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 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.
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.
Is that guy cute or what? Only 2-3mm long. Read on…
JO, SW, KG and I scouted our hike the night before. Usually we have more time in between, but it had rained on the prior Monday when we had planned to scout. 10/14/11 was a glorious night as far as arthropods go. The weather was in the low 70′s, with some high clouds. I forgot my boots, but as it turned out, it was ok. We saw a few new things, so that made up for it. 10/15 was cooler, and a little windy.
An Osprey soared to the east. We started off at 5:25, and about 10 minutes later on Saturday.
We passed a few ant holes, but as we rounded a curve, we came upon a very busy one. Ants were busily carrying eggs or larvae. As we watched transfixed, I turned and saw a male tarantula crossing the trail ahead of us! For whatever reason we haven’t seen many of these in the past few years. The ants would still be there, so we all gathered around to watch the tarantula walk. Every once in a while he would stop and do a little repeated bounce with his abdomen. I’m not sure what that was about. Some hikers came by and said they also had seen one.
As we returned to the ants, I saw a tiny reddish brown oval running around near the ants. It didn’t resemble anything I’d seen before, so I managed to catch it in a vial. It was a tiny ant cricket. When I put it back, I blew it off my finger–that caused the ants to speed up. We figured that the CO2 caused them to react as though a predator was near.
On Saturday, we found some small red ants in a nest near the busy larger black ant nest. I don’t remember seeing these before. A lizard was half in a hole, only its back half showing.
The next sighting along the trail was a medium-sized wolf spider. On Saturday, a similar one walked past us in the parking lot.
We’d seen a bowl-and-doily spider, so we stopped to talk about that and discovered a small orb nearby. There was a lack of large orb webs this fall, unlike last year.
We had dinner at the sag pond, arriving there around 6:20 on Friday and about 10 minutes earlier on Saturday. The three spider holes were open, and we were able to see tiny round light-colored babies in one hole. While talking about spider taxonomy, we heard a Virginia Rails call. Sunset was around 6:30.
It took us about 40 minutes on Saturday to reach the first set of woods, where we’d seen the first scorpion (Uroctonus mordax) on Friday. A bat fluttered overhead. We found several scorpions, and refound the trapdoor spider holes (Cyrtaucheniids). Unlike at Long Ridge, the spiders were not at the door. We also checked the hard dirt turret that PB had found previously, which had at least a partial loose silk covering. There was no covering, and the spider perched at the top. A photo revealed that it had finer, denser hairs on its legs compared to Antrodiaetus riversi photos. The turret was taller than the typical A. riversi turrets we see, which are usually not plain dirt.
Scaphinotus beetles were more common than darkling beetles (we only saw one), and on Friday, we found at least four different millipedes and two different centipedes. Several tiger beetle larvae were visible. Either this is a good year for them, or we’ve not had the search image to find them. An Arboreal Salamander was cozy in a trailbank hole, which seems to be where we see them.
Having spent almost an hour along that stretch on Saturday, we decided to skip going to Indian Creek and the gravel pit where we’d only seen a tiny Solifugid on Friday. We continued down the hill, and found one mushroom, being munched on by three crickets. Besides some distant Great-horned Owls, one Barn Owl called.
At about 8:30 we reached the nature trail intersection. We checked the tarantula hole that was stuffed loosely with silk on PB’s hike, and surprisingly, it was open. We didn’t see the spider, but KG found a small Calisoga on the other side of the trail. It was still and cooperative, so we got good looks.
Since we hadn’t yet shown the participants actual turret spiders, we went the .2 miles down the nature trail. Many turret spiders were visible, and JO found a small Hyptiotes with an atypical triangle web between two branches of a fallen log. We also found two fluorescent Polydesmid millipedes, another surprise.
It took an hour to return from the intersection. We stopped to view a Tetragnathid and check the sag pond spider holes.
Update 10/23/11: It appears that, based on my red ant photo, these are army ants! Legionary ants in the genus Neivamyrmex, either N. opacithorax or N. californicus. The busy larger black ants are harvesters, Messor andrei, and they were moving brood probably because of the army ants. See antweb.org for data on ant species.
On 5/27/11, Friday, JH, KG and I scouted for our June night hike. I’ve done this hike in the beginning of June for several years now, hoping to find glowworms. It’s hit and miss, but we can always hope. My record for seeing glowworms in the Santa Cruz Mountains:
6/25/03 no moon at LR, one glowworm
6/28/03 crescent moon MB, EH and BN saw glowworms
6/17/05 76% moon at MB, 46-55F, (SCNT intersection)
6/5/09 96% moon at MB, 56-65F, glowworms galore
6/4/10 no moon at MB, 66-75F, no glowworms
It has been cold and often overcast or foggy on our recent night hikes, and Friday was no exception. It seemed, to me, slightly warmer than the other hikes, but still left me wishing I had grabbed my gloves.
