2011 Field Journal

• Detailed Species Accounts can be found at the links below:
  • Birds
  • Non-Avian Organisms

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Journal Entries

3/21: Laguna de Santa Rosa

On March 21st, Eclipse and I went for a wildlife-watching walk along the creek behind our house. It was sunny with a light breeze (70° F), and we began at Faletti Park on Gravenstein Way in Cotati, and walked along ~ 250 m of this channel of the Laguna de Santa Rosa, on the NE side of the creek.

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3/24: Laguna de Santa Rosa

On March 24th, Eclipse and I took another walk along the Laguna, beginning at Draper Park and walking on the bike trail along the SW side of the creek. We went north to Commerce, and then backtracked to South Gravenstein Way (overlapping a small part of the route observed on the 21st). It was cool (55° F) and wet out, having rained earlier in the day, but was not raining during our walk. I saw some birds I hadn’t seen on the previous walk.

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4/8: Galbreath Wildlands Preserve

I visited this SSU property on a field trip with Vertebrate Biology. We stopped at several locations in the preserve, looking for specific target species at each location. 

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4/15: Safari West

This was another Vertebrate Biology field trip. Safari West is located at 3115 Porter Creek Road in Santa Rosa, about 7 miles east of Hwy 101. We took a driving tour of the large animal enclosures, as well as a visit to the walk-in-aviary. This journal entry records only the native and non-captive wildlife I saw during my visit to the park, most of which were seen on the jeep tour.

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4/26: Grove of Old Trees

Andrea and I took the kiddos on a short hike through this lovely grove of redwoods in Occidental. I didn’t see much in the way of wildlife, but did photograph a few plants, including a native species of orchid (which I did not know was a thing in California)! Species seen: Pacific Trillium (Trillium ovatum), Western Fairy-Slipper (Calypso bulbosa occidentalis), California Blackberry (Rubus ursinus), California Bay (Umbellularia californica), Western Sword Fern (Polystichum munitum), Coast Redwood (Sequoia sempervirens), Redwood Violet (Viola sempervirens), Dendroalsia Moss (Dendroalsia abietina), Clovers (Genus Trifolium), Common Greenshield Lichen (Flavoparmelia caperata), Golden Waxy Cap (Hygrocybe flavescens)

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5/6: Palomarin Field Station

Vertebrate Biology field trip to the Palomarin Field Station, part of the Point Reyes Bird Observatory, to see the techniques they use for mist-netting and banding. We walked the net route twice, but did not see any birds caught in the net. We were able to view at close range three birds that had been netted earlier, however, so we got to see the banding and data collection process. The PRBO staff were very helpful, and were happy to help me ID some of the bird calls we heard while walking the site, particular Wrentits, whose call was familiar to me, but I’d never been able to identify it before.

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5/12: Desert Studies Center at Zzyzx

After a long drive on the first day of our Vertebrate Biology field trip, I took a short solo walk near Lake Tuendae, where I saw a family of American Coots (with four chicks!) and a Mourning Dove. I then headed out past the swimming pool, and along the Soda Lake salt flat. Once darkness fell, we spent a couple of hours night driving on Kelbaker Road.

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5/13: Kelso Dunes and Mid-hills Campground

On our first full day in the desert, I woke up early in the morning and took a short walk on site before breakfast. I walked past the swimming pool and south along the alkali flats. Our first stop as a class was Kelso Dunes, where we saw some wonderful lizards, after which we drove up to the Mid-hills Campground, where I had my most notable bird sighting of the trip. At night, another night drive.

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5/14: Bajada and Microtower Road

We spend the morning exploring the Bajada habitat along Kelbaker Road, and then drove up a primitive road through rocky hills, stopping to investigate whenever a lizard or snake was spotted from the van, and then ate our lunches at the top. And of course, another night drive on our last night of the field trip.

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5/20: Golden Gate Raptor Observatory Hawk Hill

As part of our field trip to the Golden Gate Raptor Observatory at the Marin Headlands, we went to the top of Hawk Hill. It is not a migration time, so we didn’t see a large number of birds, but there were still a few feathery friends in the area, including California Brown Pelican diving in San Francisco Bay, Brewer’s Blackbird near Fort Cronkhite, and White-throated Swift near the top of Hawk Hill.

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5/22: Crane Creek

We went for a short hike at Crane Creek Regional Park. This Western Fence Lizard was hanging out on the small wooden footbridge, doing “push-ups” (which I assume are related to mating? Or maybe it’s a thermal regulation behavior)?

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June: Boggs Lake

This is a collection of observations made while doing field work at Boggs Lake in Lake County, California. We were focusing on the nesting behavior of Western Pond Turtles, but we also saw loads of other great wildlife at this Nature Conservancy site.

