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!