Out of Town

Lesser Yellowlegs - Tringa flavipes

I'm on the road this week, so no time to blog.
Check back next week for the latest natural history news from my neighborhood.
Thanks!

Your questions and comments are greatly appreciated!
Please email me at northyubanaturalist@gmail.com

Local Corvids

Common Raven - Corvus corax

Most of the songbirds and waterfowl have left for the winter. Our neighborhood is seemingly quiet and still, due to their absence. However, the year-round residents are now capturing my attention, mainly the corvids! 

As a group, corvids are uncommonly smart. A bird's brain, in general, has a small, poorly developed cerebral cortex. Intelligence in mammal brains is associated with the cerebral cortex. However, birds have developed a part of their forebrain, the hyperstriatum (which mammals lack), as their chief organ of intelligence! Smarter birds have a larger hyperstriatum. Additionally, the part of the brain that deals with memory is the hippocampus. Birds that have a large spatial memory have a large hippocampus. A corvid's brain has a large hyperstriatum and a large hippocampus!  That's probably why they are so smart!

Common Raven - Corvus corax

Ravens are thought to possibly be the smartest of all Corvids!  The smarter the bird, the more latitude it has to modify its inherited patterns.  Ravens are capable of learning innovative solutions to newly encountered problems!  They have been known to place nuts (e.g. walnuts) on a road and then retrieve them, after cars have driven over them and cracked the shells!

We have two Ravens that live in our canyon, but not right in the immediate area.  They live here year-round.  I watch them fly by daily as they head down to the highway, from their distant up-canyon roosting area.  Occasionally they will perch in a nearby tree.  The highway is a good source of food for these ravens, as roadkill provides carrion.  Ravens mate for life, and family members usually stick together for years.  I haven't ever seen these Ravens with any young.  I wonder why!      

Steller's Jay - Cyanocitta stelleri

Steller's Jays are also in the Corvid family.  There are about 16 of them that live here year-round.  Every morning they really squawk to each other.  Sometimes they sound quite alarmed!  They are very inquisitive, and are usually the first to notice anything new in the area.  They eat seeds, insects, fruit, garbage, carrion, and small mammals!  Lately I've been watching them fly by with Live Oak acorns in their beaks!  Yesterday, I heard what I thought was a woodpecker hammering on a tree trunk.  It turned out to be a Steller's Jay pecking on an acorn, that he was holding against the top of a branch!  I didn't know that they ate acorns!     

Yellow-billed Magpie - Pica nuttalli

The Yellow-billed Magpie that has been living in our neighborhood for 3 months is also a corvid!  Its residence here is an anomaly for a magpie.  Usually these birds inhabit the Central Valley, and valleys of the Coast Range, year-round in California.  Oak savannah is their preferred habitat, with open pastures or cultivated fields, and orchards.  They also usually roost communally with up to 800 other birds!  So far it is the only one in our area!   

Yellow-billed Magpie - Pica nuttalli

In the morning it likes to chatter from the sunny top of a tree.  It is a loud talker, louder than any other bird in the neighborhood!  I love hearing it!  I am really hoping this magpie sticks around, but I'm not sure how it will survive a snowy winter.

    

Petroglyphs in the Lakes Basin!

My friends, Rod and Rochelle took me cross-country to a petroglyph site up in the Lakes Basin this week!  WOW!  It was so exciting!  The petroglyphs were shallowly carved and pecked on a horizontal slab of bedrock, right next to a creek bed.  There were about 15 different designs on the site!  The only other petroglyphs I have seen in the Lakes Basin are the ones in the Lakes Basin Campground, that are accompanied by a USFS interpretive display.  Another local area that is known to have petroglyphs is near Hawley Meadows. My friends and I hiked out there to see them, but had to turn back before we found them.  Hopefully next time we'll see them!

I asked my friend, local historian/archeologist Hank Meals, about the origin of the petroglyphs.  He explains it eloquently in the following paragraphs.

