Sierra Buttes & Upper Sardine Lake - 5/2/21
The snow is melting FAST up in the Lakes Basin, and the trails are opening up! There is still about a foot of snow in some shady areas above 6,000', but the lower elevations are pretty much snow free. I hiked up to Sardine Lake, Long Lake, and the ridgetop on the Tamarack Connection Trail in the past 8 days! All the ponds along the way were fuller than I ever remember, but surprisingly water wasn't flowing over the dam at Long Lake! The aspen grove near the Lakes Basin Campground was totally flooded! We had to wade through it! What an adventure! It was fabulous to be back in the Lakes Basin again, our home away from home!
Cooper's Hawk - Accipiter cooperii
Lakes Basin Birds!
One morning, as we were driving up the Gold Lake Road an adult Cooper's Hawk landed in full view right off the road! WOW!!! Cooper's Hawks are uncommon and mainly live in dense forests, but can also be found in open fields. Their main food is other large birds such as doves, pigeons and robins. They will also prey on squirrels, rabbits, mice and reptiles. They can readily pursue prey through dense thickets or forests. Their short wings and rudder-like tail makes them able to make quick, sharp turns. They grab prey with their feet, and will drown or squeeze them to death! They can see 2-3 times farther than humans! It's a rare event that a Cooper's Hawk doesn't catch its prey, unless a tree intervenes! Almost one fourth of the Cooper's Hawks that have been examined, have breastbones that have healed fractures!
These hawks are uncommonly seen in our area, although they live here year-round. How lucky we were to see this beautiful raptor!
Northern Thick-billed Fox Sparrow - White-headed Woodpecker (male)
Passerella iliaca ssp. megarhyncha - Dryobates albolarvatus
The Northern Thick-billed Fox Sparrow isn't in my bird field guide! iNaturalist.org identified it for me! It is a subspecies of the Fox Sparrow, and lives mainly in the Sierra Nevada and Cascade mountains of California and Oregon. It's distinguishing marks are the solid gray head, the speckled chest with a central dark mark, and its brown back, wings, and tail. I see it often in the Lakes Basin, singing its lovely song!
The White-headed Woodpecker lives in the Lakes Basin year-round. It is found year-round ONLY in mixed coniferous forests dominated by pines, in the mountains of far western North America, from south-central British Columbia to southern California, and no where else in the world! They usually nest in dead, large conifers. Both the male and the female excavate the nest, incubate the eggs, feed the nestlings, and care for the fledglings. Unlike most woodpeckers, their main food is pine seeds from cones, as well as insects and their larvae! The male is distinguished by the small patch of red feathers on its head.
Red-breasted Nuthatch - Mountain Chickadee
Sitta candensis - Poecile gambeli
The tiny (4.5" long) Red-breasted Nuthatch usually lives year-round in coniferous forests between 3,000'-5,000' in elevation. I love their loud, nasal, beeping calls! They store seeds, insect larvae, and spider eggs to feed on in the winter. I've seen them foraging for insects and seeds, face-first down the trunks of conifers, as well as on the ground. If a cone crop fails, they will spend the winter in lower elevations where food is available. The male and female both excavate the nest cavity. Curiously, the male plasters tree resin all around the outside of the nest hole, and the female plasters resin on the inside of the nest cavity! No one knows why they do this, but speculation is that it deters predators or perhaps nest competitors!
The Mountain Chickadees are short distance migrants. If the winter is mild they may not even migrate. In the fall they cache seeds in tree cavities for the winter. Two winters ago we had Mountain Chickadees is our neighborhood during the winter. This year they never showed up. They eat lodgepole needle-miner larvae, caterpillars, sawfly larvae, spiders, aphids, butterflies, scale insects, and conifer seeds. They are such cute, inquisitive little birds!
Canada Goose - Bufflehead (male - female)
Branta canadensis - Bucephala albeola
Waterfowl have returned to the Lakes Basin! I'll write more about them next week. Gotta get out and go bird watching for the "Global Big Day" bird count!
Evidence of Pocket Gopher activity in the Subnivean Zone
The newly exposed meadows had tons of above-ground, dirt "tunnels", made by Pocket Gophers in the winter. The following passage from the book Sierra Nevada, by Verna R. Johnson, explains how this happens.
"When winter comes to the meadow, Sierra Pocket Gophers lay out new burrow systems between the snow and the ground (the Subnivean Zone). They construct well-insulated, ball-shaped nests of shredded grass in the snow and radiate snow tunnels from the nests. With the melting of snow, the pocket gophers return to their underground burrows, which always need renovating and cleaning after a winter of vacancy. They push the earth that hast settled and clogged their old burrows into the snow tunnels just above, packing them tightly. When the snow melts, these earth cores, some forty feet long, lie exposed like giant worms winding over the spring meadows."
Snow Plant (emerging) - Sarcodes sanguinea
The Blooming Lakes Basin!
Flowers are just starting to bloom up in the Lakes Basin! In fact it's "springtime" up there! One of the first flowers to bloom as the snow melts is the Snow Plant. We saw several that were just starting to emerge.
