 6:30. The wind was cold enough that I wanted a jacket on top of my two layers.
At 7:10, the too-bright light on one of the utility buildings made us wonder how it affected the nocturnal animals and migrating birds. We’ve seen this light from a distance off the preserve.

Campers were at the backpack camp, and we spoke to the ranger who had driven up to check on them.

There was a surprising number of Jerusalem Crickets on the trail. Usually we’re lucky to see one. I didn’t count, but I’m sure we saw more than seven. Two were injured and being scavenged by ants. We checked a hole in the dirt trailbank at one of the tree clumps, and it had a spider at the opening. We found one centipede, several Western Black Widows, and a millipede. Like the widows we’ve seen at Long Ridge, these seem to like spinning their webs over a shallow hole in the lower part of a trail bank hidden by grass or oats.

We looked for the tarantula burrows that we’d found on the way up.  We located one. I noticed that it also had recent housecleaning, with the dirt piled up around the opening. I wanted to see if it felt like the Calisoga’s housecleaning debris, so I felt some between my fingers. Somebody was home, and ran out! The spider startled us, and we watched it until it turned around and went back in, its body just fitting the hole. Although not fat, it looked in good shape. We thought of taking a video, so we got ready and tried touching the debris. Since we were touching the outside of the pile instead of picking some up, it took a little longer for it to come out. It crept closer to the entrance and did come out, and stayed there for three minutes, unmoving, until I got tired of holding the camera. I wanted to catch it going back in, and it didn’t take much since just the movement of an arm caused it to back in. Thank you for letting us see you.

Out of the wind, it was a little warmer. We heard a distant Barn Owl as well as Western screech-owl as we checked all the trailbank holes.

Back at the sag pond, we looked into the Calisoga holes. There weren’t any Solifugids on the trail back to the lot; maybe it was too cool. The astronomers were gathered when we returned a little early.

Photos are here.

Filoli Nature Preserve

JO and I scouted here for a docent enrichment, escorted by JR and JD. We got on the trail at 12:45. The weather was a little muggy, and overcast. I had never been on a hike here, so I was looking forward to seeing the area. The last time that I’d been here was with a few women from work, before 1997.

We first went towards the wet meadow. There were long-jawed orbweavers in the oaks. Under a hand lens, we could see the spurs on the inside edge of the male’s chelicerae. We also found six-spotted orbweavers. It seems to be a good year for them. There were a few solitary bees, but we saw no bumble or honey bees during the whole trip.

Wild Turkeys were out in the meadow, and there were several deer. The grass was tall. At the rush patch, there were also several deer beds (probably the source of the tick I found on my neck later while driving!). We found black aphids, red mites, a jumping spider, and many leafhoppers.

Heading through some oak woods, we found Sierra Dome Spiders, and in the meadow off Dundag Trail, a large velvet ant. There were small grasshoppers there, and a sweep of the grass resulted in numerous Collembola, some red soft-winged flower beetle larvae, and more red mites.

Out in the grassland again, another sweep gave us a green lacewing larva and ladybird beetle larva. Turning left along the fence, we found some willow galls,  two Ellychnia (California Glowworm) beetles, a tussock moth caterpillar, and a pile of black caterpillars that turned out to be a pipe cleaner! The part of the fence that had not been replaced held lichen and Trentepohlia, a green alga that is orange.

We continued along the creek, not finding any Hyptiotes in the redwoods. The narrow trail up to the pond rose about 240′. Along the way, we found a large turret, a rolled up sword fern frond lined thickly with silk and a spider inside, and a Pamphiliid sawfly. The remains of a blue eggshell lay broken on the forest floor.

Crustose lichen

The pond water was blue-green, and I could see through it to the bottom. A newt sunk slowly down.

We returned a different way through the woods, making a loop. A native rose had two clusters of spiny galls that reminded me of gooseberry.

We returned to the parking lot close to 4:00, having covered about 2 miles.

During our hike, I noted these birds:

Wild Turkey
House Wren
Black Phoebe
Bushtit
Brown Creeper
White-throated Swift
Violet-green Swallow
Purple Finch
Oak Titmouse
Nuttall’s Woodpecker
White-breasted Nuthatch
Pacific-slope Flycatcher

See the photos here.

For more info, see the Filoli website.