"In the higher reaches of the Feather, Yuba, Bear and American Rivers are symbols pecked into bedrock by ancient hunters and gatherers. They are typically found above 5000 feet with motifs that are distinctive and reoccurring. There are some recognizable elements, such as animal prints, but most are abstract symbols, at least to us. Many of the petroglyph panels are in dramatic settings with expansive views.

There is no way to accurately date the petroglyphs but occasional artifacts found at the sites date from 4,000 to 1,500 years ago. No one claims to know what the abstract glyphs mean including contemporary Nisenan and Washoe people. If, in fact, they do know why should they tell us? Theories about their meaning include boundary markers, maps or places to conjure, or summon, hunting luck/magic." 

Hank Meals has hiked, photographed, studied, and written about our local area for many years!  His knowledge of the area is incredible!  He has published several books on the local trails and their history, such as Yuba Trails (1995), Yuba Trails 2 (2001), and The River (2008).  He has a blog, yubatreadhead.blogspot.com, in which he shares his experience and knowledge of this area.  Check it out!  It's fascinating!

 Cedar Waxwings -  Bombycilla cedrorum

Surprise Visitors!

Late one afternoon I noticed a bunch of birds in a mistletoe clump near the top of a dead cedar tree, eating the berries!  They were backlit and hard to indentify.  Later, when I looked at the images on my computer, I was surprised to see that they were Cedar Waxwings!!!  I have only seen them a few times before in the Spring, eating the local cherries!

It turns out that Cedar Waxwings can be found throughout California during the winter!  They travel in flocks, ranging from less than 10 to several 100 in size!  Being "frugivores" they exist almost totally on fruit, mainly in the form of local berries.  They eat madrone, mistletoe, juniper, mountain ash, hawthorn, dogwood, strawberries, raspberries, serviceberries, and cedar berries.  Cedar berries are their main food in the winter, but are not found on cedar trees. They are misnamed. They are actually the berries of the Eastern Red Juniper, which mainly grow on the east side of the Sierra. In summer, Cedar Waxwings supplement their fruit diet with insects and some flowers.

Their name is derived from their preference for cedar berries in winter, as well as the waxy tips of their inner flight feathers.  It is suggested that the bright red color of the waxy tips may attract mates.  No other function of the waxy tips has been determined!  It was so interesting to see them in our neighborhood!  I had no idea that they might be around.  I'll keep a closer watch this winter! 

Chickaree or Douglas Squirrel -  Tamiasciurus douglasii

Lately, this little Chickaree has been busy collecting walnuts for the winter, from my neighbor's tree.  It is such an acrobat!  Usually when it sees me, it stops moving and holds perfectly still.  I watched it for several minutes, and it finally moved!  It lay down on the branch, perhaps in an attempt to become less visible. 

Chickaree or Douglas Squirrel -  Tamiasciurus douglasii

 I love how its hind toes wrapped around the branch!  Their hind legs are double-jointed, which is one of the reasons they're such good climbers!

Convergent Lady Beetles - Hippodamia convergens

The Ladybugs are Back!

Every year 1,000's of these Lady Beetles or Ladybugs converge to mate in our neighborhood.  They remain here throughout the winter and return to lower elevations in the Spring, when temperatures warm up.  Like most over-wintering insects, they replace any water in their body fluids (hemolymph) with an anti-freeze during the winter.  This prevents any frost from forming within their cells and causing damage.  

There aren't many predators of ladybugs, as they secrete a noxious fluid that makes them unpalatable.  However, my neighbor, Tammy, has watched dragonflies catch them again and again, near her pond!  Wow! 

 What do trout do when the river temperature drops?

What kind of uncommon birds are these?

Where are the foxes?

The track I posted last week was a Black Bear track.

I found it in a dry lake bed in the Lakes Basin.

Check back next week for the answers to these questions and more!