We left the trailhead at 6:30. A new flower (but non-native) found along the beginning of the trail was crimson clover. At the sag pond, there was an insect that looked at first glance like a snakefly, but was actually a San Francisco Lacewing.
We got to where we decided to have dinner (“gravel pit”) at 8:00. Sunset was around 8:19. Clarkias and jewelflower were in bloom there. We were there for half an hour, then made the short trek to the Indian Creek intersection. It was just light enough there to be able to see the blue of some larkspur.
It wasn’t dark enough so we went up the hill. We didn’t go quite as far as where we had dinner the first time we went up there. A couple of bats flew around, and an unidentified owl (about Barn Owl size but not light, no visible “ears”) flew around in large circles 2-3 times. The last time, it flew up the trail toward us, then turned sharply away, over the canyon. We saw no glowworms, and didn’t hear poorwill. We did hear some Barn Owl screeches.
From about .3 miles past that intersection, we turned back at 9:00. If we go that far, we need to start back earlier, at least 15 minutes.
On the way down, we heard twittering coming from oaks in a section that didn’t have a steep dropoff. This was a Barn Owl vocalization. We
We could hear treefrogs calling from the seasonal pond. We arrived there at 9:50. There was some eyeshine that seemed bigger than a treefrog’s would be. The frogs were quiet then, but when one started up suddenly, it made JH and I jump.
We found one scorpion, and a shoulderband snail, and heard Western Screech-owl.
At the sag pond, we checked the hole we’d found earlier, and were able to see spider legs.
On the last leg of the trail, we were surprised to find a small solifugid.
Back at the lot, we heard coyotes yip.
We covered 3.5 miles.
These are the birds that we heard:
Purple Finch
Wild Turkey
Lazuli Bunting
Song Sparrow
Orange-crowned Warbler
Lesser Goldfinch
Ash-throated Flycatcher
Spotted Towhee
Black-headed Grosbeak
Owl (unconfirmed ID, but dark and size of Barn) flyover
Barn Owl (and “kleek” calls)
Western Screech-owl
Acorn Woodpecker
American Robin
Wrentit
California Quail
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.
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.
I used to be like many people, finding spiders scary and repulsive. But something happened along the way. Now I’m an arachnophile. Can you tell?
JO and I wanted to have another close look at a Calisoga spider, so we got a permit for 10/15/10.
The weather was mild again. We started out at 6:00 and got to the sag pond at 6:20. The Mygalomorph burrow was uncovered again. I had hoped to catch it covered up, since I didn’t get a photo of it the one time it was covered. After 20 minutes and a quick dinner, we headed off to the spider patch.
In the dust of Canyon Trail, there were a few very large tracks, maybe 4″ long.
We found the Cat-faced Spider again, plus the Banded Garden Spider. There was a Labyrinth spider (Metepeira) web nearby. The orb portion was wavy.
Along the trailside, I noticed what looked like a dried mushroom. I passed over it, but decided to take another look. It was a coiled up juvenile rattlesnake!
While looking for scorpions, I came across a UV-fluorescent blob on a fallen branch among other branches on the trailbank. It was as bright as a scorpion, but blue. While I was looking at that, Western Screech-owls had a conversation across the trail.
This year has been a good year for arachnids, Cybaeus no exception.
Somewhere along there, we crossed paths with a different Harvestman. It was dark, large and had very long legs even for a Harvestman. It was on a mission, but as we tried to block it to get a photo, it climbed up JO’s pant leg, disappearing for a while and finally ending up on his head. I picked it off, and it ended up climbing all over me too. We never did get a photo, but that was amusing.
And Calisogas. We came across one near the big intersection around 9:00, and spent the rest of our time examining this very cooperative spider. Perhaps he had already mated; he barely moved for the half hour or more that we looked at him. We couldn’t see the third claw that they have, but we could see the scalloped sternum, pointed posteriorly, and the 2 spines on the tibia.
We’ve read that they’re aggressive, but none of the Calisogas that we’ve come across have been so. Maybe they knew that we weren’t out to collect them. We placed the Calisoga on the trailside.
We only got about as far as the big intersection with the Stevens Creek Nature Trail (no big surprise).
On our return to the trailhead, we checked the other Mygalomorph burrow that we’d found on 10/2. It was occupied, and we tried to coax the spider out with a piece of grass. It clung to the stem as far as just below the opening, but wouldn’t come out all the way. We left it alone after a couple of photos.
We came across another small Solifugid on the last trail section. In previous years, we’ve been lucky to see them at all, but this year we’ve seen multiples.
Did you know? The IUCN List of Threatened Species comes up with 11 arachnids in North America (search by taxonomy=”arachnida” and location=”North America”). All of them say “needs updating”.
Spiders and their relatives don’t tend to be at the top of the list of most people when it comes to saving species. But check out this recent news from the UK. And for some spider fun, try “Spot the Spider” (a third of the way down), actually a camouflage study.
