In Gratitude!

Snow Forecasted!

Sierra Buttes

The National Weather Service is forecasting COLD temperatures and SNOW this coming week!  I don't have time to blog, because I'm going hiking in the Lakes Basin.  It will probably be our last chance to hike up there this year!  I'm so glad this storm is coming, as it will hopefully put an end to the fire season. I wish you all a wonderful Thanksgiving!  Travel Safely!

Check back next week for the latest Natural History news from my neighborhood! 

Your questions and comments are greatly appreciated!

Please email me at northyubanaturalist@gmail.com

Gray Lodge Wildlife Area

Snow Geese - Anser caerulescens

Last week I traveled down to the Gray Lodge Wildlife Area, in California's Central Valley, and saw 100,000 Snow Geese on the wetlands! WOW!!! It was just absolutely amazing! Thousands and thousands of birds were on the water and in the air all squawking at once! Airborne strings of geese were constantly circling around and landing on the wetlands. Every once in a while something would startle the floating geese and thousands of them would take off in unison! In their alarm flight, they formed a cloud of geese so thick they obscured the trees behind them! Such unbelievable beauty!!! Within just a few minutes the compact cloud of geese had dispersed, circled around, and landed back in the wetlands!  It was incredible to watch! 

Snow Geese (adults & juveniles) & Gadwalls (?)

Anser caerulescens - Anas strepera

These beautiful birds have just arrived from their breeding grounds in the arctic.  It has taken then approximately two months (or more) to travel this distance of approximately 2,500 miles!  They will spend the winter in California's Central Valley, feeding on underground rhizomes, tubers, roots, tender new shoots of aquatic and agricultural plants, and waste grain in agricultural fields.  Their "typical" feeding behavior is to forage in the fields from early morning to late evening, and roost overnight on the water.  However, due to human activity in the surrounding area, the Snow Geese at Gray Lodge usually forage at dusk and into the night, and use the protected wetlands for daytime roosting.

Ross's Geese - Anser rossii

Ross's Geese look like little Snow Geese. They travel and reside with Snow Geese all year! They too have recently arrived in Gray Lodge! They are vegetarians, like Snow Geese, but feed on grasses and seeds adjacent to roosting wetlands.

 American Wigeon (male & female) - Mareca americana

Although these ducks are quite common and possibly live year-round in the Central Valley, this is the first time I've ever seen them!  The black tip of their bill, as well the dramatically colored feathers on the male's head, made them easy to identify!   They forage on primarily submerged aquatic plants, as well as on upland grasses, clovers, and seeds.  American Wigeons swim more than most dabbling ducks, while foraging for submerged plants. They are also very good at stealing food from other ducks, especially diving ducks.  

Northern Pintail (males & females) - Anas acuta

Northern Pintail males have distinctive white lines on the back sides of their heads.  These lines, along with their dark heads, thin pointed tails (not visible), and white breasts make them easy to identify.  These lovely ducks live year-round in the Central Valley of California.  They primarily feed on marsh plants, aquatic invertebrates, and grains in shallow water and dry fields.

Great Blue Heron - Red-tailed Hawk

Ardea herodias - Buteo jamaicensis

I saw about 4 Great Blue Herons on the edge of the wetlands, where they feed on frogs, tadpoles, and aquatic invertebrates.  I also saw a Red-tailed Hawk that was hidden on its perch in a Eucalyptus tree.  These raptors like to hunt in open areas for mammals, reptiles, amphibians, and occasionally birds, including waterfowl.
  

Turkey Vulture - Cathartes aura

These two Turkey Vultures were hanging out in the sun.  They do not pursue prey.  They eat carrion which they can detect with their keen sense of smell.  They have excellent immune systems and do not contract botulism, anthrax, cholera, or salmonella from the carrion.  Their heads are basically featherless, which helps prevent rotten flesh from sticking to them!
  

Tundra Swans - Greater White-fronted Geese

Cygnus columbianus - Anser albifrons

 
Rice Fields in Marysville

About half an hour south from Gray Lodge, there are a lot of flooded rice fields on the outskirts of Marysville.  That's where you are more likely to see Tundra Swans and not so many Snow Geese.  They have just arrived in the past two weeks, from their breeding grounds in the arctic!  They do not dive, but submerge their heads to forage for the leaves, stems, seeds, and tubers of aquatic plants, such as rice.  They will spend their winters in the Central Valley.

