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.

Butano SP Fire Road

Butano Fire Road ridgetop (click for a larger image)

On  2/21/12, we tried out a new trail for DWB’s class. The Butano SP map doesn’t show the mileage since it’s a fire road, but my GPS said 7 miles (Google also measures out to about the same). It didn’t seem like it at the time, as the climb was gradual. But I could feel it afterwards.

The coast was partially foggy, but here the sun was warm. In the shade of the woods, it was sometimes cool enough to want a jacket.

I took a slight detour off the main trail and saw a cottontail run as it was flushed by the group ahead.

There was a lot of Ramalina hanging, and thick Usnea. Some plants blooming that I didn’t photograph but noted were Woodland Pea, Milkmaids, Spring Vetch, and Pink-flowering Currant.

We passed more than ten banana slugs; one was munching on one of the various mushrooms. I got a glimpse of one long-furry-tailed rodent running across the trail.

Bird-wise, we passed Red-tailed and Red-shouldered Hawks along the coast. I heard Bewick’s Wren, a Selasphorus hummingbird’s wing buzz, Hutton’s Vireo, Golden-crowned Kinglets and Pacific Wren chatter.

Some photos are here.

GPS track in Google Earth

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.

==

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.

==

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

Night on Froggy Mountain

It was a cold but not stormy night, 2/26/11. KP, MB, and I took a group around Picchetti Ranch. Picchetti had a light dusting of snow the previous evening, which was melted by the time we got there. The forecast ranged from 47F (felt like 43F) at 5 p.m. to 41F (felt like 38F) at 9 p.m., and that seemed correct. We originally had 23 on the reservation list including 8 on the waitlist. There were some last-minute cancellations so we ended up with 7 (including a kid and a teen).

This was the first time we’ve done a frog hike here. On a different hike last year at the same time, it wasn’t as cold, and there were adult toads swimming in the pond and on land on the shore. We saw no toads on our scouting hike or last night.

While waiting in the lot, a coyote cruised through and went into the brush uphill, and someone spotted a rabbit browsing. We started our intro at 4:30 and left the lot around 4:50. At the restroom, three more joined us until the dinner spot, deciding to leave since they hadn’t brought dinner.

The spring in the middle of the trail was bubbling out. We stopped to watch a White-tailed Kite hover, and a California Towhee popped up from a shrub. At the pond, the water level was about the same as it was a week earlier. There were four Mallards at the water’s edge, sifting for food. Close to the edge, a treefrog peered at us from the water. Newts swam. We didn’t see any critters on land.

Continuing to the dinner spot, we saw black cup fungi on the trailbank, and we stopped for liverworts, Hound’s Tongue and Tremella (Witch’s Butter). We got to the dinner spot at 5:50, ten minutes before sunset. After dinner, we refound the turret with the cup fungus, but didn’t see an occupant.

Black cup fungi

KP heard a Great Horned Owl near the second bridge/stream crossing, but when we stopped on the other side of the water, it was quiet. We talked about night vision there since the trail was a little wider.

Past the gate around 6:50, we made another stop to talk about the frogs and newts, wanting it to be a little darker. As we approached the pond, we could hear the frogs. We stopped short of the pond and heard one of the Great Horned Owls that we’d heard the week before.

I checked the shore again to make sure there weren’t too many critters around to get closer easily, but still didn’t see any on land. It was markedly different from the previous week. There were still newt balls in the water, and some frogs calling, but not nearly as many. It seemed like 50 versus hundreds or a thousand. We spotted a couple of them calling from their floating perches on top of the water, and a few were calling from land. Finally someone spotted a newt out of water, a female, moving extremely slowly. It seemed to be having trouble, but whether that was due to the cold or something else, we couldn’t tell. I spotted a frog in a hole with some water in it, a couple of inches from the water’s edge.

We stopped to look at the treehole mosquito larvae again, then proceeded up the loop. There was a budding Zygadene Lily along the trail. There was one Polydesmid millipede in the oak grove, and we stopped to look at it. There were hardly any near the restroom like there usually are. These are blind and it doesn’t seem like Picchetti’s event lights would have bothered them. Maybe the cold affected them too.

We got back to the lot around 8:00.

==
Knowing there are frogs in other parts that are adapted to freezing, I went searching. I was curious how our local amphibians would be affected by freezing temperatures. I found this abstract (Hyla regilla is a previous name of our treefrog), but didn’t find anything on newts.

Picchetti Ranch (or, I just can’t help myself! said the treefrog)

It was Sunday, 2/20/11, a cold, dry day after 6 days of showers/rain preceded by an extended dry period. By the afternoon, it was cloudy. It turned out  a pretty interesting scouting night. The number of cars in the lot surprised us. A California Thrasher sang from up in a tree.