A group of ten, including JO, SW and me, met at Monte Bello OSP for our first “official” spider night hike on 10/9/10. (I say official, because as anyone who knows us knows, every hike is a spider hike…) It was a very successful one, albeit more of a meander than a hike. We met at 5:15 p.m. There was a surprising number of cars in the lot (not all ours).
We passed a few juvenile fence lizards on the way to the walnut grove. We found a spider hole in the ground; the hole was perfectly round and had a little silk at least around the inside edge. We marked it to check it on our way back.
There was a Cat-faced Spider (Araneus gemmoides) in the oats/grass near the road, and another nearby. We explained how to find the spider (if not in the web) by following the signal line.
Cat-faced Spider (Araneus gemmoides)
At the sag pond we stopped for dinner. The spider hole was covered over, and I only recognized it because I had looked at a leaf in the photo I took before, which seemed to show some silk purposely attached to said leaf. I don’t remember who told me a long time ago that these silk-lined holes in the ground were tarantula holes, but this one made me question that.
A small dark wolf spider passed by and I captured it while JO talked about the different arachnids. After everyone got a look, we released it. We headed off around 6:30, to get to the “spider patch” before sunset.
There were two Argiope trifasciata and an Araneus gemmoides or two at the patch. Here SW gave a brief overview of how an orb web is made.
We headed uphill and saw a bat or two in the open areas, plus a large owl fly by. Once it was dark enough, we saw a few California Forest Scorpions. When we came to the tree in which another Cat-faced Spider had a web, the spider was very visible but there wasn’t much of a web. On the return, I was behind and saw that she had finished rebuilding it.
We saw a few possible Cybaeus sp., two small Calisoga Spiders along the way, and another 2-3 larger ones. Near the “gravel pit”, we got one into a baggie to look at it more closely. It was very cooperative, and didn’t move while we looked at its ventral side. It was not aggressive at all.
JO spotted a Solifugid near the edge of the trail. We took a look at it also.
We went just past the pit to the edge of the woods, then turned back. I lagged behind for a bit, and found a Jerusalem Cricket and a millipede crossing the trail.
We found two turret spiders, three Harvestmen, another Jerusalem Cricket, and lots of crickets on the trail. Some of us stopped to see if the sag pond burrow was open, and it was. A Calisoga spider was at the edge of the road.
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The owls were surprisingly quiet compared to on our scouting hike. The temperature was mild, probably mid-60′s.
The burrow in the trail that we’d spotted on the way in was occupied, and the last section of trail had two small Solifugids.
We were surprised to see headlights as we approached the trailhead; there was a permitted star party going on.
This was a very successful hike as far as finding arachnids. Next time we’ll have to call it a “meander”…
JO, SW and I scouted on 10/2/2010 for our upcoming night hike. DK joined us.
We started out around 6:10. The temperature was mild. The vinegar weed was blooming. A large raptor that appeared to be a Northern Harrier soared low over the grassland. At the walnut grove, there were remains of a juvenile fence lizard, being eaten by three Western Yellowjackets.
We arrived at the sag pond at 6:30. There were still some Pacific Coast Dampwood termite alates fluttering around. After dinner, we left at 6:53.
The Banded Garden Spider (Argiope trifasciata) found by PB on Canyon Trail a couple of weeks ago was gone, but there was a different individual nearby, plus two Cat-faced Spiders (Araneus gemmoides).
Before it was completely dark, a Great Horned Owl lazily flew from the west to the east, and a bat fluttered by.
Many small Trashline Weavers (Cyclosa) had webs in the woods, mostly low to the ground. These spiders use a stabilimentum as a base for attaching debris (usually prey remains).
There were a lot of very small orb weavers. Another Cat-faced Spider had the beginnings of a web, about five feet up in a tree.
Cat-faced Spider (Araneus gemmoides)
JO found a Cybaeus-looking spider on the dirt part of the trailbank.
The beam of my flashlight revealed two large, round, yellow reflectors–no, they moved! Then there were two more. We stared at them, wondering what they were. JO removed his red filter, and they were just a couple of deer in the woods. I’ll have to remember the red next time I see eyeshine.
Along Indian Creek to the right, we found a smallish Calisoga spider. Near it was a hunting spider.
We were looking for the hidden pond, but I missed the turnoff. DK told us about a pond on the left, which I had not seen before. That was past the other pond, and on the way back we found the one I was actually looking for. There was a Harvestman, and a small tetragnathid, but not enough to warrant the trip down (and back up). We left there to return around 9:15.
Returning on Canyon Trail, we found one small scorpion, a California Forest Scorpion (Uroctonus mordax).
On the Bella Vista Trail sign, a tree cricket sat quietly.
We heard several Great Horned Owls in different places, including the sag pond. Western Screech-owl calls also in different areas entertained us.
The mygalomorph burrow by the sag pond had an occupant, visible after dark.
When we arrived at the lot, there was a group of astronomers and their families.
