Ramblings with Rebecca February 22- March 8, 2005

Welcome Back to Spring hiking at ACR’s Bouverie Preserve! Flowers have already been blooming and leaves are opening throughout the preserve, and even the newts are on the march!! ANNOUNCEMENTS: *Please remember to check the volunteer webpage for these Ramblings ~ once every two weeks throughout the season. Also, you’ll currently find the BP Spring Slideshow on the webpage as well – the script is essentially the same (a few minor edits), but this version includes photos of the slides! From the webpage you can view this in color and/or print your own color version with pictures! Many thanks go to Carolyn McKenna for inserting these photos, Sue Walker’s husband , John, for scanning the slides and providing these digital images, and Karlene Hall for reading through and working with Nancy to make some small edits to the script! * THIS fall begins a new docent training season at Bouverie! Please help us recruit awesome new people for the docent program! You are one of our very best resources, so do what you can to spread the news to friends, colleagues, acquaintances and family members. Docent applications are already available in Gilman Hall and we should very soon have fliers and postcards to pass out as well. PLEASE CONSIDER PARENT CHAPERONES or GNW HIKERS and pass applications or training fliers to any who seem interested in this opportunity, or who would be willing to pass the word to their friends or acquaintances. It is time to start gearing up for this exciting and important training program. Karen Sommer and Barbara Ramsey are already doing a smashing good job of getting the program ready with the help of an excellent training committee. * Dave Cook is currently working on an amphibian study we hired him to do here at the preserve. You may see his study site blue flag markers on the trail (there are 5 or 6 up the Canyon Trail). If you do, please leave them where they are! This is important, as his study will provide us with good, current information on a range of amphibian species at the preserve, including frogs we have not studied here before! We’re also hoping to have Dave teach the upcoming docent training class on amphibians, so his research will contribute to that as well. BY THE NATIVE PLANT GARDEN, GILMAN HALL & PARKING LOT:

Bush poppies (Dendromecon rigida) are bright yellow in flower right now…and have been for a few weeks already!

Late season Manzanita and Chaparral Current flowers are still adding to the remnants of a winter bloom.

Black Oak (Quercus kelloggii) leaves are so close to opening with their pink newness! I hope you take the time to observe these early spring pastels. It is one of the wonders of the early spring to see the Black Oak leaves newly emerged, pink with life, only to mature soon after to a bronzy green before becoming “regular” spine-pointed, deeply-lobed “everyday” wonders. If you’re not sure where to see this phenomenon, look out the back window of Gilman Hall, and watch the line of Black Oaks close to the hall – as each matures at just a slightly different pace than its neighbors… Black Phoebe flitting its tail and fly catching.

Watch for the much-divided, prolific leaves, and (soon) spirals of white flowers, of the Fern Leafed Phacelia, Phacelia distans, among the rocks between the Rocky Road and the Access Trail. Years ago, Chickweed, Stellaria media, proved to me that although I prefer to protect the land for the native plants and animals that evolved in this area, I can still appreciate, and even become very fond of, a few introduced species (though I may wish they were growing elsewhere!). Chickweed is just such a little gem with tiny (~1/8 inch) white flowers and small oval leaves growing among the grasses in this area. Eaten as an early spring potherb in Europe, this modest climber is prolific and as common as miner’s lettuce once you begin to notice it. Since it isn’t a big competitor, it’s not a big cause for worry either.