If all of a sudden you haven't been getting email notices of my blog being published, just sign up again on my blog.  I don't know why you got "unsubscribed".  It's some kind of problem with Blogspot.com and/or FeedBurner.com.  I apologize for this glitch!

Your questions and comments are greatly appreciated!

Please email me at northyubanaturalist@gmail.com

Lakes Basin Beauty

Pileated Woodpecker (male) - Dryocopus pileatus

We went up to the Lakes Basin for my husband's annual birthday picnic this week.  Just as we started to hike up the Grassy Lake trail, we heard a woodpecker knocking on a tree trunk.  I ran back to see what kind of woodpecker it was, and was thrilled to see a Pileated Woodpecker hammering on a dead Lodgepole Pine!  We've only seen these woodpeckers a few times in the Lakes Basin.  This time I was able to take several photos as it chiseled away at the tree trunk! WOW!!!

 

Pileated Woodpecker (male) - Dryocopus pileatus

These woodpeckers, measuring 16"-19" in length, are the largest woodpeckers in most of North America!  They live in coniferous forests from 2,000'-7,5000', but are uncommon in our area.  They are non-migratory birds, and live year-round in their chosen habitat.  The name pileated comes from the latin word "pileatus" meaning "capped", and refers to their red crest.  The one I saw was a male.  Females have a red cap, but not as extensive, and do not have a red stripe on the side of their head.  Males and females usually pair for life, and will defend their territory year-round. At night they will roost singly, or with other species of "roosters", in tree cavities!

Pileated Woodpeckers peck tree trunks and stumps to find their prey of carpenter ants and wood-boring beetle larvae.  They will also eat grasshoppers, termites, cockroaches, flies, fruit, and nuts.  Their tongues are long, sometimes 4" in length, sticky, bristled, and recessed back over the top of their skull when not in use!!!  These long tongues are used to retrieve insect prey from inside the trunk of a tree.  When searching for prey they usually peck 20 times per second, with a total of 8,000 to 12,000 pecks per day!!!  Their skull is structurally reinforced to spread the impact force of constant pecking, and is composed of strong but compressible sponge-like bone.  To prevent the movement of the brain during pecking, their brains are surrounded with minimal cerebral fluid. 

Woodpecker feet are "zygodactyl" with 2 toes in front and 2 toes in back. (Most birds are "anisodactyl" and have 3 toes in front and 1 toe in the back) This zygodactyl arrangement, combined with their stiff tail feathers, helps brace woodpeckers against tree trunks while they are pecking. They also have thick, sharp, talons to grip the wood. To protect their eyes from flying wood chips, their eyes have a thick nictitating (blinking) membrane.  Their nostrils are usually slits, to keep out debris, protected by specialized feathers.  What incredibly adapted birds!  How lucky I was to watch this beautiful bird!!!

Sandhill Cranes - Antigone canadensis

We were also lucky to hear and see these Sandhill Cranes flying overhead!  We always hear them before we see them.  The field guides describe their call as, "a loud, resonant, wooden-sounding bugle with rattling or rolling quality" or "a trumpeting, rattling gar-oo-oo, audible for more than a mile."  I think their loud call sounds rubbery, like water balloons being rubbed together!  Regardless of the description, their calls are LOUD and unmistakable!  If you hear them at this time of year, look up and watch them flying west!  

The shorter days and cooler nights prompt many species of birds to migrate to their winter quarters.  These large cranes (almost 4' tall) are flying down from their nesting territories in southeastern Oregon, northeastern California, northwestern Nevada, and Sierra Valley.  They will spend the winter in the Sacramento and San Joaquin Valleys of California, where they congregate in the tens of thousands!  I have yet to go and see them in their winter home.  Hopefully, I will go to the delta this winter.