Greater White-fronted Geese also migrate down from the arctic to spend the winter in the Central Valley.  They feed on marsh grasses, sedges, berries, and seeds from agricultural crops.  They are primarily diurnal feeders, and roost on wetlands at night. 

Tundra Swans - Cygnus columbianus 

These large swans have 7' wingspans, are about 4.5' tall, and can weigh up to 16 lbs! 
I find them to be beautifully elegant!

Bald-faced Hornet - Dolichovespula maculata

The photo of a paper wasp nest that I posted last week, turned out to be the active home of a Bald-faced Wasp colony! They can be distinguished by the white pattern on the thorax, the end of the abdomen, and on the face. As the weather gets colder, all of the colony will die off except for the queen. She doesn't overwinter in the nest, but rather in protected places such as in hollow trees, rock piles, under bark and in the walls and attics of buildings.  The queen will start a new colony in the spring, which can grow to a population of up to 400 wasps!  Apparently these wasps can inflict quite painful stings!  I kept a good distance from this nest when I took these photos!

Who is going to eat these Persimmons?

What's happening on the river?

Is there any Fall color left?

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

Fruit Eaters!

Cedar Waxwing on Rose hips - Bombycilla cedrorum

We have LOTS of domestic apple and pear trees in our neighborhood that are a great food source for many species of wildlife.  We also have many species of fruit-bearing shrubs such as wild rose, grape, dogwood, mistletoe, hawthorn, madrone, and even poison oak.  At this time of year many birds are switching from a diet of insects to a diet of fruits and berries.  The colder weather has made the insects mostly inactive and hard to find, whereas many fruits have recently ripened. 

Cedar Waxwings are fruit eaters year-round.  They migrate through our neighborhood in flocks, several times a year when fruit becomes available.  They also eat insects, flowers, and buds.  Their name comes from their habit of eating "cedar" (actually "juniper") berries, and for the red waxy tips on the ends of their secondary flight feathers.  The reason for the waxy tips, found on both males and females, is uncertain.  Cornell University states, "Red secondary tips may be important status signals that function in mate selection."  These handsome birds migrate down to lower elevations during the winter.  Some even travel as far south as Costa Rica! 

American Robin on Dogwood - Turdus migratorius

This past week American Robins and Cedar Waxwings have been flocking to a single dogwood tree in our neighborhood, and eating all the "fruits"!  I've really enjoyed watching them for hours as they descend on the tree.  It's taken a week, but they have effectively stripped the tree bare of its fruits!  I wonder where they'll go next!

Steller's Jay - Cyanocitta stelleri

This was a great year for apples!  There have been hundreds of them on the local trees.  Over this past months, the fruits have been eaten by a variety of wildlife.  Steller's Jays are opportunistic omnivores, that live here year-round.  However, I was surprised to see a Steller's Jay pecking on an apple! 

   

Columbian Black-tailed Deer - Odecoileus hemionus columbianus

I came across this deer and her fawn eating apples a few weeks ago!

 Black Bear - Ursus americanus

I haven't seen any Black Bears this year, but I see new piles of their scat every day!  They even climbed one of our apple trees and bent the branches down into a kind of platform, from which they ate almost all the apples! 

Black Bear scat

 This bear scat has a combination of apples and grapes in it.  Almost all of the apples have been eaten in our neighborhood, including the ones that fell to the ground.  I'm thinking that the bears will go into hibernation soon, as wild foods are becoming scarce for them.

Red-winged Blackbird (female) - Hermit Thrush

Agelaius phoeniceus - Catharus guttatus

Migrating Through

This week I luckily saw a Hermit Thrush!  It will move on to lower elevations once the weather gets colder.  Right now it's feeding on berries and any insects it can find.  A female Red-winged Blackbird stopped by our garden one afternoon and filled up on sunflower seeds!  It's probably on its way to California's Central Valley for the winter.

