Recent River Bird Sightings

Osprey (adult) - Pandion haliaetus

At last some of our avian river residents have shown up!  The river was so high this past Spring that none of the Canada Geese had goslings, which usually appear in late April through May.  By early July the Common Mergansers didn't have any ducklings, which usually show up in mid June, and the local Osprey, Bald Eagle, and Great Blue Heron hadn't shown up!  However, just this week, except for the Bald Eagle, they're all back on the river! It's probably because over the past three weeks it has really warmed up and no rain has fallen.  The river has slowed down a lot, dropped in height, and warmed up considerably. Now birds can swim and dive for fish in the river without being swept away! I am so thrilled to have them back in our neighborhood!

Ospreys are unique among raptors in their hunting method of diving feet-first into water to capture fish. They are usually successful in 1 out of every 4 dives. No other raptors use this method of hunting. They also have small barbs on the pads of their feet to help grab slippery fish. After they have caught a fish and are back in the air, they maneuver the fish to face forward, using the fish’s streamlining to reduce aerodynamic drag. They then carry the captured fish to an elevated and prominent perch to be eaten. 99% of their diet is fish. They are large birds with a wingspan of 63", a length of 23", and a weight of 3.5lbs!!!

Great Blue Heron (adult) - Ardea herodius

Great Blue Herons are large birds, with a body length of 26" and a wingspan of 36"! Their long legs add another 2' of height! They feed on fish, frogs, crayfish, aquatic insects, small mammals, other birds, amphibians and reptiles! They can hunt during the day and at night! They are the only herons found above the foothills! They are usually solitary, except during breeding season when they form nesting colonies!

Common Mergansers (adult - ducklings) - Mergus merganser

My friend Alicia and I spent half a day on the North Yuba River last week. To our delight two different Merganser females swam past with their ducklings while we were there!  One had seven ducklings, and one had eight ducklings!  Once they saw us they really sped up the pace, and zoomed by!  How lucky we were to see them!  WOW!!!

Common Mergansers (adult- ducklings) - Mergus merganser

Male mergansers do not participate in the incubation of the eggs or the raising of the ducklings. Although the male and female form a pair bond that may last from December until Spring, the male departs soon after the eggs are laid. The female alone raises the ducklings. 

Common Mergansers (adult- ducklings) - Mergus merganser

The female will guide and protect her offspring for approximately 30-50 days, and then leaves them on their own. At that point they are more than capable of taking care of themselves. Soon after, when they are around 60-75 days old, they are able to fly and migrate to lower elevations for the winter.

Spotted Sandpipers (adult- fledgling) - Actitis macularius

On another day, at another part of the river, I came across a fledgling Spotted Sandpiper and probably it's dad! What a wonderful sighting!

Spotted Sandpipers are quite unusual in their breeding and nesting habits. The females usually arrive before the males, in the Spring. The females practice polyandry and will mate with up to 3 different males, if they are available. However, some females are monogamous, and will mate with only one male. Competition between females can be quite aggressive, if the male population is low. The nests are begun by the females and finished by the males. The nests are built on the ground, in the shade of shrubs, and about 100 yards from the shore. Each mated male will have it's own nest. The males brood 3-5 eggs for 19-22 days, and protect the baby birds when they hatch. The females may help with the care of the baby birds, if they only have one mate. The young birds are born precocial, and can walk and feed themselves within hours!!! Their main food is flying and aquatic insects. They are able to fly within 18 days!

Wood Ducks (male-female) - Aix sponsa

More than a month ago, I spotted this pair of Wood Ducks on the river!  I haven't seen them since, but I wanted to share this photo with you!  They aren't common on the North Yuba River. Usually I see them in local ponds.  

Wood ducks nest in the foothills of the western Sierra, usually below 3,000' - 4,000' in elevation. They are tree-cavity nesters, but do not use abandoned woodpecker cavities. They use natural cavities that have formed in a mature tree, often where a branch has broken off due to heart rot. The Wood Duck is the only North American duck that regularly produces two broods in one 5-6 month breeding season! The female lays 10-13 eggs in her feather-lined nest, anytime between March and June. The incubation period is 30 days. The ducklings are born precocial, and leave the nest usually within 24 hours after hatching. They jump to the ground and their mother leads them to water, where they immediately start feeding! After approximately 30 days, the female abandons the young ducklings, to start another brood!

