North Yuba Naturalist: Rain, and rain, and raining!

Pussy Willows (male) - Salix sp.

It's been a rainy week! The total rainfall for the past 7 days is 8.15"! That brings our total precipitation to around 45" to date. Yahoo! The snow level rose up to around 6,500' in elevation, and stayed high all week. As of last Thursday, there was 4' of snow on Yuba Pass, at 6,709' in elevation. 6 weeks ago, there was only 1' of snow at Yuba Pass!

Down in our neighborhood, the North Yuba River turned into a "Mocha Express", with fast-moving sediment-laden water! You could hear large boulders "clunking" in the river, as they were pushed around by the strong swift current! We are so lucky to get all this moisture! This weekend looks like the last of the wet weather for a while. A sunny break will be nice, but hopefully the storms will keep coming!

Turkey Vulture - Cathartes aura

Damp Birds!

During the heavy rainfall, this Turkey Vulture landed in a tree right outside my studio window! It was huge!!! I was so surprised to see it land. We don't usually have Turkey Vultures in our neighborhood. They usually live down in the foothills.

Turkey Vultures have a wingspan of 59", and a body length of 25"! They ARE huge! They eat carrion, which they detect with their keen sense of smell. Their immune system is exceptional, as they never contract botulism, anthrax, cholera or salmonella from the carrion! Their heads are featherless, which keeps the carrion from sticking to them! They usually eat alone, but will occasionally feed on a large carcass with a small group of vultures. Each vulture waits its turn to eat in these groups, as only one vulture eats at a time! They are fairly easy to distinguish in flight, by the lack of wing flapping that occurs! They can soar for hours moving from one updraft to another. Although they are usually solitary, they may roost together in small or large groups in the non-breeding season. Turkey Vultures do not kill any prey, they just eat critters that have been dead for awhile!

Sharp-shinned Hawk - Accipiter striatus

One afternoon this week, it stopped raining around 5:00 pm. I went out walking and saw several birds that were trying to dry-out in the last rays of the sun! I luckily spotted this Sharp-shinned Hawk up in a tree, spreading its tail feathers out to dry! What a beauty!

The Sharp-shinned Hawk is the smallest hawk in the US and Canada, measuring 11' in length with a wingspan of 23". They are forest predators, like the Northern Goshawk. The Cornell Lab of Ornithology states, "These raptors have distinctive proportions: long legs, short wings, and very long tails, which they use for navigating their deep-woods homes at top speed in pursuit of songbirds and mice." They use surprise attack as their main method of capture. They will eat birds as small as an Anna's Hummingbird, or as large as a Mountain Quail! They will pluck off most of the feathers of their prey before they eat them! They are common visitors to our area in winter and occasionally breed here. I hope to see it again in the near future!

Sharp-shinned Hawk - Accipiter striatus

Great Blue Heron - Ardea herodias

While I was watching the Sharp-shinned Hawk, this Great Blue Heron flew by! It landed in the top of a nearby tree! It looked to me like it was trying to catch the last of the sun's rays, before the evening chill settled in. I've seen a Great Blue Heron in our neighborhood all winter. I need to add it to our year-round resident list!

Great Blue Herons are large birds, with a body length of 26" and a wingspan of 36"! Their long legs add another 2' of height! They feed on fish, frogs, crayfish, aquatic insects, small mammals, other birds, amphibians and reptiles! They can hunt during the day and at night! That's amazing! They are the only herons found above the foothills! They are usually solitary, except during breeding season when they form nesting colonies!

High Water 3/22/18 - North Yuba River

The heavy rains caused the North Yuba River to rise 9.78" in 24 hours! The volume of the water rose to 14.7 kcfs (thousand cubic feet per second) and dropped to 1.5 kcfs in 24 hours! Wow! Waterfalls appeared along the highway within hours. I counted 19 new waterfalls on a 7 mile section of Highway 49! They only lasted for a few days after the rain diminished.

I spotted this lone, immature Common Goldeneye along the shore during the high water! I hadn't seen any Goldeneyes all winter, even though the field guide says "they regularly winter above the foothills of the western Sierra." They are diving ducks, and eat mainly mollusks, crustaceans, aquatic insects, fish, fish eggs, as well as the tubers and seeds of aquatic plants. When underwater, they hold their wings close to their bodies and paddle with their feet. Dives last up to a minute! They can fly up to 40 mph! Wow! They pair up during winter, and migrate to their breeding grounds, in Canada and Alaska, in the spring.

This week, the rushing sediment-filled river water must have made it difficult for these diving ducks to eat. Maybe they found some Indian Rhubarb tubers (Darmera peltata) to sustain them through the high water!

Common Goldeneye (immature) - Bucephala clangula

Gray Fox - Urocyon cinereoargenteus

Project FeederWatch Update!

Rainy and cold weather can be hard on local wildlife! I made sure to keep our bird feeding station stocked with seeds. Not only birds ate the seeds! Around 5:30 on Thursday, I saw this Gray Fox up on our bird feeding station, happily eating sunflower seeds! I watched him for about one minute before he noticed me! How fun! Chickarees and Gray Squirrels are regular feeder visitors, but I was surprised to see this Striped Skunk underneath the bird feeding station during the day! It was pretty little and scampered off before I could get a good photo! Soon we are going to start putting the seed in hanging feeders, not on a table, and out of a bear's reach. I think they'll be coming out of hibernation soon!

Chickaree - Tamiasciurus douglasii Striped Skunk - Mephitis mephitis

Dark-eyed Juncos (males) - Junco hyemalis & Spotted Towhee (male) - Pipilo maculatus

In addition to the regular birds that visit our feeder (Dark-eyed Juncos, Spotted Towhees, Pine Siskins), White-crowned Sparrows and Band-tailed Pigeons have arrived!

White-crowned Sparrow (immature, left - mature, right) Zonotrichia leucophrys gambelii

These particular subspecies of White-crowned Sparrows, are only stopping by on their way to their breeding grounds in Alaska and Canada! Both the immature and mature sparrows have distinctive pinkish-orange bills. Primarily seed-eaters, our feeder is a good place for them to forage!

Band-tailed Pigeon - Columba fasciata Pine Siskins - Carduelis pinus

Band-tailed Pigeons have returned to our neighborhood to breed, after spending the winter eating acorns in the foothills. Sunflower seeds are quite popular with them as well, and they are frequent visitors to our feeder!

The Pine Siskins are still visiting our feeder, but not as many as a few weeks ago when it was snowy. They have become one of my favorite birds! I love to watch them swoop and land in unison! I'm not sure if they'll be here throughout the spring and summer, but I'll keep watch!

Silk Tassel Bush flowers (male, left - female, right) - Garrya fremontii

What's Blooming?

The male Silk Tassel Bush I discovered a month ago, is now in full bloom! I haven't found a female bush locally, but I spotted one about 7 miles up Highway 49! It too was in full bloom! Both plants produce tassels of flowers, but they are distinctly different. I have no idea how the one in our neighborhood got here! They are incredibly complex, beautiful flowers, aren't they?

The Pussy Willows (at the top of the page and below) are still in bloom as well. In fact they have a batch of buds that aren't even open yet! This year I've noticed that they stagger their bloom over a month or more! Once the weather warms up, the insects will be happy to feed on them. The insect below looks like it got caught out in the rain! I wonder if it survived.