 Pine Siskins - Carduelis pinus 

A small flock of Pine Siskins feasted on sunflower seeds in our garden this week.  These little birds migrate to wherever seeds are available!  I love seeing them stop by in the Fall!  Unlike most songbirds, they can stay in the higher elevations if seeds are available.  They put on a layer of fat for winter, and can speed up their metabollic rate to stay warm on cold nights.  They eat a variety of seeds including pine, cedar, hemlock, alder, maple, thistle, and grass seed.  They will also eat garden vegetable stems, insects, and sap from trees.  They travel in small to large flocks all year.  One morning two winters ago, 122 of them landed and feasted on thistle seeds that I had scattered on the snow!!! 

Peregrin Falcon - Falco peregrinus

Falcon Sighting!

I saw this Peregrin Falcon one morning way up in the top of a dead tree!!!  About four or five  Steller's Jays kept landing really close and cawing at it.  The Falcon repeatedly flew off, circled around, and landed in the same tree.  Each time it came back the Steller's Jays came back too!  It finally flew off for good!  What a thrill it was to see it!  I wonder if it's the same one I photographed this summer ("Cooler Weather" blog - August, 2019)!

What insects made this nest?

What are the Herps doing?

What's happening in California's central valley?

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

A Wind Event!

Wind-stripped willows on the North Yuba River

This week the wind was blasting and the power was out for 6 days! Although it was somewhat of an inconvenience to be without power, it prevented wildfires from starting! Winds reached approximately 60 miles an hour up at Yuba Pass!! Trees toppled, branches broke off, and leaves were stripped by the wind. The humidity dropped to 19%, but is currently back up to 35%. Hopefully we'll get some rain in the near future, and no more wind. Fingers crossed!

A lot of the fallen leaves have collected in the shallow areas along the river's shore. They look like thick brush strokes in a Van Gogh painting!  I love how they show the flow of the water.  What a beautiful river of leaves!

Oriole nests before and after the Wind 

Now that the leaves are gone from the trees, lots of bird nests are visible. These nests were made by the same oriole over the past three years!  It is amazing to me that these bird nests, as well as many others, are so well-constructed that they can withstand 35 mph winds, rain, snow, and freezing temperatures for years!

El Capitan

Yosemite National Park

The following history of Yosemite National Park is from the website myyosemitepark.com. 

 "President Abraham Lincoln signed the Yosemite Land Grant into law in 1864, giving the Yosemite Valley and the Mariposa Grove of giant sequoia trees to the state of California.  Galen Clark was appointed Yosemite's first Guardian, a position held for most of the next 35 years.

But state protection of Yosemite Valley and the giant sequoia grove was not enough for conservationist John Muir. In 1868, Muir walked from San Francisco Bay to the Yosemite Valley. Inspired by the natural beauty he found there, Muir soon started writing about Yosemite in magazines and newspapers that reached audiences across the USA.

Muir's writing and his own personal passion for Yosemite and the Sierra Nevada helped spur a national conservation movement. Muir even escorted groups of influential people on guided trips into Yosemite and the surrounding Sierra Nevada to expound upon the importance of preserving nature. On one trip to Tuolumne Meadows, Muir together with Robert Underwood, editor the Century Magazine, came up with the idea to launch a campaign to make Yosemite a national park.

Their dream came true in 1890, when the land around Yosemite Valley and the Mariposa Grove of giant sequoias became part of Yosemite National Park. Congress also authorized the creation of Sequoia National Park and General Grant National Park (now part of Kings Canyon National Park) to preserve the giant sequoia forests found farther in the Sierra Nevada. The U.S Cavalry assumed jurisdiction of the new national park lands.

But exploitation of the new national park's resources was still rampant, and the Yosemite Valley itself was still under state control. When Muir took President Theodore Roosevelt on a camping trip in Yosemite in 1903, he was able to convince the president of the importance of preserving more of the Sierra Nevada as federal land. Yosemite National Park as we know it today took shape in 1906, when Roosevelt took back control of Yosemite Valley from the state of California and protected the entire region as Yosemite National Park."

Black Oaks - Quercus kelloggii

I am so thankful for our National Parks!  We are so lucky to have these incredible natural areas preserved for us to experience!  The first time I visited Yosemite National Park I was only 6 years old!  My family and I went on a National Park Ranger/Naturalist walk while we were there and I was immediately smitten!  I decided then and there that I was going to be a Park Ranger when I grew up, and I did!!!  In the 80's I worked year-round for 6+ years as a permanent Ranger/Naturalist in Sequoia National Park!  It was one of the best times of my life!  It instilled a permanent love of nature in me that continues to bring me much joy today!  