Howard Meadow 7-19-23

Howard Meadow Update!

We've been out to Howard Meadow twice in the past two weeks and it's changed so much since we first visited it in the beginning of June! Initially it was filled with blooming, golden-yellow, Water Plantain Buttercups.  On July 19th, the Butttercups had gone to seed and the Corn Lilies were starting to bloom!  On July 28th, way more Corn Lilies were blooming, and they were surrounded by thousands of blooming Arrowleaf Groundsel!  Such unbelievable beauty!  We'll be back again soon, to see what wildflowers bloom next!

Howard Meadow 7-28-23

Mountain Ash - Sorbus californica

Wildflower Portraits

The drier areas surrounding Howard Meadow are also having an incredible bloom this year!  We've never seen so many billions of wildflowers before!  I'll post more photos and write more about them next week, but here are a few dramatic portraits I got of a few of them!  What fun!

Hoary Aster - Dieteria canescens

Leopard Lily - Lilium pardalinum

Gray's Lovage - Ligusticum grayi

Pretty Face - Triteleia ixioides

What insects are out and about?

What's happening up in the Helgramite Lake area?

What's happening on the North Yuba River?

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

Your questions and comments are greatly appreciated. Please feel free to email me at northyubanaturalist@gmail.com. Thanks!

It's HOT out there!

Black Bear - Ursus americanus

It's been really HOT this past week, with temps in the high 90's and low 100's!  It was way too hot for us, and made me wonder how wildlife copes with excessive heat.  Here's what I've learned!

The bear in the photo above, looks like it's taking advantage of a sprinkler! The truth is, it wasn't really in the sprinkler's reach, and was just eating fallen cherries off the ground!  It was such a "cool" photo, I couldn't resist putting it in my blog!  The way that most mammals really deal with the heat is by being active at night.  During a hot day, they remain inactive in the shade.  If a Black Bear is active during the day, its thick coat of hair can insulate it somewhat from the heat.  

However, if it stays out in the sun too long a Black Bear can indeed overheat.  To cool off, it will retreat to the shade, possibly stretch out and lie down on its sparsely furred belly to cool off, drink from a water source, or even wade in a river!  I spotted this Black Bear lying in the river a few years ago!  It was a super HOT day, and the bear was taking advantage of the cool river water.  It stayed in place in the river for the entire five minutes I watched it from a distance!

Columbian Black-tailed Deer - Odocoileus hemionus columbianus

Some mammals, including deer, will head for the water to cool off during a heat wave as well.  Occasionally I'll see deer in the river during the summer.  Sometimes they are crossing the river, sometimes they're just walking along the edge of it.  I have often thought that it's a way to travel without leaving a track.  I've never seen them lying down in the river like the bear pictured above, but I'm sure it cools them off!

 

                                           Steller's Jay (adult) - Cyanocitta stelleri

Rufous Hummingbird (female) - Black Phoebe (adult)

Selasphorus rufus - Sayornis nigricans

These birds aren't singing or squawking in alarm, they're panting to get rid of excess heat! Like dogs, some birds can do their own version of panting to help them stay cool. Their version is called gular fluttering, and it involves breathing with their mouths open while also vibrating their throat membranes. This causes excess heat to leave their bodies. Birds can also keep from overheating by seeking shade, spreading out their feathers, bathing in water, and becoming less active. It was amazing how few birds we saw, and how quiet it was in the hottest part of the day!

Northwestern Fence Lizard - unknown frog

Sceloperus occidentalis occidentalis - sp.?

Northern Pacific Rattlesnake - Crotalus oreganus oreganus

Herptiles (amphibians and reptiles) are ectotherms, and are dependent on external sources to maintain their body heat. To regulate their body heat they will bask in the sun when it's cool, and hide in the shade when it's too hot. It turns out that extremely hot temperatures can kill a snake within 10-20 minutes. So when the air temperature reaches the high 90's and into the 100's, reptiles seek out shade and wait for the temperature to drop.  Reptiles like lizards and snakes might burrow underground or move under a rock or log. Amphibians will stay in water or damp mud to keep from drying out.

So wildlife has a variety of ways to beat-the-heat!

Myself, I headed up to the Lakes Basin to cool-off in the higher elevation lakes!