ON THE TRAIL

1] Heading out on the Yellow Brick Road, you will see tiny white flowers and small, scale- shaped reddish seeds on Peppergrass (Lepidium nitidum) low to the ground mid trail and along the trail edges. This is a member of the mustard family, and if you look closely at the flowers (this is the time for a good handlens), you will see that there are four petals in a simple cross formation…as is typical for this plant family. Peppergrass is one of the plants with seeds that were collected and eaten as pinole (a multi-seed snack not unlike trail mix) by indigenous peoples of this area. Approaching the road that turns toward David Bouverie’s house, you’ll see the tiny yellow Blennosperma nanum flowers more commonly known as Sunshine, or Tiny Glue Seed. These bright spots in the Sunflower family are the reason the Yellow Brick Road is so named, and this looks like a good year for them! When the sun is out, they practically glow! Also watch for a few coils of white Popcorn flowers (Plagiobothrys nothofulvus) along the trail in this area as well. And then the Milkmaids (Cardamine californica)! Stalks of white, four-petaled flowers are ubiquitous on both sides of the trail where it meets up with the Woodland Trail and Bouverie Ranch roads. These Maltese cross blossoms can’t but recall mustard to the discerning eye. Sky Lupine and Spring Vetch leaves hint that we should keep one eye open for both of these species to flower before long as well. 2] Near the seasonal drainage and culvert beyond the Woodland Trail/ Yellow Brick Road junction, many low growing, large round quarter-sized flowers of Baby White Eyes (a.k.a. White Baby Blue Eyes, Buffalo Eyes, Nemophila menziesii var. atomaria) grace the grassland… especially in low areas. Do take a closer look with the kids if you see some close to the trail. These are such a lovely example of flowers with nectar guides… the subtle, blue-purple dotted lines that lead our native bees right to the sweet pay-off in the center of the flower! Look for deer tracks in the muddy puddle here. And Wild Turkey tracks too, of course (Curious about how to discuss invasive species with kids? Look for a handout on that subject to come soon – ask me about it!) 3] Before you get to the big Valley Oak on the Yellow Brick Road trail, you may notice the flowering fruit tree on the left. It looks like an escaped horticultural species, or one planted here many long years ago. In any case, it is in full flower, and quite attractive. On the edge of the trail in the same area, look for flowering Suncups (Camissonia ovata). This is the evening primrose family native with the ovary of each flower already buried in the soil. Ants have been implicated in moving mature seeds of this species around. You’ll see more of these plants, sans flowers, mid-trail near the Valley Oak. You can recognize them by the basal rosette of chard-like leaves with bright pink veins. From here I watched a White-tailed Kite glide over the Oak Woodlands, heading south. I’m guessing this is one of the two that we often see on the preserve. Please let me know if you see any signs that these elegant raptors are nesting! I’ll do the same. 4] Where Rocky Road II and the Yellow Brick Road meet up just before the Canyon Trail, the California Bay tree (Umbellularia californica) is in full flower. The tiny yellow blooms are low enough for students to look for stamens and pistils and petals as well. A Squirrel Story: I stood right in front of this well known Bay on a windy day and heard a noise that was just a little more rustling than the wind in the boughs, and so I watched. A gray squirrel (our arboreal species) carried a large unwieldy branch up to a crotch in the tree where it was piled with a few others. The squirrel turned away, ran down the trunk just five or six feet, nipped off another branch, and carried it with its mouth back to the same point, pressing this one into the nest-in-the-making as well. The noise of the wind camouflaged my sounds as well, and I was able to watch this for quite awhile with the squirrel evidently unaware of my presence. I was in awe of the dexterity of this common rodent which uses hands and mouth together in a well choreographed ballet while running along the curved trunk as though it were a four lane highway. I was also surprised that it gathered its nesting material so very close to home! If you stand in front of the bay from the Yellow Brick Road trail and look about 15 feet up into the tree at about “12 o’clock”, you should see the nest she was building just the other day. 5] At the Canyon Trail entrance, the Buckeyes (Aesculus californica) are showy with new, green, palmately compound leaves. By the trail edge and on the barbed wire fence, Wild Pea (Lathyrus vestitus) is flowering in pale pink. Older flowers soon fade to a “used tea-bag brown”. More Milkmaid flowers greet you here, and the luscious fresh leaves of Poison Oak (Toxicodendron diversiloba), wavy wands of Soaproot (Chlorogalum pomeridianum), tiny, new, rounded sun-catchers of Snowberry bushes (Symphoricarpos albus var. laevigatus) and Naugahyde-textured foliage of the Pacific Pacific Snakeroot, Sanicula crassicaulis Snakeroot (Sanicula crassicaulis), complete the tableau. 6] At the Refrigerator Tree (The stately Madrone – Arbutus menzeisii -with barbed wire embedded along the path -side), I watched a mixed species foraging flock zip through the canopy so fast and with so much chatter, that I could feel the “quick-there’s-a-lot-to-do-between-the-rain- showers” urgency of Spring in my very bones! The feathered fliers I encountered were mostly very vocal Chestnut-sided Chickadees, but I also saw a few small, fast, excited, grey birds with white wing bars that got my attention. I had begun to look more closely at those wing bars and had asked myself if I’d seen an eye ring or not, when this mystery of avian identity was solved once and for all. I had been debating between the winter resident Ruby- crowned Kinglet, and the spring & summer resident, Hutton’s Vireo… when the tell-tale single note repetitive call began. Vireo it is! Watching this show, I heard one high thin call that eluded me, until I saw the Brown Creeper creeping right up the trunk of a Douglas Fir, apparently calm in the midst of chaos! I love watching all of these quick little passerines move through the canopy in the mixed woodland. As fast as they move, my binoculars often have to play catch-up to track them, but doing so is a lot like looking for hidden pictures in a drawing… except that this is real, and the action is live! 7] Stuart Creek is brown with sediment stirred up by recent rains…. And the water is running at full volume (in every sense of the word)! 8] Approaching the Two Tall Douglas Firs, I found Polypody Ferns (Polypodium californicum) on the hillside dense with sori on the undersides of the fronds. I did collect a little, which you and the kids can look at under the scopes behind the stage if you like. Sometimes we can find 9] At the Footbridge near Indian Flat, I watched an oblivious Red-bellied Newt walk right to the edge of the bridge and then step…. right over! After tumbling through the air, it landed on the concrete abutment below, righted itself, and after standing still for a moment, moseyed on up the creek through the tunnel created by the bridge! This was the first of about four newt-fallings I witnessed on this particular Rambling hike alone! I’d never before noticed how clumsy, and, actually, acrobatic these amphibians are. Durable too! 10] Just past Indian Flat and the Beetle Rock, a well established Bay on the right side of the trail cracked off a large limb, which lies, now, directly in front of the sole Trillium patch on the preserve. Can you see where the Bay branch broke off the main stem? The Trillium, one of our most elegant native Lilies, is indeed emerging. The flower is not out yet, but if you look between the fallen Bay branches, you can find the three-leaved platform which will hold the flower soon. You’ll have to look a little harder to find it this year!