MB and I left the lot at 4:50. Just past the restrooms, a man watched two rabbits browse. At 5:04, we turned left to go around the pond, stopping first to watch two more rabbits play ahead of us. A flock of Golden-crowned Sparrows foraged.

We could hear people with kids. There was shallow water in the middle of the basin, with a large dry area surrounding it, where the kids were playing in a pile of wood. American Robins gathered at the tops of a tree. We carefully walked down to the water’s edge to see what was there. Pieces of dry grass from the basin covered the surface. Underneath, newts swam, and we saw a newt ball. At the top of the pond area near the trail, a banana slug stretched out.

Pond water level

Pond water level

After we left the pond at 5:20, we crossed paths with a gravid female newt. Then, another. We saw more than a few that all appeared  female, on the trail between the time we left the pond and on the way back while it was dark.

We reached the gate at 5:30, got to the first bridge at 5:35, the second bridge at 5:40, and the third and final bridge, our dinner spot, at 5:50. Along the way, we noted a patch of liverworts with umbrella-like fruiting bodies, as well as blooming Hounds Tongue. The water was rushing loudly at our stop.

Sunset was at 5:53, but it was dusky in the woods. It was chilly, and after dinner, I finally put on my gloves. It was probably around 45F-47F; last year on the same date it was around five degrees warmer.

At 6:15, it wasn’t quite dark, but dark enough in the woods to use a flashlight. We slowly made our way back, taking our time to let the dark settle. Our first find was a spider turret at the base of the trailbank, with a cup fungus attached at the base. Nobody was home (or at least willing to come to the door). At 6:45, we heard a soft Western Screech-owl trill from the oaks. Coyotes yipped from somewhere ahead.

We arrived back at the gate at 6:54. We could hear the treefrogs already. Past the gate, a Great Horned Owl hooted, then a female called from the other side of the trail. As we approached the pond, the frogs got louder and louder. When we got close enough for them to detect us, they quieted. We stopped, and waited for the chorusmaster to start. Unfortunately, there was a lot of air traffic that disturbed the quiet.

The chorusmaster started up, then another, and another, and soon any air traffic that was passing over was drowned out. We carefully made our way to the water, with good cause, as we found our first little brown frog sitting on land. In fact, quite a few of them were chorusing from land. With all that noise, you’d think it would be pretty easy to spot them in the water, but I couldn’t see any eyeshine. Newts slid through the water, and it was easier to see the light color of the males. We found a frog close to shore, vocal sac inflated, not caring that we were nearby. He did call, but he also sat there with the sac inflated for a while, long enough for me to get a photo.

Here is the recording; you can hear the Great Horned Owl in the beginning. If you listen with headphones, turn down the volume because the treefrogs start up about halfway through, and they are deafening!

We picked our way around several other frogs on land, some larger, and after seeing a few pairs in amplexus on land (what’s up with that?), I figured that the larger, fatter, quiet ones were females.

Then, something totally unexpected appeared in our lights: a female newt waddled up the basin, a treefrog on her back! We watched, transfixed by the sight.

The wrong way

The right way

I thought I’d heard something earlier, so I wanted to check out the other side. I made my way over there, avoiding more little brown frogs which were difficult to see. Another female newt paused with a treefrog on her back! Maybe she figured if she didn’t move, he’d leave. Or she tired of hauling around eggs and a frog.

Since it was only 7:45, we decided to go around through the oak grove and headed up the Vista Trail. The grove seemed a good place to hear owls, but we didn’t. It was a good place to find Polydesmid millipedes though. [Added] While figuring out which trail to take, we noticed a cavity at the base of a tree, in it a pool of water filled with wriggling mosquito larvae–maybe Ochlerotatus sierrensis, Western Treehole Mosquito. That’s a new one for me.

We heard another Great Horned Owl once back on the straight trail leading back to the winery. More millipedes twinkled like stars on the ground under UV light near the bathrooms around 8:00.

See more photos here.

This is last year’s post for the same date.

==
See CR’s post of another frog-and-newt encounter.

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.

==

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.

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.

==
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.

Evening at Thornewood

We (PB, JO and I) originally had 14 people on the list for 11/6, but netted 13 reservations. Only one person didn’t show up. We’re not sure if the good attendance was a result of my emailing the list to give more detailed directions and ask group participants to get there a few minutes early and carpool if possible, taking an idea from JO. The last group to reserve included an 11-year old. We also had a few new people. MB also joined us.

My thermometer said the temperature was around 60F, and it remained that way with no precipitation, but partly cloudy. It seemed a little cooler than that (the weather.com TruPoint actual temps were 58-59F).
The lot had no other cars, perhaps because of the weather.

We got out of the lot at 5:27. Since sunset was at 6:06, I didn’t want to stop much. We did stop to note the locations of two spider turrets, and to show poison oak, buckeye, and the King’s Mountain Manzanita. There were also four more nondescript mushrooms at a seep by a fence.