Leopard Lilies - Lupine

Lilium pardalinum - Lupinus sp.

In Search of Uncommon Wildflowers

To beat the 100𝆩+ weather in my neighborhood, at 2,400', I drove up to the Lakes Basin last Sunday to look for some uncommon wildflowers around 6500'.  This is the time of the year that they should be blooming, and I knew they wouldn't last in the heat. It was "now or never", so I headed up the trail with my fingers crossed.  About a mile in on the trail, there is a beautiful, smallish, wet meadow that is often filled with wildflowers.  This year's bloom was no exception, and the meadow was a botanist's paradise!

 California Bog Asphodel - Leopard Lilies - Death Camas

Narthecium californicum - Lilium pardalinum - Toxicoscordion venenosum

There were lots and lots of Death Camas in bloom.  These plants are indeed toxic so do not eat them.  As the USDA states, "The entire plant is highly toxic and fatal to both humans and animals. Poisoning symptoms include profuse salivation, burning lips, mouth numbness, thirst, stomach pain, vomiting, diarrhea, confusion, slow irregular heart beat, low blood pressure and low temperature, difficulty breathing, coma, and death."

Corn Lily - Veratrum californicum

Corn Lilies are not lilies, neither are they related to corn!  They are related to (unbelievably) Trilliums and Death Camas, and are in the False-Hellebore Family (Melanthiaceae)!  Some years Corn Lilies leaf out but never bloom.  This year there are lots of blossoming Corn Lilies!  Yay!

 Blue-eyed-Grass -  Crimson Columbine - Sierra Rein Orchid

Sysrinchium bellum - Aquilegia formosa - Platanthera dilitata

Interestingly the Sierra Rein Orchid is pollinated by moths (at night?) with a proboscis long enough to reach into the nectar spur!

 Old-growth Red Fir Forest - Abies Magnifica

On the next mile+ of the trail I hiked in the forest, away from any wet meadows.  Around 6,500' I entered into an Old-growth Red Fir Forest that was heavily populated with large trees but not much understory.  It was nice and open!  The trunks had lichen growing on them starting around six feet, the average snow depth, and going up!  It was lovely!  

Pipsissewa/Prince's Pine - Chimaphila umbellata

This forest is where I often see one of the uncommon wildflowers I was looking for, Sugarstick (Allotropa virgata), but unfortunately I didn't see any of them!  Last year we saw hundreds of them in bloom!  Maybe this year it got too hot too fast for them to bloom.  I did however see lots and lots of the lovely Pipsissewa/Prince's Pine pictured above.

Sugarsticks - Allotropa virgata

Just as I was about to leave the shaded Old Growth Forest I luckily spotted a small group of Sugarsticks at the base of a tree!!!  How delightful! They are really unusual looking. They have no green parts, and don't produce any chlorophyl. They are mycoparasites, or myco-heterotrophs, organisms with the ability to parasitize fungi.  They feed primarily on mycelium, the vegetative part of a fungus, consisting of a network of fine white filaments/hyphae.  Sugarsticks feed primarily on the mycelium of matsutake mushrooms, which in turn tap into the roots of trees!

Sugarsticks - Allotropa virgata

 

They are a clonal species that spreads through an extensive lateral root system, that is 2'-4' deep!  Since they are underground, buds on the lateral roots can survive a fire if the trees supporting the fungus don't die.  They are in the Ericacaea (Heath) Family, and are the only species in the genus Allotropa. They are related to  Snow Plants, Pinedrops, and surprisingly Prince's Pine/Pipsissewa!  Sugarsticks were declared a "sensitive" species in 1998.

I ended up finding approximately 12 individual Sugarsticks!  How fun!  So lucky to find them!

Un-named Pond

 

The next part of my hike took me past a lovely little pond, at approximately 7,000' in elevation.  It was much cooler there than down in my neighborhood.

A few hundred yards west from the end of the pond, is where I usually find Drummond's Anemones (Anemone drummondii), the second uncommon wildflower that I was looking for.  I was hoping my luck would hold out and they'd still be in bloom!

Bufflehead (female) - Pacific Tree Frog

Bucephala albeola - Pseudacris regilla

There was a single Bufflehead female duck on the pond, swimming back and forth.  Along the shore I found a strikingly marked Pacific Tree Frog!

