Joubert's Diggings 12-25-23
Joubert's Diggings
There are three local ponds that I check on when I have the time. The one pictured above is right off the road on my regular weekly drive to get groceries, so I check it often. Last winter it was empty of waterfowl except for some Canada Geese. To my delight, this year, there are Buffleheads, Geese, and Hooded Mergansers residing there!!!
Male ducks molt and acquire their colorful mating feathers twice a year, at the end of summer and in the beginning of spring. Female ducks molt once a year, usually when they have nestlings to take care of. Most birds molt a few feathers at a time, but ducks shed all of their outer feathers when they molt, including their wing feathers. For a few weeks, they become flightless, and are more vulnerable to predation. Right now the males have molted their summer plumage and are in their beautiful mating colors.
Late fall, or early to mid-winter, is when most waterfowl establish their pair bonds, usually while on their wintering grounds. This bond will only last through one breeding season, which is generally from March to the end of May.
It's the female waterfowl, not the males, that choose their mates. To attract females, males perform elaborate courtship rituals including postures and subtle gestures. The female will pick a drake that has the best mating display, as well as the best plumage for a mate!
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Hooded Mergansers - Lophodytes cucullatus
This stunning pair of Hooded Mergansers will spend the winter here. In the Spring they will migrate north to the western or coastal areas of Oregon, Washington and Canada to breed. They eat small fish, aquatic insects, amphibians, small mammals, plants, and crustaceans. How lucky we are to have them as winter visitors!
Hooded Mergansers - Lophodytes cucullatus
In the photo above, both ducks have their "hoods" upright and in full-on display! Hooded Mergansers are diving ducks. They have serrated bills to hold slippery prey, and special, clear, nictitating membrane on their eyes that enable them to see underwater. The following information on diving ducks is from the website ducks.org/conservation/waterfowl-research-science/diving-ducks-into-the-deep. I find it fascinating!
"The body of a diving duck is much more compact and fusiform (wider in the middle and tapering toward the end) than that of a dabbler. Divers' wings are also more compact, which allows them to be compressed tightly against the body for greater diving efficiency. In addition, divers' legs are set much farther back on their body, and their feet are much larger and have a lobed hind toe. These adaptations help propel the birds while they are underwater.
In general, most birds are lighter than water. But diving ducks typically have higher body densities than other waterfowl. Just before they dive, the birds compress their feathers against their body, squeezing out air, which further reduces buoyancy. Next, with a single thrust of their powerful legs and feet, diving ducks arch their bodies upward and dive headlong, quickly disappearing beneath the water's surface.
Once underwater, the birds use their feet and wings to propel themselves downward in search of food. They steer during descent largely by shifting their head and tail positions. Once near the bottom, diving ducks use their feet to maintain a hovering position while they forage for aquatic insects, small mollusks, seeds, vegetation, roots, tubers, and other food. Diving ducks will actively forage at all times of day or night.
Not surprisingly, the duration of each dive increases with foraging depth. A typical dive takes 10-30 seconds, but diving ducks may remain underwater for a minute or more."
Buffleheads - Bucephala albeola
There are two pairs of Buffleheads on the ponds pictured above. The males have the bright-white bodies and "wedges" on their heads. The females have a white bar behind their eyes. These diving ducks feed on aquatic insects, amphipods, snails, clams, seeds, and bulrushes. They are the smallest diving duck in North America, measuring 13.5" in length.
Buffleheads mainly breed in Canada and Alaska, but since 1996 a small percentage of them have been found in small mountain lakes in the northern Sierra Nevada. Every summer I come across several female Buffleheads with their ducklings in the Lakes Basin. Usually it's only one female and her ducklings that occupy a pond or small lake! Perhaps the ones pictured above have recently come down from the Lakes Basin!
