Auduboncanyonranch

AudubonCanyonRanch Number 33 BULLETIN Fall 2003 Generations of a Living Landscape by Gwen Heistand GORDON SHERMAN All morning at Audubon Canyon Ranch’s Bolinas lowtail caterpillars are still inching slowly in search of Lagoon Preserve I have been watching two Northern a suitable place to pupate. Deer twins, whose after- flickers carrying food to their highly vocal young in birth I watched their mother lick from them two the alder bog. At the same time, an Allen’s humming- months ago, have almost lost their spots. And through bird pair cavort and click around the top of a tobacco it all the Swainson’s thrushes sing. It is July in tree. Thirty-seven California quail babies (yes, 37!) Volunteer Canyon and I am nearly breathless from and assorted parents chuckle and chuff as they com- watching one generation folding into the next. plete their morning laps in the driveway. A young The land, too, is generational. The flicker’s alder brush rabbit leaves its sanctuary in the fenced-in gar- bog seems so complete, so well established. And yet I den to join them. On the lagoon, great egrets (some know that it is a result of the big storms of 1982-1983. of them recently fledged chicks) are silhouetted as I know that it is in a waning phase, that alders are not they feed on the outgoing tide. An American long-lived, that the snags created from downed trees goldfinch couple that set up shop in the streamside are what attract the numerous cavity nesters. I am also bamboo this year visits cow parsnip flower heads now aware of what I’m not seeing: teaching ponds dug in brown and full of seeds. Barn swallows, on their sec- the 1970s, blankets of introduced cape ivy patiently ond nesting in the bunkhouse, perform aerial maneu- removed, large berms once installed for flood control, vers high over the garden catching insects in mid air. remnants of the Crum House foundation where it An occasional yellow alder leaf flutters down in per- stood before it was moved to its present location. fect imitation of the foraging ruby-crowned kinglets There are visible hints of human generations in this in its boughs. Blue elderberries ripen. Scarlet mon- landscape as well: calla lily, foxglove, and narcissus keyflower blooms in the stream. A few pipevine swal- winding through equisetum, seep spring monkey continued on page 2 Page 2 Audubon Canyon Ranch Preserve, names of individuals who are linked to this land have been transformed into the place itself. Bourne is a ridge, a fire trail where a logging skid trail once was, where harvester ants separate chaff and false tarantulas clean their burrows after the first rains. Parsons is a pond filled with copepods, backswimmers, water boatmen, dragonfly naiads, and no small amount of mystery. Henderson sings the descending trill of an orange-crowned warbler and hosts the yellow flowers of Oregon grape while overlooking our nesting white- winged ambassadors. Zumie winds through coffeberry and sagebrush, huckleberry and bay, live oak and pur- ple explosions of Douglas iris. Picher has a stream that spills over rocks, under which caddisfly larvae vibrate in their cases, past elk clover and liverworts and Pacific giant salamanders, and eventually flows into the old ACR PHOTO ranch yard to greet busloads of school children and Alis’ Tree, a Douglas fir named in honor of ACR’s original weekend visitors. Miller reminds us that the water naturalist Clerin “Zumie” Zumwalt’s wife Alis, was one of birds do indeed return every fall from points north to only two trees spared on this section of Bourne Ridge during gather in the lagoon for the winter. Harwell educates the woodcutting days of the late 19th century. Alis’ Tree is us about ecotones and edges transitioning from mixed now in the middle of a new Douglas fir forest that has woodland to redwood forest, redwood forest to coastal grown up since Audubon Canyon Ranch bought the property scrub, coastal scrub to grassland. Fog drip collects in in the early 1960s. Schwarz, providing moisture for the tall trees throughout the dry Mediterranean summers. Griffin loops through landscapes moist and sere, gives up vistas of flower, and ferns; the road base of old Highway One ocean and lagoon, passes places where the aria of a flowing under watercress and smartweed; the very winter wren morphs into a duet with a waterfall and bamboo that hosted the goldfinch pair this spring; lingers in the drops on five-fingered ferns. Pierson is a blue, pink, orange, yellow, and red flags marking marsh with cattails, red-winged black bird nests, cho- where elderberry, elkclover, big-leaf maple, and wild ruses of tree frogs, and two ponds containing newts rose have been planted. The landscapes of this place and wonder. are inextricably woven with human history and rich in Several Saturdays ago, I met a