Cottonwood Tree on Highway 89 - 10/14/20
Last week my friend Mary, who is currently unable to hike, took me on a day trip in Plumas County. We saw lots of gorgeous fall color throughout the day! On part of the trip, we drove alongside Indian Creek, that was bordered in the beautiful yellows, oranges, and reds of willows, Indian Rhubarb, grasses, and oaks. At one point I hiked down to Indian Falls, where there was a small cascade tumbling down impressive rock formations. We ended up on the edge of Indian Valley, where the towns of Taylorsville and Greenville are located. Taylorsville is a tiny agricultural community with a population of only 244 people!. Just a few miles away is Greenville, with a population of 1,108. The dry valley was peppered with cows, and the farms along the roadside had a few delightful scarecrows on display! Indian Valley is rimmed by ridges and looks a lot like Sierra Valley, but is just a fraction of its size.
Indian Valley - 10/14/20
Black Oak - Indian Falls
Indian Creek - Indian Rhubarb
Warbler Pond
On the way to Indian Valley we stopped at a roadside creek and watch a small group of Yellow-rumped Warblers and Lesser Goldfinches feeding. The warblers were hawking insects out of the air like flycatchers! The goldfinches were gleaning seeds from the ground and in the bushes. I have seen lots of Yellow-rumped Warblers this year. I hadn't realized how common they are!
Yellow-rumped Warblers (males) - Lesser Goldfinch (male)
Dendroica coronata - Carduelis psaltria
Sierra Valley 10/16/20
Sierra Valley!
Mary and I also drove over to Sierra Valley one evening last week. It was gorgeous as usual, but quite dry. The fields were filled with burnished, dry reeds and grasses. Their coppery auburn and honey colors contrasted beautifully with the blue-sky water of the ponds and canals.
Sierra Valley 10/16/20
Although the fields were dry, the waterways were full! There are lots of small dams, canals, and water-gates out in Sierra Valley. They open and close the waterways according to their irrigation needs. They must not be irrigating the fields anymore, and are diverting the water to the main streams and canals.
There weren't many birds in sight. They must have migrated to warmer elevations for the winter. Mary spotted this beautiful Red-tailed Hawk on the ventilator of an old out-building. I luckily got a photo of it just before it flew away! What majestic beautiful wings it had! It probably stays in Sierra Valley all year, even in winter, as long as it can find small mammals to feed on.
Savannah Sparrow - Western Meadowlark
Passerculus sandwichensis - Sturnella neglecta
We saw several Savannah Sparrows and one beautiful Western Meadowlark!
The Savannah Sparrows will migrate down to southern California and into Mexico for the winter. The Meadowlarks will probably migrate down to the foothills or the Central Valley for the winter. It seemed as if they had the valley to themselves!
Spider threads in Abundance!
In the early evening sun, millions of spider threads were backlit against the dry grasses! Everywhere, the fields were covered in gossamer threads! It was glistening, breathtaking beauty! The following passage from Gods of the Morning, by Sir John Lister-Kaye, beautifully describes this same natural occurrence in Scotland!
"It was neither mist nor smoke. It was silk. Spiders' web silk. The massed gossamer threads of millions of tiny spiders dispersing by a process known as "ballooning". Every long grass stem, every dried dock head, every tall thistle, every fence post held, at is apex, a tiny spiderling - what we commonly know as a money spider - poised, bottom upturned to the wind in what has been described as the "tiptoe position' and from which single or multiple threads of silk were being spun. Other spiders were queuing beneath, awaiting their turn. As each slowly lengthening thread caught the wind we could watch the spider hanging on, tightening its grip on the stem or the seed head, while the gently tugging threads extended ever longer into the breeze.
For the tiniest spiders lift-off happened when the threads were ten or fifteen feet long, but slightly larger spiders spun for much more - perhaps twice that length. Then they let go. The spiders were airborne, sailing gently up, up and away across the fields, gaining height all the time quite literally ballooning down the valley with the wind.
I have no idea where my spiders landed. Some, I'm sure, achieved only the end of the field or the line of trees at is margin but that wasn't what mattered to me. It was the overwhelming spectacle of the massed legions, the unassailable conviction in their singular marches up the stems, the unswerving certainty of their resolve, their uninstructed dedication to the species' cause and the astonishing hordes of their silken outpouring clotting the sky that gripped me that day. A day never forgotten."
Unfortunately we didn't look for the spiders! We were just awestruck by the light-filled threads. "Money Spiders" are called "Dwarf Spiders" in the U.S. They are in the Linyphiidae family, in the genera of Lepthyphantes and Erigone. Next year we'll look for the spiders!
This is my first attempt at adding a video to my blog. I still don't know how to edit a video, so I apologize for its unprofessionalism. However, I like how it shows the beauty of the backlit spider threads moving in the wind! Enjoy!
Sierra Valley 10/16/20
We stayed in the valley past sunset, and enjoyed the serene, calm beauty of the big open space around us. The quiet was so peaceful, as we watched the brilliant sunset diminish. This is truly the best way to spend our days! Out observing nature, with nothing else on our minds.
We Still Need Rain!
Once again I am sending out a "Call for Art" in celebration of rain. My intention is to focus on the need for rain, and through collective positive energy invoke rain to fall. It is just a wish, a thought, and a hope. If you would like to submit some art, or writing, or a photo please check out my blog at dampearthart.blogspot.com. I will be posting new art weekly.
You can view what was submitted last year at dampearth.blogspot.com.
Check it out and pray for rain!
Will it freeze this week?
What's happening in the Lakes Basin?
Check back next week for the answers to these questions and more!
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