Broken Bay branch, fallen in front of Trillium patch Trillium in leaf, behind broken Bay branch! Passing Dottie’s Path, I am surrounded by Red-bellied Newts cruisin’ up the trail. Many are actually heading down the hillside toward the water! 11] At the creek crossing point (CA 4) and just up from the lunch spot, there is a boulder along the trail edge with many empty Bay nut husks. This looks like a place where a Grey Squirrel stopped to feed. Around the next turn, White Alders (Alnus rhombifolia) in the creek are beginning to leaf out, and most have already shed their catkins. The thicket along the trail edge includes many new California Blackberry (Rubus californicus) leaves. You’ll recognize these because most of the leaves have three parts, the spines on the stems are really pretty soft prickles (compared with the painfully sharp thorns and five to seven part leaves on the invasive Himalayan Blackberries). At this next bend, you can see that the creek water has risen much closer to the trail than usual, surrounding part of the shoreline – turning it into a seasonal island of sorts. You can also tell this is a regular seasonal flood event, since there are piles of old debris and many well- established sedges growing in this area which is dry the rest of the year. 12] After you pass the steps leading to the Connector Trail, watch the hazel thickets for the tiny, red female Hazelnut (Corylus cornuta var. californica) flowers! These flowers are usually pretty elusive and are only open for a very short window of time… but I saw a plethora of these tiny miracles up and down the canyon and photographed a few in case you miss the show. Here are a couple of pictures of the female flowers and also the male catkins:

13] Up on the tuff rock outcrop on the Canyon Trail, many Shooting Stars (Dodecathon hendersonii) are in bloom. These lovely plants have been in purple flower since late January! What a sight this is! Look also for the delicate stems of Lacepod (Thysanocarpus curvipes) along the front edge of this high meadow. The sun broke through here, and I also noticed Goldback ferns (Pentagramma triangularis), lots of liverworts, bedstraw leaves and, at the base of the rock, the hairy- strawberry-style leaves of Cinquefoil (Potentilla glandulosa). The Sticky Monkey shrubs along the trail edge here have fresh, sticky leaves, but no flowers yet!