Wikipedia states; "Sarcodes is the monotypic genus of a north-west American flowering springtime plant in the heath family (Ericaceae), containing the single species Sarcodes sanguinea, commonly called the snow plant or snow flower. It is a parasitic plant that derives sustenance and nutrients from mycorrhizal fungi that attach to tree roots. Lacking chlorophyll, it is unable to photosynthesize. Ectomicorrhizal symbioses involve a mutualism between a plant root and a fungus; the plant provides fixed carbon to the fungus and in return, the fungus provides mineral nutrients, water and protection from pathogens to the plant. The snow plant takes advantage of this mutualism by tapping into the network and stealing sugars from the photosynthetic partner by way of the fungus. This is known as mycoheterotrophy. The snow plant is host-specific and can only form relationships with the ectomycorrhizal basidiomycete Rhizopogon ellenae (false truffle)."
Green-leaf Manzanita - Steer's Head
Arctostaphylos patula - Dicentra uniflora
In the sunny areas, the Green-leaf Manzanita are in full bloom and buzzing with pollinators! In a semi-shaded area, we lucked out and found two tiny (1/2") Steer's Head flowers! They are so cool looking, just like a cattle skull! They too are one of the first flowers to bloom after the snow melts, but they are few in number. We were super lucky to see them! Believe it or not they are in the "Poppy" Family (Papaveraceae) of flowers!
Mahala mat - Fremont's Silk Tassel - Spreading Phlox
Ceanothus prostratus - Garrya fremontii - Phlox difusa
I love seeing these flowers re-emerge year after year.
One whiff of the phlox and it's springtime in the mountains!
Male Willow catkins - Basque Arborglyph - Male Aspen catkins
Salix sp. - Populus tremuloides
We found some lovely willows still in their pussy-willow stage! Willows are dioecious, and have separate male and female plants. We mainly saw the male plants with their catkins tipped in pollen. So delicately beautiful! Later in the day a little Ruby-crowned Kinglet was feeding on them, probably eating tiny insects in the catkins!
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We also found an arborglyph, of a stylized bearpaw, on the trunk of an aspen tree! The following information from https://www.fs.fed.us/wildflowers/beauty/aspen/carvings.shtml explains the history of the arborglyphs found in the Tahoe National Forest.
"The Basque are known as Europe’s first family since their language and culture is more ancient than any other in Europe. In 1849, Basques joined throngs of other young men from around the world seeking their fortune in the American west. Most of them were employed in the sheep business. By the early 1900s, "Basque" and "sheepherder" were synonymous. To pass the time on long lonely summer days in the high country, Basque sheepherders carved on aspen trees. These carvings are called arborglyphs, providing us information we could not find elsewhere. Today, there are very few aspen carvings dating before 1900 since aspen trees only live about 100 years."
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For the first time ever, we saw the catkins of Aspen trees! They looked like long, hairy, gray caterpillars! Just beautiful! Quaking Aspen is dioecious, producing either all male (staminate) catkins or all female (pistillate) catkins on separate trees. They can reproduce via male pollen and female flowers that are contained in the catkins. However, it's much more common for them to reproduce asexually by sending up new stems from a single root system.
Sierra Nevada Ensatina (juveniles) - ©Patricia McClean 2021
A Lucky Find!
Living here in California, we are all clearing brush and trees on our properties in case of wildfires. A friend of mine found these beautiful little Sierra Nevada Ensatina juveniles underneath a rock, in the process of clearing her property! She kindly let me post her photos on this blog! I was amazed at these wildly colored tiny Ensatinas. They had orange legs, and their backs looked like starry night skies! WOW!! I have never seen one of these in person, but would love to. Aren't they just incredible???
Sierra Nevada Ensatina (juveniles) - ©Patricia McClean 2021
These salamanders do not have lungs, but rather respiration occurs through their skin and the tissue lining their mouth!!! They do not live or breed in water. Their preferred habitat is damp, humid, moist environments under rocks, logs, and tree bark. You are mostly likely to see them on a wet, rainy night. They are active in the rainy season and estivate underground when it's hot and dry. They eat worms, ants, beetles, scorpions, centipedes, millipedes, sow bugs, and snails. Garter Snakes, Steller's Jays, and Raccoons prey on them. To avoid predation their head and tail contain a high density of poison glands! If necessary they will detach their tail, which will twitch and detract a predator, while they make their escape! After mating, and at the end of the rainy season, the female will lay an average of 9-16 eggs underground, which she guards until they hatch in 113-177 days!!! The young ensatinas are fully developed when they hatch, but pretty tiny (1.5"-2" long). The adults are 3"-6" long including their tail, and can live for up to 15 years in the wild! Wow!
"Pine Siskins" ©k. ohara-kelly 2021
More Damp Earth Art!
Since we are indeed in a drought year, I am once again 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 email me at northyubanaturalist@gmail.com. Check out what's already been submitted at dampearthart.blogspot.com
You can view what was submitted last year at dampearth.blogspot.com.
I will be posting new art weekly. Check it out and pray for rain!
Have any more new birds arrived?
What kind of insects are out and about?
Check back next week for the answers to these questions and more!
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