Drummond's Anemone - Anemone drummondii

 To my delight, I wasn't too late to see the Drummond's Anemones in bloom!  There was a small group of about 12 plants that were still blooming!  Yahoo!  All around them were the dried seed heads and stalks of ones that had already bloomed!  Every year we come here to see these beautiful wildflowers, as we've never seen them blooming anywhere else in the Lakes Basin!  Such a lovely reason for a hike!

en.Wikipedia.org states: "Each Drummond's Anemone produces several showy flowers, each with five to eight petal-like sepals but no petals. The sepals are usually white (occasionally bright blue to purplish blue) with a distinct blue tint especially on the underside. The flower center is filled with many yellow-anthered stamens. Anemone drummondii is native to western North America from California to Alaska. It is found in mountainous environments such as the Cascade Range, Sierra Nevada, and the Rocky Mountains extending from open coniferous forests to rocky slopes at alpine elevations."

Hidden Lake - 7/16/23

About half a mile from the Drummond's Anemones I reached my final destination, an off-trail lake named Hidden Lake, a 6,864' in elevation!  Of course I had to dip in and linger along the shore for some time before I headed back down the trail and home. It was another incredible day in the Lakes Basin, totally filled with beauty!  I am SO lucky!

What's happening on the River?

What's happening in my neighborhood?

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

Your questions and comments are greatly appreciated. Please feel free to email me at northyubanaturalist@gmail.com. Thanks!

A Lakes Basin Meadow

Howard Meadow - 6/29/23

Howard Meadow is one of my favorite places in the Lakes Basin.  It is a HUGE meadow that has millions of flowers, and a creek that runs through the middle of it!  My husband and I have visited it twice in the past two weeks to see what's blooming.  In the meadow itself, there are thousands of Plantain Buttercups in bloom, Corn Lilies in bud, Marsh Marigolds, and Common Camas Lily just emerging.  Along the road, away from the wet meadow, Stickseed, California Waterleaf, Lewisia, Larkspur, Western Spring Beauty, Snow Plant, Blue-eyed Mary, Western Sweet Cicely, Cymopterus, and Mountain Mule's Ears are in bloom!  It's a wildflower paradise!  We also saw a Dark-eyed Junco nest, a Doe with two fawns, a Sierra Tiger Beetle, Horsehair Worms, and an Underwing Moth!  WOW!!!  What a great bunch of sightings!

Plantain Buttercup - Ranunculus alsimifolius

Meadows can be great for observing wildlife.  All the lush, wet growth attracts insects, mammals, birds, and amphibians!  In the book Sierra Nevada (1970) the author, Verna R. Johnston, writes a delightful account of the wildlife that inhabits sierran meadows, including Pocket Gophers, California Moles, Voles, Aplondontia, Shrews, Coyotes, Bats, Deer, Weasels, songbirds, and raptors! It is a fascinating account of the complex ecosystem of a meadow. I highly recommend her book! The following quote is her introduction to the subject of mountain meadows.

"This inherent rhythm, unique to each species, is very evident among the animals of the mountain meadows. Thousands of meadows, varying from small seepages to spacious ranches, intersperse the midmountain, higher mountain forests. Each, in an unmatched setting of its own, is a serene open place where morning dew hangs heavy on the grass and sedge, midday sun dazzles, evening's coolness brings the deer. But each is much more than grass, wet soil, wildflowers, deer at twilight. Each is an interlaced community of plants and animals whose lives affect each other intimately the year through, often in ways that barely show above the surface."

Three-leaf Lewisia - Sierra Lewisia

Lewisia triphylla - Lewisia nevadensis

Snow Plant in bud & in bloom - Sarcodes sanguinea

Marsh Marigold - Caltha leptosepala

Velvety Stickseed - Torrey's Blue-eyed Mary

Hackelia velutina - Collinsia torreyi

 Western Sweet-cicely - Cymopterus
Osmorhiza occidentalis - Cymopterus terebinthinus

 Western Spring Beauties - Claytonia lanceolata

Larkspurs sp. -Mountain Mule's Ears

Delphinium sp. - Wyethia mollis

Bach's Downingia - Dwarf Hesperochiron

Downingia bacigalupii - Hesperochiron pumilus

The two flowers pictured above are new sightings for me!  I've never seen either one before!  What fun it is to find new species!

