Smoke-colored North Yuba River - 8/9/21
We had HEAVY smoke for the past week, mainly from the Dixie/Jarbo Gap Fire which is now 537,945 acres in size and still burning. Over 1,103 structures have been destroyed and additional thousands of people have been evacuated. Again and again, I want to thank the thousands of dedicated firefighters who are risking their lives fighting these unprecedented fires.
We mainly stayed indoors to keep from inhaling the smoke, so I didn't get any hikes in this week. However, I did spot this Great Blue Heron from my car one smoky morning. The smoke made the river eerily beautiful! Luckily we don't have any fires nearby. It could be way worse. I just keep hoping for rain. Rain, rain, come on down....
Peregrine Falcon Common Raven
Falco peregrinus - Corvus corax
While driving to the post office this week I spotted a Peregrine Falcon in a dead tree near the river! Wow!!! I hadn't seen a Peregrine Falcon in months!! The following day a Common Raven was perched in the same dead tree. Birds are the wildlife that I most commonly see. I worry a LOT about them during these smoke-filled days. The following information on how birds are affected by wildfire is from the website at
"While wildfires are a part of natural cycles in the western United States, climate change makes every wildfire that sparks more likely to rapidly grow and spread. Like melting glaciers and rising seas, larger fires and longer fire seasons are among the predicted effects of climate change that are now coming to pass. Rising temperatures and shifting rainfall patterns already threaten two-thirds of North American bird species with extinction, so it's worth exploring how this symptom of a hotter planet will affect birds.
What do birds do when wildfires break out? No surprise here: They fly away. A fire might kill weak birds or, depending on the time of year, claim nestlings. At least in the Western forests that U.S. Forest Service research biologist Vicki Saab studies, birds evolved alongside fire and flee in the face of conflagrations. "Historically, I think direct mortality was likely minor," she says. But they might not be able to outrun the larger, more destructive fires we're now experiencing due to climate change, she adds.
How do wildfires physically affect birds? Assuming birds escape a fire, smoke might still affect their health in ways that aren’t very well understood. “We do know that exposure to particulate matter, which of course is of great concern for human health, can affect birds as well,” says Olivia Sanderfoot. For example, veterinarians and poultry scientists who study captive birds have found that smoke can damage lung tissue and leave the animals susceptible to potentially lethal respiratory infections.
How that plays out in the wild is largely unknown, Sanderfoot says. In some cases, smoke inhalation might make it harder for birds to flee onrushing flames. Thick smoke, for instance, may have contributed to the deaths of 50 adult White Ibises during a 1999 fire in the Everglades. And some low-flying species might succumb to smoke inhalation or exhaustion before they can escape forest fires."
Snowy Tree Crickets - Oecanthus fultoni
Down in the Garden
Since I haven't been able to be outside much this week, the garden has been my haven. Usually in the morning the smoke isn't as heavy, so I can spend a little time observing wildlife before the smoke gets bad. This week I mostly observed insects!
Every night lately we've been hearing the loud pulse-like trilling of crickets and the piercing trilling of cicadas. To some people these LOUD songs can be quite annoying! I didn't know why these insects sang so persistently, so I turned to bugguide.net for help. Apparently it's the males that are singing to attract females!
The Tree Cricket song is produced by a minute rasp on the underside of the forewing, which is scraped by a structure on the inner edge of the opposite wing. In producing the sound the wings are raised at right angles to the body and are vibrated rapidly. The number of notes varies from about 60 to over 150 per minute according to the temperature.
Apparently the number of notes indicates the temperature. In the Laws Field Guide, it states "For the temperature in Fahrenheit, count the number of chirps in 13 seconds plus 40." The male also produces a secretion that attracts the female. While the female eats this secretion, the male mates with her. After mating the female drills a small hole in the stem of a plant, deposits the fertilized egg, and seals up the hole. The egg hatches into a nymph in approximately 10 days. The nymphs go through 5 instars (molting, shedding of skin) before they are mature adults. About a week after their final molt, the newly mature adults will start mating.
They will quiet down when the temperatures cool off, and will die off in the fall. Their eggs will overwinter and hatch in the spring. In the meantime, I'm taking my hearing aids off on these warm evenings!