Canada Geese - Branta canadensis
There are almost always some Canada Geese on these ponds. Sometimes as few as two, or as many as twelve! Although most Canada Geese in other parts of the US migrate up to Canada and the arctic to breed, here in California many of them live year-round. They feed primarily on plants and cultivated grains, in water and on land.
Pine Siskins - Pinus spinus
While I was observing the ducks at Joubert's Diggins, a flock of Pine Siskins landed in the top of a Pine tree, that was at eye-level! How cool! I haven't seen a flock of these tiny little birds for a year or more!!! They were busy eating something that was on the scaly bare branches of the tree!
Pine Siskins are named for their preference for pine and other conifer seeds. They will hang from the tips of branches to glean seeds from the cones. They also feed on the ground for a wide variety of grass and shrub seeds, garden vegetable leaves and stems, and insects. Sap in tree trunk holes, that Sapsuckers have made, can also be part of their diet! They will also ingest minerals along the sides of roads! They range widely and erratically in response to seed crops. Their main food in winter is cone seeds and tree buds.
When food is plentiful they will store lots of seeds in their crop, which gets them through cold winter nights. Unlike hummingbirds, that go into a state of torpor overnight, Pine Siskins ramp up their metabolic rate to stay warm at night! They also put on a layer of fat for winter! I love watching these little birds and hearing their busy chatter as they forage and perch in the trees! They travel in small to large flocks all year.
Charles Marsh Pond 12-23-23
Charles Marsh Pond
The Charles Marsh Pond is in a rural neighborhood with a surrounding forest. A few days ago I revisited it, in hopes of possibly seeing a Hooded Merganser! To my absolute delight there were 4 females and 3 males on the pond! Wow! How lucky to see them!
Hooded Merganser (female) - Lophodytes cucullatus
I have seen male Hooded Mergansers in the company of 3-4 female Hooded Mergansers, but apparently they are monogamous, having only one mate per breeding season. Maybe another male will show up soon!
Hooded Mergansers (male) - Lophodytes cucullatus
The males are SO striking with their golden eyes and their
rust, black, and white plumage! Such beauty! In contrast,
the females are quite camouflaged!
California Towhee (adult) - Lophodytes cucullatus
In the alders, cattails, and willows along the shore there were a variety of singing, chirping birds! Most of them moved too fast to photograph, but I did get a photo of this lovely California Towhee, with its apricot-colored under-bum and front of its head. They live ONLY in California and Baja year round. In California they are found along the coast, in the coastal range, in California's Central Valley, and in the the foothills! 84% of their diet is seeds, but will also eat some insects and some fruits. I love their pastel color with a hint of apricot!
View toward the North Yuba River Canyon below Bullard's Bar Reservoir
Yuba Rim Trail in Rice's Crossing Preserve
This week, my husband and I decided to hike the Yuba Rim Trail. We hadn't been there in several years. We are happy to report that the trail looks better than ever! They have burned all the huge piles of brush and branches, and have re-routed part of the trail so that it has the above view of the river canyon within the first mile! It is a forest that's totally different from our neighborhood. It's also different from the Blue Oak Woodlands of the foothills that we frequent. The elevation is around 2,200' and there are Madrones, Black Oaks, Tank Oaks, and Big-leaf Maple, and Ponderosa Pines! It was fascinating!
Tanoak trunk, leaves, and acorns with their spikey cups
Tanoaks are not oaks even though they produce acorns! They are in their own genus of Lithocarpus. There were lots of youngish tanoaks in the forest that had smooth, gray bark, along with old, mature trees that had dark-gray fissured bark. Mature trees grow 50'-90' tall, with a diameter of 1'-3', and be 300-400 years old. In shaded or harsh areas they can also be mulit-branched shrubs rather than trees. In some areas the ground was covered with their fallen leaves and dropped acorns. The cups of the acorns have many bristly spikes. I've seen tanoaks on one other trail that I hike fairly often, the Canyon Creek Trail near our home. They don't grow down in Bridgeport State Park or Daugherty Hill Wildlife Area, that I know of.
