Stormy Weather

North Yuba River - 11/24/18

It started raining on Wednesday afternoon this week and it POURED for 1.5 days straight! According to the statistics at https://www.cnrfc.noaa.gov/ we received 3.43" of rain during this storm! More rain is forecasted for this coming week, with snow possible next Saturday! The "water year" just began on October 1, 2018, and will end on September 30, 2019. I really hope this water year is a wet one! 

The rain has gotten rid of all the local smoke and has hopefully put out the "Camp" fire in Butte County. What a miracle it is to get this desperately needed rain! We are SO grateful! The river has risen and is murky brown in color. The flow rate has gone up from the extremely slow 130 cubic feet per second (cfs) to slightly better at 358 cfs. In comparison, the river flow last April was over 10,000 cfs!!! You can check the daily flow records (past and present) of the North Yuba River at https://waterdata.usgs.gov/ca/nwis/uv?site_no=11413000.  I'll keep you posted on future North Yuba River flow rates.  Hopefully, the cubic-feet-per-second numbers will continue to rise!

I wandered for hours in my neighborhood photographing the rain-filled beauty!  I skirted lots of puddles, watched thousands of ripples form, saw rivulets running in previously dry creek beds, and got drenched!  It was fabulous!  I also looked up-close at hanging water drops.  The liquid drops act as miniature spherical lenses, and show an inverted image of the background!  How beautiful!

Lingering fall leaves were saturated by the rain and luminous in color!  Although the locusts and alders have shed most of their leaves, the willows, cherries, walnuts and California Black Oaks still have quite a few!   

North Yuba River - 11/23/18

The rain and mist made the fall colors in the river canyon glow!  

The wet seed pods of the Black Locusts were a lovely, deep-orange hue!

Northern Flicker - Common Raven

Colaptes auratus - Corvus corax

On Saturday morning the rain abated and the sun came out for a while.  I happened to see these two birds in the same tree that morning!  The Flicker was just resting, but the Raven was fluffing out its feathers to dry in the sun!  Such beauty! 

Anna's Hummingbird (male) - Calypte anna

Project FeederWatch Update

I watched this little hummer several days in a row down by our bird feeders.  The pouring rain didn't seem to bother him at all!  He sat out in the open while it poured!  Every once in a while he would shake himself off.  Apparently birds do okay in the rain.  Their feathers are good at shedding water.  If it's not too cold, they can keep themselves warm by puffing up their feathers with pockets of air.  They are, after all, the original makers of down coats!  Problems arise if temperatures are near freezing and heavy rain is falling.  Then if a bird gets too damp while foraging for food, it may have difficulty staying warm.  To avoid heat loss, most birds will perch motionless in protected areas during stormy weather.  Luckily our temperatures were a bit higher this week, and we didn't have any frosts.  

Spotted Towhee - Fox Sparrow
Pipilo maculatus - Passerella iliaca

A new addition to our bird feeding area is a birdbath!  It's taken a while for the birds to use it, but in the last two weeks I've seen several birds drinking from it!  In fact, just yesterday I watched a Fox Sparrow bathe in it!  Wow!  Birds love to drink from moving water, so I also bought a little solar powered water fountain (inset above)!  It's about the size of a small plate and is so fun to watch!  I wrapped wire around the center piece and anchored it to the sides of the birdbath.  This keeps it from wandering to the edge of the birdbath and spraying water out of the basin. Surprisingly this water fountain tolerated the water surface freezing last week!  

Columbian Black-tailed Deer - Mule Deer 

Odocoileus hemionus columbianus - Odocoileus hemionus californicus

Mammal Update!

Just before the rains started I spotted these deer up near the cemetery!  There were two bucks and two does!  Only one of the bucks had a big set of antlers.  Their camouflage wasn't apparent when they were in the dry grasses, but they were really hard to see against the shrubs that bordered the area.  I haven't seen any deer in a while, so I watched these four for quite some time.  The males and females didn't mingle, although this is breeding time.  All of them were busily eating grass and constantly checking for intruders. I've been back every day since, but haven't seen them again!

  

Chickaree/Douglas Squirrel - Western Gray Squirrel

Tamiasciurus douglasii - Sciurus griseus

These two furry guys are eating a bunch of the bird seed I put out for the birds!  I've only seen one gray squirrel, but I think there are two Chickarees living in our wood pile.  The birds don't seem to mind them at all!  At night we've seen skunks and foxes eating the bird seed as well!  

Yellow-billed Magpie - Pica nutalli

Magpie Update!

Our neighborhood magpie is gone!  I haven't seen it for 3 weeks or more!  It left when the temperatures got down to the 40's and 30's.  I hope it flew down to find more of its kind in the Central Valley.  Maybe it will come back next Spring!  Wouldn't that be wonderful?!!

Why are there so many Common Ravens in this one spot?

What kind of bird is this?

Where are those Foxes?

Did the Lakes Basin get any snow?

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

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Please email me at northyubanaturalist@gmail.com