Dark-eyed Junco with inset photo of eggs - Junco hyemalis

Unusual Sightings in the Lakes Basin!

As we approached Howard Meadow, a Dark-eyed Junco took off from the ground right where I was walking!  I immediately stopped and searched for a nest on the ground, and found one under a fallen Douglas Fir branch with four eggs in it!  WOW!  The eggs are incubated for 12-13 days by the female, then the nestlings hatch.  It seems to me that having a nest on the ground would be an easy target for predators.  It turns out that 20%-80% of the eggs are eaten mainly by chipmunks and deer mice!  The nestlings are fed in the nest by the parents, and fledge (leave the nest) after 12-13 days.  The fledglings are then fed (out of the nest) by the parents for approximately 14 more days.  At that point the young birds can feed themselves and fly.

Horsehair Worms - Sierra Tiger Beetle

Nematomorpha sp. - Cicindela tranquebarica ssp. sierra

We came across these thin white worms in some of the snowmelt ponds.  They MAY be Horsehair Worms, but I'm not certain that they are. I have submitted a photo to iNaturalist.org and hopefully it will get identified in the near future.  In the meantime, here's some information that I paraphrased from https://ipm.ucanr.edu/.

"Horsehair worms overwinter in water or mud. Adult worms measure 1/25 inch in diameter and may reach 1 foot or more in length.  After mating in spring, the female worm deposits a string of eggs 12 to 24 inches long in the water. About three weeks to one month later, minute immature larvae hatch. These larvae must parasitize an invertebrate host to develop.   

There are several ways that horsehair worms parasitize hosts and complete their development. Sometimes the host directly ingests the larvae, which immediately move into their parasitic stage and develop within that host.

Some preparasitic horsehair worm larvae encyst on leaves or other debris when a water source dries up. If a suitable host, such as a millipede, eats this cyst when ingesting vegetation, the horsehair worm larvae can move into the parasitic stage.

About three months after the horsehair worm parasitizes a host, the host is impelled to seek out water. When the host enters the water, the mature worm emerges. Adult worms are free-living in water and don't feed, but they can live many months."

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The Sierra Tiger Beetle was on the road to Howard Meadow!  This is only the second time I've seen one of these beautiful, metallic-green beetles. The following information about these beetles is from Wikipedia.org.

"Tiger beetles often have large bulging eyes, long, slender legs and large curved mandibles. Members of the genus Cicindela are usually diurnal and may be out on the hottest days. Cicindela, commonly known as common tiger beetles are generally brightly colored and often with some sort of patterning of ivory or cream-colored markings. They are most abundant and diverse in habitats very often near bodies of water with sandy or occasionally clay soils; they can be found along rivers, sea and lake shores, sand dunes, around dry lakebeds, on clay banks, or woodland paths.

All are predatory, both as adults and as larvae. The larvae of tiger beetles live in cylindrical burrows as much as a meter deep. They are large-headed, hump-backed grubs and use their humpbacks to flip backwards, for the purpose of capturing prey insects that wander over the ground.

The fast-moving adults run down their prey and are extremely fast on the wing. Tiger beetles display an unusual form of pursuit in which they alternatively sprint quickly toward their prey, then stop and visually reorient. This may be because while running, the beetle is moving too fast for its visual system to accurately process images. To avoid obstacles while running they hold their antennae rigidly and directly in front of them to mechanically sense their environment."

Underwing Moth - Catocala irene

As we were walking along the road to Howard Meadow, I noticed this gray moth with its brightly colored underwing showing!  I had never seen one of these moths before!  When it closed its wings, it was totally camouflaged. When Underwing Moths are disturbed, they move the cryptic (very well camouflaged, tree-bark-patterned) forewings  to expose bright patches of color on the upper surface of the hind wings. This helps to deter predators.  How cool to find one of these intriguing moths!

Columbian Black-tailed Deer - Odocoileus hemionus columbianus

To our delight we came across a doe with two tiny fawns, on the road to Howard Meadow!  They were really pretty tiny, and shorter than their mom's belly!   I rarely see deer in the Lakes Basin, and have never seen a doe with fawns there!  Such wonderful beauty! 

What's happening on the River?

What's happening in my neighborhood?

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

Your questions and comments are greatly appreciated. Please feel free to email me at northyubanaturalist@gmail.com. Thanks!