Pacific Madrone - Arbutus menziesii
Pacific Madrone trees were scattered throughout the forest as well. Mature trees can grow 25'-130' tall, with a diameter of 1'-3', and live to be 400-500 years old! Most of the trees we saw were small in diameter. They all had bark that was peeling off the trunk, revealing a super smooth inner bark. The bright orange berries can be numerous, hanging in clusters on the ends of branches. The usually shiny, green leaves were turning a variety of fall colors within one leaf. They looked like small abstract paintings!
California Black Oak - Quercus kelloggii
California Black Oaks are true Oaks in the genus Quercus. They weren't as numerous as the Tanoaks, but we did come across some large, old ones. Mature Black Oaks can be 30'-89' tall, with a diameter of 1'-4', and attain an age of 500 years old! In infertile areas they can also grow as shrubs! Like the Tanoaks, there were areas where their fallen leaves blanketed the forest floor, along with their acorns. The acorn caps are not spiky, and are covered with small overlapping scales.
Big-leaf Maple - Acer macrophyllum
There were also Big-leaf Maple trees scattered in the woods. Mature Big-leaf Maples can be 100' tall, up to 3'-8' in diameter, and live to be 300 years old!
Their winged seeds are dropped in late summer, but I didn't see any on the forest floor, just lots and lots of leaves. There weren't a lot of moss-covered trunks in this forest, as it gets pretty hot here in the summer. I thought the tree above was just gorgeous in it's winter coat of rain-revived green moss.
Ponderosa Pine was the dominant pine in the forest, and their dead needles were hanging on all the shrubs, and covered the forest floor. Mature Ponderosa Pines can be 100'-180' tall, with a diameter of 3'-4', and can live to be 600 years old! The bracts on the cones protrude outward and are quite prickly to hold. The seeds are eaten by squirrels, rodents, and birds.
Unknown fungi growing in Dendroalsia Moss
Forest Fungi!
There were lots and lots of mushrooms in the forest, due to the recent half inch of rain a few days before. Once again, I am unable to identify them all for you, but I love looking at them! They are little treasures in the woods!
a cluster of unknown fungi
Coral fungi - Ramaria sp.
Rosy Russula - Russula rosaceae
These mushrooms were a lovely salmon-pink in color, and were a striking contrast to the brown leaves that covered the forest floor.
Turkey Tail - Trametes versicolor
These lovely, layered, shelf-like mushrooms are striped in browns, rusts, and ambers and are almost velvety to the touch.
Coyote Brush - Baccharis pilularis
Shrubs!
Out in the sunny areas, away from the shady forest, two shrubs dominated the landscape, Toyon and Coyote Brush. The Toyon was in full, glorious, "berry"! We didn't see any Western Bluebird feasting on them, so perhaps they weren't ripe yet. They were lovely to see! There was also a lot of Coyote Brush that was going to seed. The hairy seedheads glowed in the late afternoon sun!
Toyon - Coyote Brush
Heteromeles arbutifolia - Baccharis pilularis
There were many other shrubs in the area, but I'll have to go back again and take an inventory when I have more time!
The distant Sierra Buttes from the Yuba Rim Trail!
The trail wasn't rocky at all, was blanketed in pine needles, and flat for the first 3/4 of a mile. Perfect for my husband who has Parkinson's Disease! It then has a series of gradual uphill switchbacks to the top of the ridge where there's a lovely view of the far away Sierra Buttes. The trail keeps going to an overlook of the North Yuba River below Bullard's Bard Dam, but we didn't get that far, maybe next time. In the meantime, I'd recommend this trail for low-elevation winter hiking. It was so fun to see new species of trees, shrubs, and fungi! We loved it!
What's happening down in Daugherty Hill?
What's happening in my neighborhood?
Check back next week for the answers to these questions and more.
Your comments and questions are greatly appreciated,
please email me at northyubanaturalist@gmail.com.
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