June 1, 2022

I had the good fortune to spend a few days at the Bodega Marine Laboratory for a workshop (for The Virtual Field project). I’d not been to the marine lab before, and I was looking forward to seeing the facility, but to be honest I was most excited about the promise of seeing the wildlife on site. 

May 20, 2022
09:00 to 11:30

In lieu of a final exam on the last day of the semester, I host a BioBlitz on campus for my Vertebrate Biology class. On this day, we spent 90 minutes on campus identifying as many species as possible, and then went back to the classroom to formalize our lists. The students are able to work in teams of up to 3 people, and all teams are competing not just against one another, but also against me, using a point system to determine the score. We can use any and all identification guides, and both visual and auditory identifications are acceptable.

May 15, 2022
12:30 to 2:00 p.m.

On the way home from Zzyzx, the folks in my van decided to make a stop part of the way home, to see if we could find some desert tortoises at the sanctuary in California City. It was a bit of a drive off the highway that took us away from anything resembling civilization. When we arrived at the preserve, the facilities consisted of two trailers (one for the naturalist, and the other was the giftshop). The naturalist was super friendly, and eager to give us some tips about where we might be able to find tortoises (although she hadn’t seen one in the recent past). It was quite warm – probably around 100° F – so we covered up and stocked up on water, and headed out into the desert landscape.

May 15, 2022
07:00

Our last morning in the desert, several of us got up early to check a series of pitfall traps that had been set the night before. A few very cool animals found their way into the traps, and we were able to get some great photos before releasing them to go on their way. The traps were set up in transects, and I think we ended up checking 40 or 50 traps. Most of them were empty, but here are the things that we did see.

May 14, 2022
13:00

Our next stop was the Mid-Hills Campground in the Mojave National Preserve, where we explored a higher-elevation pinyon pine and juniper forest.

May 14, 2022
21:00 – 23:00

It was our last night in the desert, so of course, there would be night driving as soon as the sun went down. We’d hoped for a bit more action than the previous night, since the temperature had been much warmer today than yesterday. This didn’t really pan out, but in spite of not finding a huge array of wildlife, what we saw was utterly amazing.

May 13, 2022
07:30 to 23:30

On our first full day in the desert, after breakfast I had some time while everyone else was getting ready to head out to the bajada site, so I took a 45-minute walk through an area I’d enjoyed on my first visit here: south past the pool, out through the mesquite trees and along the edge of the alkali flat/dry lake bed. I’d explored this area on my previous visit with good results (Lucy’s warbler!), and was excited to visit it again. No Lucy’s today, but I did see a wide diversity of birds, including at least one I’d not seen before. 

May 6, 2022
11:30 to 13:30
Distance traveled: 2 km

After we were finished at the Palomarin Field Station, while most of the Vertebrate Biology class headed home, a small group of us decided to make a stop at a different part of the Point Reyes National Seashore to forage for mushrooms. We parked at the Bear Valley Visitor Center and took a hike along the Morgan Trail, a detour that only took us about 10 minutes off of the route we were taking home This turned out to be an excellent decision. We didn’t see as many different types of mushrooms as my companions had hoped, but we saw LOADS of other wonderful things: birds galore, some lovely native plants, and a few mammals, as well. I made good use of the Merlin app on my phone to help me sort out the multitude of birds who were singing in the woods (all identifications were verified by me once I returned home).

May 6, 2022
8:30 to 11:00

After an hour and a half drive to Bolinas, at the southern end of the Point Reyes National Seashore, my Vertebrate Biology students and I arrived at the Palomarin Field Station at 8:30 a.m., where folks from Point Blue Conservation Science had graciously agreed to show us the ropes of mist netting and bird banding. Up on the mountain, it was foggy and just a little bit drizzly, but not too cold – not great weather for seeing birds (or for catching birds in the mist nets).

May 2, 2022
10:00 to 13:00

My Restoration Ecology class visited various sites in Marin County today on a field trip where Sarah Phillips introduced us to some of her salmonid restoration sites. Sarah is an alumna of SSU, and now works with the Marin Resource Conservation District. 

April 25, 2022
10:00 to 11:15

While my Restoration Ecology students were doing vegetation monitoring along the creek, I was able to make some wildlife observations. Many of the birds were initially identified by their songs, with the help of the Merlin app. 

April 18, 2022
9:30 to 13:30

Today, I took Restoration Ecology students out to the Laguna de Santa Rosa, for a tour hosted by Brent Reed. We started at the Laguna de Santa Rosa Foundation headquarters, and later walked on the Laguna de Santa Rosa trail. 

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.