Windy Hill OSP

The forecast said showers with temperature around 55F. Last night (3/5/11), JO, JH and I scouted the lower part of the preserve, looking for invertebrates. The parking lot was full at 4:30 3:30. All of us had to wait a few minutes for a space. It was relatively warm, and humid at that point.

We took off around 4:00 and stopped at Sausal Pond. There were some small fish, and no Azolla or duckweed on the surface. The cattails usually to the right, next to the shore were gone, with just a stretch of old cattails out about 20 feet. Birds on the pond included Ring-necked Duck, a female Bufflehead, American Coot (one was slapping the water with its foot while standing on a floating log), Gadwall, Pied-bill Grebe.

After a trip back to the car to retrieve something, I noticed that the big oak on the left near the corner of the first intersection leading in from the lot had fallen over. Back at the pond, we left there at 4:20.

The birds were singing a lot, surprisingly: Dark-eyed Juncos, Common Ravens, American Goldfinch, Purple Finch, Chestnut-backed Chickadee, Pine Siskin, Song Sparrow, House Finch, American Robin, Anna’s Hummingbird, Oak Titmouse, Nuttall’s Woodpecker, White-breasted Nuthatch, and others.

We saw one Banana Slug. At the log pile, we found several Slender Salamanders, and beautiful jewel-like fruiting bodies of a slime mold. Upon the bright yellow plasmodium on one side of a piece of dead wood sprouted black sporangia. We found more of those sporangia on wood near the bridge.
California Buttercups were blooming. In some of the puddles on the trail, there were insects that resembled mosquitos, skating on the surface. In others, the breathing tubes of mosquito larvae were visible poking through the surface.

We reached the large intersection at 4:47.
The seasonal pool had some copepods, flatworms, a bloodworm, and tiny bean-oval shaped crustaceans that were too small to see much detail with a hand lens. There were no Daphnia or fairy shrimp.

Sunset was at 6:07; we reached the bridge around 6:00. In the creek, we found no water pennies, but found some small insect larva on the bottom of rocks, and one larger mayfly larva. More Slender Salamanders were under logs near the bridge.
After dinner, we left at 6:37. We checked the usual dead log but found nothing. Along a curved trailbank meeting up with the main trail, there was a hole about 3′ up, with a little salamander head showing. I could tell it wasn’t a newt, having dark eyes and a different head shape. It was an Arboreal Salamander, looking gray with a white belly and yellow dots under flashlight. I could hear treefrogs calling from the west, and heard a Barn Owl.

In one of a group of three trees was a hole, so having seen treehole mosquito larvae at Picchetti Ranch, I took a look. The water was dark, like black coffee, and it was hard to see through. There was a springtail on top, and some sort of segmented larva a few centimeters long. From the little we could see through it, there appeared to be some mosquito larvae wriggling around.

At 7:00, we crossed the “sandbag” trail. We were surprised to find millipedes in the grassy area, before reaching the usual wooded area. There was an active ants nest in the middle of the trail. We decided to take the shortcut to the Betsy Crowder trail for a change, instead of going up the hill and around.

We got to the Betsy Crowder trail intersection at 7:20. We found a fluorescent Russula past a culvert, near two trees on the left. There was an old earth star, but we didn’t find any fresh ones. JH heard a Saw-whet Owl. It was starting to shower a little by then, but it stayed light throughout our hike.

The millipedes were numerous, and JO spotted a pair mating. We saw the most snails we’ve seen on one hike, 4-5, on the mossy trailbank. On only 1-2 of them could I see a band, making them Shoulderbands. Another Slender Salamander was hanging out on the trailbank. We refound the large turret that we’d found last year, complete with spider. Unfortunately, it was shy and ducked down to the bottom of the curve.

Here are the treefrogs under light showers.

Back at the pond, we checked out the mushrooms we’d seen earlier to see if the mycelium bioluminesced (if they were Honey Mushrooms). We didn’t see anything, though the light part of the flesh was bright under UV. In the water, now we could see amphipods swimming, and JO found a Cyclops. We tried to locate a close Sierran Treefrog calling from a bunch of old vegetation, without luck. I shined my flashlight over the nearby water to look for eyeshine. There were at least five large pairs of eyes with white-purple eyeshine, which could only be bullfrogs. One pair glowed eerily from beneath a dark hole in the cattails.