Springtime - Sandhill Cranes in Sierra Valley  

(adults - possible mated pair) - Antigone canadensis

Aspens - Populus tremuloides

We also enjoyed the small, beautiful, groves of Aspen trees in the Lakes Basin that day! Some trees are still green, but many are turning a gorgeous golden-yellow. They will probably last for about another week, so get up there if you haven't lately! Such beauty!

We saw a lot of young short aspens sprouting in one section of a meadow. It turns out that these saplings didn't grow from seeds, but rather they sprouted from the root tips of adult aspens. Each tree grows from a common root system, expanded by root-sprouting seedlings. A grove of aspens is also a group of "clones". The trees in a group of "clones" are genetically identical. One clonal aspen colony in Utah is the oldest living organism in the world, at perhaps 80,000 years old!!! Wow!

A grove of aspen trees may produce millions of seeds, but not many are viable. Pollination is inhibited by the fact that aspens are either male or female, and large stands are usually all clones of the same sex. Even if pollinated, the small seeds can only survive for a short time as they lack a stored food source or a protective coating.

Bare Winter Aspens - Grassy Lake

 Populus tremuloides

Long Lake Sparkles - 10/11/18

On another day last week, my friend B.J. and I hiked cross country to Long Lake.  It was an incredibly windy, clear-view day, with beautiful clouds passing by!  The wind bejeweled the lake with sparkles! We were mesmerized by the movement and light!  I took lots of photos, but the two below were the most interesting!

In this photo I focused on the pine needles, 

with the sparkles out of focus in the background.

In this photo I focused on the sparkles, 

with the pine needles out of focus in the foreground.  

When I looked at the image on my camera, I was surprised to see sparkly concentric circles where the pine needles had been!  It looked like the painted circles around the stars in Van Gogh's "Starry Night" painting.  Wow!  I have no idea why this happened, but it also happened on my friend's camera!!!  If you can explain why this happened please let me know!  My email address is at the bottom of this blog.

 Northern Flicker (female - male) 

Colaptes auratus

Neighborhood Update

 Down in my neighborhood several Northern Flickers have recently shown up!  Measuring 12.5" in length, they are the second largest woodpecker in North America.  Like the Pileated Woodpecker, they are sexually dimorphic in appearance. The red stripe on the male's head is absent in the female.  Unlike other woodpeckers, they usually forage on the ground for ants, beetles, moths, snails, flies, larvae, seed and berries!  They probably won't spend the winter here, and will migrate to lower elevations as winter approaches.

Both the Northern Flicker and the Pileated Woodpecker communicate  by "drumming" on trees in loud regular patterns.  These drummings may possibly attract a mate, declare a territory, or send out an alarm or warning!  Locally, the Northern Flickers like to drum on my neighbor's chimney cap!

  Northern Flicker foraging on the ground (female) - Colaptes auratus

 California Tent Moth -  Malacosoma californicum

These translucent tents are made from the silk of California Tent Moth caterpillars.  The tents are created for the protection of the caterpillars, while they eat the leaves of their host tree.  In some areas of North America these caterpillars have created a lot of damage to trees, especially aspens.  Luckily in our area their population is not at an infestation level.  We see them every year, but not in huge concentrations.   

Woolly Bear Caterpillar - Pyrrharctia isabella       Praying Mantis - Mantis religiosa

The Woolly Bear caterpillar is the offspring of the Isabella Tiger Moth, which I have never seen!  I've seen several of the caterpillars down in our garden lately.  They will overwinter as caterpillars, emerge in the Spring, pupate, mate, and then lay eggs!  Although folklore states that there is a correlation between the width of the black stripes and the type of winter that approaches, there is no correlation. The amount of black varies with the age of the caterpillar and the moisture levels where it developed! 

I also found another Praying Mantis in our garden this week!  Bugguide.org identified it for me as a non-native european mantis, Mantis religiosa, like the beige one I found a month or so ago.  Since this mantis was green, it made me wonder if Praying Mantis can change color to fit their surroundings. Here's an article from the bulletinofinsectology.org that explains it thoroughly.