14] Around the bend in the curve before Creek Access #5,, look for the bright red and yellow caps of Waxy Cap Mushrooms (Hygrocybe sp.) on the creek side of the trail. You can expect to see more of these further up canyon! At the 5th Creek Access point, look for raised tunnels of soil. There is a complex network of mole tunnels here, forming a nearly dendritic pattern. Moles, as you recall, eat meat- mostly invertebrates- and push up these soil tunnels as they hunt for prey just below the surface. One species commonly seen in this area is the shrew mole, a very small critter that spends some of its time hunting on the surface, unlike most of its close relations. 15] Beyond the 5th Creek Access point, the Chain Ferns look great. Entering the redwood forest, I saw many heart-shaped leaves of the two-eyes violets, but no flowers yet. Then, at the 6th Creek Access point, there are even more female Hazel flowers, if you missed earlier opportunities to marvel! Tiny beige mushrooms are in fruit along the hillside of the trail. Rather nondescript, these. 16] About 2/3 of the way up the first steep hill after the 6th Creek Access point, there is just a mass of mushroom marvels! Look closely at that innocuous looking log lying along the creekside trail edge. I found fascinating white gilled False Turkey Tail fungus (possibly in the Stereaceae), some amazing lumpy a black jelly fungus known as Black Witch’s Butter (Exidia glandulosa), and a fair amount of paler,

Black Witch’s Butter Exidia glandulosa

brown, and as yet unidentified jelly fungus… this last one likely to elicit rather graphic descriptions A gilled, False Turkey Tail fungus from the rotting wood young’uns! Not all will want the tactile experience, but it’s perfectly OK to touch this stuff and try to describe it! 17] A lovely delicate white California Saxifrage (Saxifraga Unidentified Brown Jelly Fungus californica) is flowering where it grows from out of the rotting wood fractured rock wall. Interestingly, “saxifrage” means rock- splitter in Latin… well named! This particular little rock flower is pretty easy to identify here, because it is the only plant of its kind on the preserve with such distinct, tiny orange anthers! The leaves form a basal rosette, and each oval leaf is edged with slight scalloping. It’s an easy to miss beauty, and well worth the hike.

California Saxifrage flower close up; Note the tiny orange stamens on the flower that is in focus!

18] You have to hike all the way up here to find Canyon Delphinium (a.k.a. Red Larkspur, Delphinium nudecaule) in flower! However there’s a lot of it in bud lower on the trail. I love the botanical California Saxifrage name of this species: Delphinium is from a Greek growing out of a rock word for dolphin, referring to the flower shape… which, if you use your imagination just a bit, has a spur that does indeed resemble the blunt-elongate “beak” of this majestic marine mammal. Look at the flower in bud for an even clearer similarity! Nudicaule? This refers to the stem being mostly leafless above the basal leaves: the plant is essentially leafless above the lowest 1/3 of the stem. Here among the fractured rock, high up on the Canyon Trail en route to the Waterfall Overlook, I came upon a Red- bellied Newt rock climbing! This is another acrobatic newt that tumbled of its own accord, and then carried on as if nothing happened, after falling a few feet from and onto rock! 19] At the Falls, the rock wall is a riot of color: Seep Spring Monkeyflower yellows, Shooting Star purple-pinks, delicate lacy white California Saxifrage! Add to that the power and magnificence of Stuart Falls at full roar! 20] Heading back toward the hall via the Rocky Road Trail, Hound’s Tongue is in blue flower between the Yellow Brick Road and the footbridge by the Unnatural Trail. Spring has sprung, Folks! Enjoy it, watch for newts, & tell me what you see !