There are at least 3 bullfrogs visible by their eyeshine--can you find them?

We left the lot around 9:00.

Here are more photos.

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American Bullfrogs are not native west of the Rockies. They eat anything they can swallow, including our native frogs, and birds. They are probably responsible for part of the decline of many native species (1).

Watch this National Geographic video, “Bullfrogs Eat Everything”.

1. Californiaherps.com

Night on Froggy Mountain 2011

We had a small group on 2/12/11. KP, CB and I led a small group of five, including RF and friend. One person didn’t show.
This is the last time this route will be available for this hike, as the new trail will be in place soon. The sky was clear, and the day had been relatively warm. It hadn’t rained since our scouting hike, so we weren’t sure what to expect.

We left the lot around 5:15. By that time, the sun was behind the mountains, though sunset wasn’t until 5:45. It was probably around 50F, cooler at the pond. It seemed warmer at the pond on our scouting hike.

We observed a few animal tracks in the dried mud in the trail. Dark-eyed Junco, Bewick’s Wren, Red-tailed Hawk, White-tailed Kites, and calling Red-shouldered Hawk caught our attention. After we turned to go downhill, American Robin song, and a Great-horned Owl’s hoots were detected by some. Three deer down the trail moved away. We could hear distant Coyotes yipping. A dead Jerusalem Cricket was found by RF in the middle of the trail. As we neared the pond, Red-winged Blackbird song could be heard, and I saw a duck fly towards the pond.

We stopped briefly at the pond to see whether there was any activity. I could see one newt in the water. The outlet by the sign was dry. Last year, we did this hike at the end of the month, and the water was higher.

Since it was so foggy two weeks ago, we weren’t able to see that the hill that we’d had dinner on last year was now covered with Yellow Star Thistle. We had dinner not far from the pond, on the trail. More deer were up on top of the ridge. The moon was overhead, and Orion and Jupiter were visible.

The treefrogs first started up earlier than I expected, about 15 minutes after sunset instead of 30 minutes two weeks ago. They intermittently called as we had dinner.

Some time after 6:15, we moved down to the water. We could see several newts in amplexus, and someone spotted a couple of newt egg clusters. We saw no frog eggs, but we also hadn’t seen any newt eggs two weeks earlier. After some observation, we took a stroll to the other side of the pond. We heard more Great Horned Owls calling. Something relatively large splashed into the water. Presumably since it has been dry, there were no newts or frogs seen on land.

Most of the treefrogs were on the other side, so we turned around and went back. We found more egg clusters, and the treefrog calls punctuated the quiet. A couple called from close to land, and I vowed to find one of them. It took a while to find the frog that called from about 15″ away in the middle of some Pennyroyal, and I only spotted him because his inflated vocal sac moved a piece of grass! He was the color of mud, and not easy to see even knowing where he was.

Close to 7:30, a Red-legged Frog started to call. One or two of us had heard it earlier, but just briefly. It called regularly with some pauses. Everyone was able to hear it.

P. sierra with R. draytonii below about 700Hz

We headed back after that. We made one stop to look at a fluorescing Polydesmid millipede. I only found one, compared to the approximately 25 on our scouting hike. One of the participants spotted an owl flush from a shrub in front of us.

Back at the lot, we found a small group of astronomers again.

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Did you know that we’re losing our amphibians? Watch this PBS video.

One of the reasons is Chytrid fungus, which you can read more about here. If you visit different marshes and ponds, you may want to clean your boots to help prevent the spread. The suggested cleaning is the same or similar to that for Sudden Oak Death.

For more on cleaning protocol, see this page at Pinnacles. And for more in-depth information on these diseases, see this site.

Monte Bello OSP

CB and I scouted for our night hike on 1/31, and left the misty trailhead at 5:01 and arrived at the gate at 5:19, meeting CR and LP. There was low fog, which seemed to get more dense near the pond. It had rained overnight and up until around 2:00, after a couple weeks of warm weather then a couple of colder days. There was wind chill on the ridge. The temperature was around 45-50F, warmest near the water, which didn’t reach as high as I’d seen it last year. The “outlet” was dry.

Sunset was at 5:30, but it was too foggy and cloudy to see it. It was dusk by the time we reached the pond, and with the fog, it was difficult to see very far.

