4/1/2022
10:00 – 13:00
Distance traveled: 1.5 km

Today, I took my Vertebrate Biology students up to the university’s Fairfield Osborn Preserve to survey part of the preserve’s network of coverboards, and to explore the creek with SSU alumna Julie Wittmann, who is now the Community Naturalist Program Coordinator for the preserve. The coverboards weren’t particularly productive, but by the end of our visit, I don’t think anyone left disappointed. 

March 28, 2022
09:30 to 11:30

Today, the Sonoma Land Trust hosted my Restoration Ecology class in a field trip to view the various phases of salt marsh restoration at Sears Point. It was a gorgeous day, and we learned a lot about the history and ecology of this place as we walked to the end of the levee and back. I another little surprise: one of our trip leaders, Neal Ramus, was an undergrad at SSU at same time I was, and it was good to reconnect. 

March 26, 2022
17:00 – 17:45

This afternoon, my new Canon Rebel arrived, so I took a short afternoon walk to give it a test drive.” I went through Draper Park, and then headed east on the bike path. I only walked a few blocked before I turned around, but it did give me the chance to see and hear a few birds. In addition to the birds, I saw a couple of friendly neighborhood cats.

March 11, 2022
9:00 to 10:30

Vertebrate Biology “field trip” on campus, to practice our birding skills. We had a surprisingly successful day, seeing and hearing lots of birds, and also finding a turtle shell (a slider, I think), by one of the lakes.

March 4, 2022
09:30 to 11:30

This Vertebrate Biology field trip was designed to expose students to some of the basics of birding, and get experience identifying some common local bird species. We arrived at 9:30 a.m. to find the weather overcast (but not quite raining),and some landscapers using noisy equipment near the ponds. We spent about two hours walking the paths around some of the ponds, a total distance of 1.5 km.

April 25, 2019
Fairfield Osborn Preserve, Sonoma County, California
1300 – 1545, sunny

This year, I took Field Biology up to the preserve a bit later in the semester, and we did see a slightly different set of organisms, mostly because, unlike last year, we were actually able to get into Copeland Creek to look for the amphibians that live there. Again this semester, I had a couple of preserve naturalists in class, who are permitted to handled some of the listed species onsite, which turned out to be very handy.

February 23, 2019
1200 – 1330; sunny

Field data collection trip for a Watershed Year. I spent most of the day supervising a group of students collecting water quality data in the little creek near the parking lot. I did manage to find a few critters to show the students, including a Pacific Chorus Frog, California Sulphur-winged Grasshopper, California Slender Salamander, and a Jerusalem Cricket. While flipping rocks, I also found a gorgeous juvenile Western Skink, with the most beautiful blue tail. (One of my photos of this individual is still the wallpaper on my iPad). I also found a dead Western Fence Lizard, although it was in excellent condition otherwise, and had no obvious injuries, so I surmise that it must have only just died right before I found it.

I also saw a Black-tailed Jackrabbit, Red-tailed Hawk, Spotted Towhee, and possibly Bewick’s Wren. A Turkey Vulture and American Kestrel were seen while driving on Lichau Road.

May 10, 2018
1:30 to 3:00 p.m.

Instead of a final exam, I assessed my Field Biology students’ naturalist knowledge by hosting a BioBlitz on the Sonoma State campus. For 90 minutes, we all tried to observe and identify as many species as possible on campus. I worked solo, while they worked in teams, and we were all competing against one another. I think there was one team who found more species than I did. (Of course, this still means I win, since I can take credit for having taught them about local natural history hahahaha).

March 15, 2018

The day of our Field Biology trip to the Osborn Preserve was rainy and a bit cold (but at least it didn’t snow on us, as it had when we were at Sonoma Mountain Ranch). We were undaunted by the weather, though, as I had a cohort of extremely motivated (and knowledgeable) students, including some folks who had gone through the university’s Naturalist Training Program. We were ostensibly here to survey the coverboards on the property (which we did), but we spent a lot of time making more general observations. We were only there for a few hours, and it drizzled on us most of the time, but we saw loads of great stuff, across a wide variety of taxonomic groups.

February 24, 2018
1100 – 1330

This was a Watershed Year (Science 120) field trip, to practice collecting various types of environmental data. I didn’t see a lot of wildlife, but I did get some nice pictures of flora.

November 16, 2016

Thanks to the generosity of Tony Nelson from the Sonoma Land Trust, my Restoration Ecology class was able to set up four wildlife cameras along the creek, to begin to investigate the diversity of animals – particularly mammals – on campus. Not only did Tony loan us the cameras, but he came on campus to teach us how to install them. The cameras were set up for only 4 days – November 11 through 15 – so we didn’t document many species, but we did get some great photos. And for a first outing, I’d say it was successful. I’m looking forward to longer sampling periods in the future.

February 20, 2015
0800 – 1300, sunny

Field trip to the Fairfield Osborn Preserve, with A Watershed Year freshman experience class. I hiked up to Kelly Pond with a group of students so they could collect field data for a research project. It’s quite a hike up to the pond, which is near the northern end of the preserve. Covered with Azolla Water Fern, the pond is a peaceful and lovely place to visit. The pond is also surrounded by Bulrush (maybe California), Coast Live Oak and California Bay. I also saw Spreading Rush and Dendroalsia Moss at this location.

June 2 to July 3, 2012

These are wildlife sightings made during my Western Pond Turtle field season

May 6, 2012

Nicole and I went on a field trip today with the local California Native Plant Society chapter, although the site we visited was already very familiar to me – it’s our Western Pond Turtle field site in Lake County, California! It was different being up there and not looking for turtles. I learned some things about plants (which is good; I’m ridiculously ignorant about plants), saw and heard a bunch of great birds (including Pileated Woodpecker and MOUNTAIN QUAIL! Only the second time in my whole life I’ve ever seen Mountain Quail).

April 3 and 4, 2012
Overcast and drizzly

This week, I took two sections of introductory biology majors up to the Preserve to make some wildlife observations. Our primary goal was to survey some trees for Sudden Oak Death, but I never go to the Preserve without the supplemental goal of making wildlife observations, especially since there are always at least a few students who tell me that this trip is the first time they’ve ever gone hiking in some sort of “natural” or wilderness area.

March 31, 2012
Late evening

Nicole and I had the opportunity to go on this California Red-legged Frog survey as part of a workshop on local endangered and threatened species offered by the Laguna de Santa Rosa. I’ll just let the pictures speak for themselves. (In the photos with three frogs, the one in the center is an American Bullfrog).

January 20, 2012
Rainy, after dark

I spent the evening helping graduate student Tracy Bain with her California Tiger Salamander field study. We were recording data on salamanders as they approached Stony Point, preparing to cross the road to access the vernal pool where they breed. Stony Point Road (near Meecham) is terrifying, especially in the rain, because the cars so by so fast! As you might imagine, this is often disastrous for the little tiger salamanders trying to cross the road in the dark, in the rain. In order to reduce road mortality in this critically endangered species, a series of three tunnels were installed under the road, along with driftnet fencing, in the hope that the salamanders would use them to cross safely under the road. On this night, I was assisting with data collection to see if the salamanders were, in fact, using the tunnels.

December 4, 2011

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