couple catching said visible signs of passing time. newts. Their son had brought them to the Bolinas Redwood youth, themselves bearing scars from the Lagoon Preserve when he was 10 years old, after a trip last big fire in the 1940s, sprout from once-logged old with his class. On this particular Saturday afternoon, growth ancestors. Coastal scrub marches over hillsides he was also catching newts along with his wife and that were once grazed and planted with potatoes. their ten year-old son. My conversation with three Douglas firs encroach on the marching coastal scrub and, in the Dead Horse Grove, five of them mark the continued on page 4, column 1 buried corpses of J.P., Champ, and Lady, horses once belonging to Walter McLaren, the general maintenance manager of Canyon Ranch from 1950-1975. A Young Miwok charmstone found in Garden Club Canyon’s California stream in 2000 spans centuries and cultures as it gets Quail passed in a circle from docent to child to docent. Trees above the Spring Trail completely engird an old boundary fence until it appears as if barbed wire grows from oak bark. And throughout Bolinas Lagoon GORDON SHERMAN Fall 2003 Page 3 THE LEGACY OF OAK WOODLANDS AT ACR’S BOUVERIE PRESERVE by John Petersen Illustrations by Ane Carla Rovetta Of the 16 naturally occurring oak species in Then, as now, fire played a significant role in oak California, nine occur within the 535-acre Bouverie ecosystem management by reducing competing under- Preserve. This amazing diversity is mirrored in other story shrubs and creating the savannah-like landscape plant and animal families that make their homes with- that made acorn harvesting easier. Fire also limited the in the grassland, woodland, and chaparral communi- number of insect pests, thereby increasing production. ties. No doubt this rich ecosystem that includes the Woodlands were typically burned in the fall, when myriad of oaks is what attracted many of the Native temperatures were low and humidity high. A low, Americans to this region thousands of years ago, and it slow-burning fire would kill the grasses, shrubs, and continues to appeal to the many new visitors who competing tree seedlings of other species but not the experience Bouverie each year. fire-resistant oaks. Today, land managers who have “An acorn-bearing tree was undisturbed when until recently practiced fire suppression, again recog- guarded by four sticks placed against it”: so reports nize the age-old value of controlled burning in restora- Native American ethnographer John Hudson. This tion and maintenance of the natural landscape. marking showed ownership by an individual or family, We now manage oak woodlands in part because and that the tree was off-limits to others. Though oaks help wildlife survive. In pre-colonial California, acorns were abundant in early California and village Native Americans managed oak woodlands for their groups typically shared in their bounty, individual trees own survival and the survival of their communities. of maturity and consistency of production were valu- Acorn mush, meal, pancakes, and bread were all staple able commodities. Given the life span of oaks, some foods of the Coast Miwok, Pomo, or Wappo that lived trees could have been “owned” for many generations! on the land that is now the Bouverie Preserve. It is said No surprise then that Native Americans practiced that Black Oaks (Quercus kelloggii) were preferred over some of the same natural resource management prin- all others, with the exception of the tasty Tanbark Oak ciples used today by professional land managers to (Lithocarpus densiflora; not a true oak). Black Oak acorns maintain and enhance both regional biodiversity and are large, slightly sweet, separate easily from the husk, food plant production. store well, and have a fat content approaching 14%. Nutritionally, they are comparable to the best grains continued on page 4, column 2 Page 4 Audubon Canyon Ranch A Place to Return, from page 2 Oaks, from page 3 generations reminded me of a letter from Jeffrey currently available. The least favorite Hilliard who, in 1977 as a fourth grader, came to the were the acorns of the Valley Oak (Q. lobata), which preserve with his class and his father, who was one of tended to be mushy and mealy and used as a last resort the chaperones. Last year Jeffrey returned to the pre- when other acorns were scarce. serve, again with his class, only this time as a teacher. Each year a family would collect enough acorns to His father was, once again, one of the chaperones. last for two years, as a hedge against any future crop Invisibly woven through these experiences is the ener- failures. To process, acorns were cracked and the outer gy of Audubon Canyon Ranch volunteers and, in turn, skin removed.

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