Yosemite Valley meadow

Last week I went to Yosemite National Park with some friends!  We visited Yosemite Valley and the Mariposa Grove of Giant Sequoias.  It was so incredibly beautiful!  I hadn't been to the valley in 25 years!  The massive granite walls were spectacular and the Black Oaks were in gorgeous fall color!  Even the dry meadows were beautiful in burnished gold and copper!  We walked for several hours on the valley floor, enjoying the spectacular views!

Giant Sequoias - Sequoiadendron giganteum

The Giant Sequoias were indescribably beautiful!  These giants are the largest living trees, by volume, on earth!  They are around 275' tall, with a diameter of up to 100' at their base!  They vary in age from an estimated 1,800 years to a documented 3,200 years!  They were just spectacular!  It was wonderful to walk amongst them again! 

Pileated Woodpecker (male) - Dryocopus pileatus 

Yosemite Wildlife

We saw several kinds of woodpeckers in Yosemite.  Apparently they have been attracted to the wood-boring beetles that have killed a lot of the conifers.  Right now the Park Service is cutting down a lot of these dead trees, as they are a fire hazard.  I'm assuming the woodpeckers population will decrease once the beetles have been depleted.

I wrote about these beautiful woodpeckers last year.  The following information is from my October 24, 2018 blog.

Pileated Woodpeckers (above photo) measure 16"-19" in length, are the largest woodpeckers in most of North America! They live in coniferous forests from 2,000'-7,5000'.   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 we 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."

Hairy Woodpecker (male) -  Acorn Woodpecker (male)

Dryobates villosus - Melanerpes formicivorus

Hairy Woodpeckers eat insects, fruit, berries, seeds and even sap!  Acorn Woodpeckers mainly eat acorns but will also consume insects, berries, and sap!

White-headed Woodpecker (male) with California Tortoiseshell Butterfly

Dryobates albolarvatus - Nymphalis californica

White-headed Woodpeckers eat some adult insects, but mainly eat the seeds from pine cones!  Unlike most woodpeckers, they do not drill into tree trunks to get insect larvae! 

California Mule Deer - Odocoileus hemionus californicus

We saw a few Mule Deer in the sequoia forest.  They were really camouflaged and hard to discern from the dry branches and leaves on the forest floor.

Lodgepole Chipmunk - Douglas Tree Squirrel/Chickaree

Tamias speciosus - Tamiasciurus douglasii

We saw several chipmunks and squirrels in the Sequoia forest.  The chipmunks will hibernate over winter, but the Chickarees will remain active living off of food caches.

Aspens - Red Osier Dogwood - Aspens & Dogwood

Populus tremuloides - Cornus sericea

Lakes Basin Fall

Two weeks ago I went for a hike with my friend BJ up in the Lakes Basin.  The fall color was spectacular!  The Dwarf Bilberry was a brilliant raspberry color, the Quaking Aspens were a gorgeous golden yellow, the Red Osier Dogwood was deep maroon to peach, and the Spirea was bright yellow to a deep rust in color!  Just exquisite!  I'll be going back up there this coming week, and I'll let you know if there's any fall color left after the recent wind. 

Dwarf Bilberry & Mountain Spirea - Mountain Ash

Vaccinium caespitosum & Spiraea densiflora - Sorbus californica

It was another clear, blue-sky day in the Lakes Basin, with sparkles on the water!

Dwarf Bilberry & Mountain Spirea

Vaccinium caespitosum & Spiraea densiflora 

The wild carpets of Dwarf Bilberry bordered by Mountain Spiraea were stunning!

The Pink Cliffs

We hiked cross-country in the Long Lake area, and transversed an area we have named the "Pink Cliffs".  Unfortunately on the way back to the car, my friend BJ tripped and fell on one super-rocky section of the trail!!!  Luckily she didn't break anything, only got a gash on her left shin that she bandaged up, and was able to hike out!  Sheesh!  It could have ended up a LOT worse!  Be careful when you're out there and be prepared for emergencies!

What birds are migrating through our neighborhood?

Where are the Bears?

What are the Herps doing?

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