Singing Cicada (exuvia) - Okanagana tristis
Most people have heard that Cicadas live underground for 13-17 years. That is NOT true for the Singing Cicadas found in our area. Our local cicadas (Okanagana tristis) typically have a life-span of 2-5 years, almost entirely spent underground. The following information is from the website
"Unfortunately, only general information is available on the life histories of the California species of cicadas. Of the few for which brood years have been noted, the time required to complete the life cycle would seem to be from two to five years. The females lay their sausage-shaped eggs in slits made by a sharp ovipositor and in packets of from eight to fifteen per slit. The author has found the incubation period for the eggs of Okanagana vanduzeez to be about 90 days. Other species have been reported to have much shorter incubation periods. After hatching, the tiny nymphs drop to the ground and burrow into the soil where they begin to feed on roots. The forelegs of the nymphs are developed into large claw-like appendages which are used in tunneling during their long subterranean life. In early to late spring, depending on the species, the mature nymphs crawl to the surface of the ground, climb some vertical object, and transform into the adult form. Where large populations of a species occur, their case skins may be found in great profusion, clinging to rocks, stems of plants, or to any other vertical objects which the nymphs had climbed."
Singing Cicada (adult) - Okanagana tristis
"The males produce sounds by means of the timbals or tympana which are situated at the base of the abdomen. Strong muscles attached to these organs produce a vibration which causes the high-pitched buzzing or chattering noises associated with these insects. The various songs are often characteristic for particular species and serve as mating calls to the females. The females oviposit following their courtship, and the short-lived adult forms soon die."
California Bumblebee (adult) - Bombus californicus
In all the meadows
as well as in our garden, I've noticed that there are more Bumblebees this year
than ever before! I couldn't find out
why there are so many of them this year. However, it is so encouraging to see
this local population increase, as the native Bumblebee population has been in
decline across
In the spring, mated honeybee queens come out of hibernation and start a small colony. The colonies are made in grassy tussocks, small abandoned rodent burrows, or at the base of shrubs. Once the queen picks a site, she forms a wax "honey pot" and fills it with regurgitated nectar (honey). She then collects pollen, forms it into a ball, lays her eggs on it, and then covers the whole ball with wax! She then "broods" her eggs for 4 days, until the eggs hatch into larvae! Once hatched, the larvae feed on the pollen ball for 4-5 weeks, form a cocoon, pupate, and turn into adults! A Bumblebee colony usually numbers about 50 in population.
At the
end of the season, the queen lays unfertilized eggs, that turn into males, and
lays a few special fertilized eggs that turn into new queens. The males hang out
for a few days in the colony and then leave, never to return. These males are
the Bumblebees that you see spending the night on flowers! In Fall the
new queens leave the colony, mate with one or more male Bumblebees, then
hibernate over the winter!
Goldenrod Crab Spider (female) - Snowberry Clearwing Moth
Misumena vatia - Hemaris diffinis
The female Goldenrod Crab Spider uses camouflage and ambush to catch its prey, instead of weaving a web. It can slowly change color from white to yellow, orange, or green, to match its environment. Once it catches its prey, it paralyzes it, and then injects it with digestive fluids, like most spiders. The one above left has been hanging around in my phlox plants for a week or more, and is getting fat off of the bees and butterflies it has been catching!
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To my delight one hummingbird moth showed up in our garden this month! They are NOT common and are so unusual looking! The following information on Snowberry Clearwing Moths/Hummingbird Moths is from the website https://www.fs.fed.us/wildflowers/pollinators/pollinator-of-the-month/hummingbird_moth.shtml.
"Perhaps one of the most delightful insect visitors to your garden is the hummingbird moth. Several species of the genus Hemaris deserve this name and for very good reason. They fly and move just like hummingbirds. Like them, they can remain suspended in the air in front of a flower while they unfurl their long tongues and insert them in flowers to sip their nectar. They even emit an audible hum like hummingbirds.
Like the majority of moths and butterflies, the adult hummingbird moths feed on nectar from a variety of flowers, but their larvae need more specific food plants, such as several species of honeysuckle, dogbane, or some members of the rose family such as hawthorn, cherries, and plums.
The females entice the males with an aroma or pheromone that they produce from glands at the tip of the abdomen. After mating, they lay their tiny, round, green eggs on their larval food plants, usually on the underside of the leaves. The caterpillars have a horn at the rear end and are commonly green, well camouflaged among the leaves. When they are fully-grown they drop to the ground, spin a loose cocoon and pupate, partially protected by leaf litter. That leaf litter so hated by some gardeners provides a shelter to this beautiful pollinator. In the north, where the season is short there is only one generation per year; the pupa spends the whole winter well hidden and the adult does not emerge until the next spring."
Steller's Jay in the Rain - 11/18/20
Damp Earth Art
I so wish it would rain! We can't do anything about the drought, the wind, hot temperatures and fires. Worry makes it harder to bear. So anytime I think of it, I think rain, rain, 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. I've created a blog, dampearthart.blogspot.com, where I post photographs, quotes, and artworks that feature rain.
If you'd like to submit some work to be posted on this blog, please email me at northyubanaturalist@gmail.com. I'll be posting new art weekly, check it out and pray for rain!
What's happening in the local ponds?
Is anything blooming at the lower elevations?
Check back next for the answers to these questions and more.
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