I don’t think I’ve been here when there has been water under the wooden bridge. It was dry.

We reach the Bridle Trail intersection at 5:58. With brief stops to point out differences between redwood and fir needles and cones, we arrived at our dinner spot at 6:10.  We kept our voices low, but only heard some distant Saw-whet wails, no toots like on our scouting hike. We left there at 6:45.

In order to break up the uphill, we went to the farthest stop, the tree where we saw the first fluorescent lichen. Along the way, there was one fluorescent millipede, with a small black beetle apparently picking at it. It was curled up in the duff, and when I picked it up, I saw that it had an injury.

We spent some time at the place where JO had found the Hyptiotes (Triangle Spider). The web was collapsed, and the spider appeared to be working with prey.  After observing what was caught in the silk, I wasn’t convinced that it was prey since it was moving in the slight breeze, as though there was not much substance to it. The spider retreated to under the redwood needles. JO and I attempted to show how the spider uses the web to catch its prey.

The next stop was back at our dinner spot, where there were several trees and stumps with the fluorescing lichen. There was one group of two trees and a big stump that had a lot of green fluorescing patches.

Helminthoglypta nickliniana

On the way back up to the intersection, a large snail crept across the trail. It had a dark stripe, and I knew from shells I’ve found elsewhere that it was not the European garden snail. I think It’s a Shoulderband (thanks to Barry Roth for the ID).

At 8:12 we rendezvoused at the intersection and headed off to the lake. The Ceratiomyxa fruticulosa slime mold was still on the log, and we looked at that with a magnifying glass. JO found a molting spider up in a redwood branch.

After observing that for a while, we moved on to the Slender False Brome sign and talked about that for a bit.

At the lake, PB related some history of the property.

Since we had time, we did a short silent walk from past the short trail to the dry fountain to the Bridle Trail intersection. JO spotted an unidentified juvenile salamander. We left there around 9:00.

Hoping to catch the ISS pass in an open area, we had time to kill. We missed the holes in the ground that we had noted on the way in, wanting to see if they were occupied.

We stopped at the turret in the dirt bank and saw the spider perched at the top.

We still had about half an hour, so we did some stargazing. Cassiopeia, the Pleiades, Cygnus/Summer Triangle, and Jupiter were visible. We proceeded on to a partly open spot, but it wasn’t as good as that one. Unfortunately, we didn’t see the ISS although the high point of the trajectory was over the trees.

There was too much commotion at the larger turret near the manzanita, and the spider retreated down.

We arrived back a little before 10:00.

Thornewood OSP

PB, JO and I scouted this preserve on 11/1/10 for our first night hike here. We started out at 5:30. There were some annoying face flies in the first stretch of the trail.

We saw two brown unidentified mushrooms on the way, and found a large spider turret. At 6:15, we reached Bridle Trail. We wanted to see what dusk would be like, so we turned left.

At 6:30, we reached a large flat area next to an old logged redwood stump. Since it was getting dark, we stopped for dinner. A few odd bird vocalizations (owls, we assume) pierced the quiet. We left there at 6:46.

I hadn’t seen any on our day scouting trip, so JO was keeping an eye out for the odd little Hyptiotes, aka Triangle Spider. Aha! Found one, around 7:00. This is the first we’ve seen on MROSD land. We recently found some at Huddart Park. This particular spider was right by the trail, in a redwood branch. Unlike at Huddart, it was on a silk line, a couple of inches out from the redwood needles.

As we were observing it, some fast, persistent toots started up, along with a few sharp cries. This was exciting for me, since we don’t hear Northern Saw-whet Owls very often. They were relatively close.

We reached the closed part of the trail at 7:18. Twenty minutes later, we were startled to find some bright green fluorescence on the side of a redwood. This was not like the scorpion kind of green around 490nm, but was more like a green laser. Under white light, it looked yellow. Other patches were hard to see under white light. There was also a small bit of orange fluorescence in an area bare of bark.

We left the fluorescence at 7:48, and found more where we had dinner.

An Ensatina sat obligingly in the middle of the trail. We also found one early Polydesmid millipede.

We reached the intersection at 8:37 and turned left to go back to the lake. The house above the lake was obvious with its lights on. We found the dried slime mold I’d seen on our previous trip, and found Ceratiomyxa fruticulosa near it.

At 9:00, there was no action on the lake, and it was perfectly quiet. On top of the signpost by the lake were two small millipedes.

We found spiders in a couple of small turrets but forgot to look for the large one we’d seen on the way in. We also forgot to look into a hole in the trail. But we found one male Calisoga sitting on the side, as well as an (probably) Arboreal Salamander’s head poking out of a hole in the trailbank!

We arrived back to the lot around 10:00.

You can find more photos here.