The fog

Mostly female newts walked the trail, some gravid. Two of them were one-eyed for some reason. We saw around 12 newts and 1-2 treefrogs on land. We briefly checked out the water, then went to the east side and back around to the south, relative to the road. We heard a Mallard, Dark-eyed Juncos, and an American Coot, and the treefrogs first started up around 6:00. They called intermittently while we were there. One Red-legged Frog called briefly.

Newt ball

We watched the light-colored male newts, watery ghosts patrolling for females and couples to barge in on. There were a couple of newt balls, but we couldn’t detect any eggs yet. The male newts have black fingertips in breeding form, nuptial pads used to grip the female during amplexus. The females are darker in comparison, at this time.

Around 7:10 or so, we headed up and left the gate at 7:24. CB and I turned toward the lot, and were surprised by around 25 Polydesmid millipedes along the way. Last year, KG and I saw one. I heard the screech of a Barn Owl as well. The mud wasn’t bad, but it was a little slippery.

Back at the lot, it was hard to see the car in the fog, with the flashlight beam bouncing back. We got to the car at 7:59.

Polydesmid millipede

In Search of Slime

JO, JH and I had twelve people on our inaugural slime mold hike, including four docents and a biologist-by-training. No one ‘fessed up to being a newbie. At least one non-docent had been on one of our bug hikes, and the (Big Basin) docent had also been on some of our hikes.
The weather was relatively warm, low-to-mid 60’s.

We started out at 12:45, and made a quick stop at the pot-shaped ant nest that we’d seen on the 15th. Turning right at the bench, we gradually headed down into the woods.

Pot-shaped ant nest?

Our first slime stop was at a small fallen branch and clump of moss on which we’d found pink sporangia. What was left was puffy capillitium, the netlike structure inside the fruiting body, a darker pink than last week. There we talked about the myxomycete life cycle.
Shortly afterwards we reached the next log and tilting tree where we have found slime molds and other interesting organisms before. The log had small, golden brown round sporangia, and a couple small clumps of white sporangia. On the tree were golden brown slime mold sporangia, possibly the same as on the log, an Ascomycete, Stictis radiata, and some tiny bell-shaped two-toned fungi. The beetle larva that we’d seen on the prehike wasn’t in the same piece of wood. We did find three Slender Salamanders, but no Ensatinas like last week.

Slime mold

Unfortunately I didn’t recognize the curve near the creek that had a log with small, white, cup fungi with frilly edges and upon examination of the photo I’d taken, had lavender-colored Collembola. There was one small log near a curve that had a tiny, gray fungus edged with white, very pretty. Some of the smaller ones looked like cups, but the larger was flat against the wood.

Lachnum sp? and lavender Collembola

A few more similar slime molds plus one good patch of white balls on stalks, various mushrooms but no slimy “cowboy’s handkerchiefs” as there were a week ago, a black jelly fungus, coral fungi, a resupinate yellow fungus with raised pointy bumps, some brown puffballs, a couple of mushrooms with rodent teethmarks, and Xylaria hypoxilon kept us busy until the creek. We got there around 3:00. The water was a few inches deep at the crossing, but rocks were available for hopping. There were a few newts in the pool, and large Water Striders. The yellow plasmodium that we’d seen last week had crawled off and was nowhere to be found.

Near the fourth bridge, the Toothed Jelly Fungi were still in good shape, and the uprooted reddish-purple Russula that we’d found last week had decomposed to basically flat, white remains that still fluoresced under UV.

Heading up the hill, the stump with Tremella and Stereum was missing the Tremella. The Hygrocybe conica that was bright yellow last week was black today. A Great Horned Owl hooted, and JO found a Shoulderband (Helminthoglypta) snail shell. I’d been hoping for a live snail in lieu of a slug, but we had none. (All the Banana Slugs seem to be at lower Purisima.)

Under a few of the logs were crickets and spiders, including wolf spiders. I also noticed a few flying insects along the way, and last week we got a look at a small robber fly.

We got back around 4:40 and spent a few minutes looking at flatworms in the seasonal puddle near the fire break.

No fungi or slime molds were collected, as this is a preserve. But you can see what we visually collected on this and our scouting hike on 1/15, here.

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For more on these fascinating and beautiful organisms, see this site, especially the first two pdfs. This site also has a gallery, and this German site has great images.