"Colour change and habitat preferences in Mantis religiosa" 

by Roberto Battiston & Paolo Fontana 

"In summary...hot sun, low humidity and intense light of summer promote the production of brown ground vegetation and brown mantids, more moderate temperatures promote higher humidity and low light intensity promotes green vegetation and mantids. But probably two other factors explain this colour distribution: predators detect and eat mantids that do not match the changing environmental colour and the mantids possibly actively prefer microhabitats that match their own coloration. The colour of the substrate in the field should be considered as a co-factor of the success of this strategy of M. religiosa but not its main direct cause."

 Are the ladybugs back?

Where are the foxes?

Are the Mergansers still here?

Is the Magpie still here?

Whose track is this?

 Check back next week for the answers to these questions and more!

If all of a sudden you haven't been getting email notices of my blog being published, just sign up again on my blog.  I don't know why you got "unsubscribed".  It's some kind of problem with Blogspot.com and/or FeedBurner.com.  I apologize for this glitch!

Your questions and comments are greatly appreciated!

Please email me at northyubanaturalist@gmail.com

Rain at Last!

North Yuba River 10/3/18

We got about 1" of rain this week! Yahoo! It had been about 120 days since any rain had fallen in our area!!! Most of the rain fell on Wednesday, but a little more fell on Friday evening! What a relief! Now the ever-present danger of wildfire has been suppressed! The air was infused with the scent of pines, firs, sap, oak leaves, and wet earth. Nature's camphor! It smelled wonderful! Hopefully more rain will come again soon.

Unknown species of frogs

This week, along the edge of the river, there were many newly-matured little frogs.

 My neighbor counted 21 tiny frogs in this one slow-moving section of the river! 

  

Sierra Garter Snake - Thamnophis couchii

The number of frogs decreased rapidly over the next few days, probably because of the presence of several aquatic snakes in the same area.  We saw several young Mountain Garter Snakes and Sierra Garter Snakes in the river, near the frogs!  Both of these types of snakes prey on frogs and tadpoles!

Northern Pacific Rattlesnake - Crotalus oreganus oreganus

I was really surprised to find this dead Northern Pacific Rattlesnake on the highway this week!  It had been run-over by a car.  Apparently, most snakes can remain active if temperatures don't drop below 60 degrees.  Our daytime temperatures were in the 60's and 70's this week, but our nights were in the 40's.  Perhaps this one was out  late, and got too cold before it got off the road.  In the Fall, as temperatures drop, most snakes find an underground burrow in which to spend the winter.  Some snakes, such as Garter Snakes and Rattlesnakes, congregate in large groups in a hibernacleum, or underground burrow!!!  As temperatures drop, snakes enter into a state of "brumation", a cold-blooded version of hibernation, characterized by a period of sluggishness or torpor. 

Sharp-shinned Hawk - Accipiter striatus

Down in the Garden!

This Sharp-shinned Hawk has been hanging around our garden for the past week or so!!!  It likes to perch in the dead top of an Alder tree and watch all the birds that are busy eating the sunflower seeds!  Small songbirds are the main prey of this hawk species, and there are lots of songbirds in our garden right now!  I photographed a Sharp-shinned Hawk this past spring (see March 24 blog), drying its feathers off in the sun on the top of a bare tree.  It just might be the same one, but I can't be sure!

It was so little (11" in length) that I initially thought it might be a type of falcon.  I wasn't sure, so I posted the photo above on iNaturalist.org.  Withing 24 hours, 3 different birders identified it as a Sharp-shinned Hawk!  iNaturalist.org is an incredible resource.  It is also really easy to create a free account for yourself.  Start an account, post your own photos, and become a "citizen scientist"!  People all over the world are contributing photos and data to iNaturalist.org.  Check it out!