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June: Jellystone Campground

This campground, just a few miles away from our Boggs Lake field site, is where we camped throughout the field season. The facilities were nice – bathrooms with showers, a recreation room with wifi – and we had a permanent campground where we all set up our tents together. I usually spent about a week at a time up there, trading off as the field lead with my lab partner, Nicole. Since the turtles we were studying really only became active mid-afternoon, we spent quite a lot of time at the campground.

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July 26: Laguna de Santa Rosa, Sonoma County, CA

I don’t remember the details of this trip, but I saw California Tiger Salamander (Ambystoma californiense) on a dip-netting trip out on the Santa Rosa Plain, led by Derek Girman and Dave Cook. We also saw an Aquatic Garter Snake (Thamnophis atratus)

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8/1: Shollenberger Park and Willow Creek

On my birthday, I spent the day birding with Eclipse and Andrea. We started at Shollenberger, then had lunch at Lily Kai, and then visited Willow Creek in the Laguna de Santa Rosa.

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August 20: Boggs Lake Ecological Reserve, Lake County, CA

Visited the field site today to excavate a few Western Pond Turtle (Actinemys marmorata) nests, and bring the eggs back to finish incubating in our lab.

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August 28: Boggs Lake Ecological Reserve, Lake County, CA

Another Western Pond Turtle egg collection excursion.

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9/18: Purisima Creek and Sierra Azul

We visited two sites for California Giant Salamander: Purisima Creek in Half Moon Bay, and Sierra Azul, near San Jose. We walked the creek at both locations, searching for salamanders.

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9/23: Shollenberger Park

After dropping my kiddo off with their dad for the weekend, I went on a solo birding adventure to Shollenberger Park. Loads of great birds (as usual), including American White Pelican, Northern Shoveler, Greater Yellowlegs and Pacific Golden Plover – a new bird for me!

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9/28: Sonoma State University

Experienced the Murphy’s Law of Photography today . . . walking on campus without your good camera you will see at least three dozen lovely birds, all of whom will sit cooperatively for more than enough time to get beautiful photos. American Bushtit (Psaltriparus minimus), Chestnut-backed Chickadee (Poecile rufescens), a Brown Creeper (Certhia americana). Darn it. Instead, I took macros of ferns and flowers today, since that’s all my little point and shoot was likely to handle with decent results.

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9/29: Cotati

Had some great views of a couple of gorgeous Cross Orbweaver (Araneus diadematus) near my house. I spent quite a bit of time trying to get some nice photos. (I was pleased with the results).

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10/1: Cotati

Thin-legged Wolf Spiders (Pardosa) – I found this little friend in the house.

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10/10: Cotati

Another Wolf Spider (Pardosa), this one seen wandering around on the water surface and plants in my barrel pond.

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10/11: Cotati

I was able to watch a pair of Threeband Slugs (Ambigolimax sp.) in what I assume was some mating behavior on my back porch.

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10/12: Raymond Burr Greenhouse, Sonoma State University

While monitoring some thistle plants that were being grown for an herbivory study, I found these quite small and adorable Mica Caps (Coprinellus micaceus) growing in a pot with some of the thistles.

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10/12: Cotati

I noticed this Orbweaver (maybe Spotted) clinging to the outside edge of my car window, hanging on for dear life while I was driving on the freeway; I think it had been resting on my rear view mirror or something before I started. So, I pulled off the freeway at the next offramp, and put this little friend in some blackberry bushes. I figured that would be much nicer than probably getting blown off by the wind on the freeway.

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10/22: Boggs Lake Ecological Reserve

Another Field Herpetology field trip to the turtle research site, to excavate a nest, and look for other wildlife.

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10/22: Cotati. This was an interesting sighting over an extended period of time. This Cross Orbweaver (Araneus diadematus) had constructed her web just above head-height on my front walkway, so I was able to watch her at my leisure for several days. During part of this time, she was being courted – very carefully – by a male hoping to mate with her (and get away with his life, I’m guessing). Mostly, he stayed near the edges of the web, tentatively tapping on threads. then he would move slowly toward her, testing the thread along the way, clearly ready to retreat if she became aggressive. It was super cool to watch. I wasn’t able to watch long enough to see the outcome, but hopefully things worked out.

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10/24: Sonoma State University. I took a short walk through the Environmental Technology Center garden. I took some photos of the ornamental plants, but also got some nice photos of a couple of gorgeous Fiery Skipper (Hylephila phyleus) and what may be a Moromorium ant.

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December 3: San Francisco Zoo, CA

Saw a wild Great Egret (Ardea alba egretta) in one of the stork enclosures while at the zoo for turtle measurement data collection.

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12/4: Galbreath Wildlands Preserve

The final Field Herpetology trip of the semester took us to Galbreath Wildlands Preserve in Mendocino County, primarily to look for Rough-skinned Newts.

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List of Species Seen

Birds

Other Wildlife and Plants

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