Golden-crowned Sparrow (male)   -  California Towhee (adult)

  Zonotrichia atricapilla  -  Pipilo crissalis

All these seed eating birds travel through our neighborhood during their Fall migration.  Most of them will spend the winter on the coast of California or as far south as Baja California.  I so look forward to their return every Fall!  New to me this year is the California Towhee!  I never have seen one of them before!  Although they are common to the lower elevations of California, they aren't seen that often in our area!   It was a bit larger than the sparrows, an overall gray-brown in color, with a lovely apricot blush on its face and undertail!  

White-crowned Sparrow (adults)   -   White-crowned Sparrow (1st winter)

  Zonotrichia leucophrys

The color difference in the markings of an adult White-crowned Sparrow, and a 1st-winter White-crowned Sparrow is amazing!  When I first watched them I thought they were two different species!  There are still LOTS of sunflower seed heads in our garden!  I wonder what other species of seed-eaters will show up!

Mule Deer - Odocoileus hemionus ssp?

Mammal Update

There is still a lot of bear scat in our neighborhood, but I still haven't seen one in person yet!  I did however see this Mule Deer grazing along the side of the road!  It looks like she is in her winter coat.  In the summer, their coats are reddish brown in color.  You don't often see a female by herself.  Usually females travel in small groups.  Perhaps the others were nearby, and I just didn't see them.  This is still the breeding season, so hopefully I'll see some bucks soon!

Western Gray Squirrel - Chickaree 

Sciurus griseus - Tamiasciurus douglasii

The "tail" photo I posted last week was a Chickaree's tail.  Chickarees are also called Pine Squirrels or Douglas Squirrels.  Both the Chickarees and the Western Gray Squirrels are busy storing food for the winter.  Unlike Chipmunks they remain active all winter, living mainly off stored food.  They will also actively search for food such as seeds, nuts, acorns, berries, fungi, and tree buds.  It's been fun watching them run around our neighborhood carrying large walnuts in their mouths!

Dry meadow off the Mt. Elwell trail - 10/4/18

Lakes Basin Update!

I've been hiking a bunch up in the Lakes Basin area these past two weeks!  I went to Jamison Lake, White Rock Lake, Helgrammite Lake, Round Lake, Lunch Creek, and Maiden Lake!  Although it is not a spectacular year for fall color, the recent rain will help the color linger longer.  The meadows are golden and rimmed with scarlet Dwarf Bilberry.  The Bracken Ferns have turned a tawny, bronzy yellow.  The low-growing Dogbane is a brilliant sunflower-yellow against the ground. The Mountain Ash has uncharacteristically dropped its red berries already, but its leaves are a golden yellow-orange!  Most of the marshy lakes are rimmed with golden grasses and rushes, and edged by brilliant red Dwarf Bilberry.  The few stands of Quaking Aspens are beginning to turn yellow and sound heavenly!  Beautiful dry umbels, of flowers gone to seed, line the trailsides and roadways.  If you haven't gone up there lately you should!  The colors will probably last another week or so, unless we get more rain. It's gorgeous!

Bracken Fern - Quaking Aspen - Bitter Dogbane

 Pteridium aquilinum - Populus tremuloides - Apocynum androsaemifolium

Hidden Lake - 10/4/18

Dwarf Bilberry  -  Dry seedheads  -  Mountain Ash

Vaccinium caespitosum  -  various species  -  Sorbus californica

Maiden Lake 10/4/18

What kind of birds are these?

Where are the foxes?

American Dippers and Great Blue Herons are both year-round residents, 

and live along and in the river.

These moths, and other insects, will be discussed next week!

 Check back next week for the answers to these questions and more!

If all of a sudden you haven't been getting email notices of my blog being published, just sign up again on my blog.  I don't know why you got "unsubscribed".  It's some kind of problem with Blogspot.com and/or FeedBurner.com.  I apologize for this glitch!

Your questions and comments are greatly appreciated!

Please email me at northyubanaturalist@gmail.com