Find of the Day

Took a nice hike through a dry meadow on Mt. Hough with my wife and our dog and uncovered one of my favorite critters, a blue-tailed skink. It's been over two weeks since I've posted, but I have managed to accumulate lots of photos from my several hikes per weeks during that time.  Have not posted for quite a wile due to some tech problems, but mostly due to a lack of time. The adjustment to online teaching during the stay-at-home order has been very challenging.  I miss the classroom interaction.
Meanwhile, spring is finally happening.  I define spring as the time when every day has more wildflowers blooming than the previous day. :)  A few weeks ago I was seeing only Filaree and Draba along the roadsides and trails.  Then the several species of yellow violets started to appear. A real treat earlier in the week was a beautiful blooming peony in the middle of a remote dirt road near Oakland Camp. As the soil warms and the days get longer, many species, especially in the lily, buttercup, and mustard families, are poking up through the soil.  In the coming days I hope to post more regularly again.
By the way, if you see a skink like the one above, please resist the urge to catch it.  No danger to you, but they will often spontaneously shed their tail in order to escape while you (or some other predator) eat their tail.  Then they spend the season growing a new tail rather than reproducing.  Not enough energy for both.  This one was hiding under a large piece of bark.  When I exposed him, I let him escape into the nearby rotten tree trunk.  Luck to get the shot.

Getting ahead of myself

March 29 was a wonderful.  The day I woke up to discover there might actually be a Spring on the horizon. In the morning, I hiked on the Keddie Cascade Trail with my son Greg.  It was cold and foggy, but I did spot one yellow bud of Shelton's Violet,  Inspired by that, I decided to take a drive around American Valley that afternoon to some of my favorite roadside stops that usually receive more sun.  I scored many photos of flowers and bugs, and mentioned here that I had a week or more of material for future blogs.  I've barely got started on that process.  But, this morning I hike a short way up the FRC nature trail and found many Shelton's Violets blooming (above and below). It's now time for me to review my yellow violets - none of which are violet.  At least two of our local species have fan-like leaves.  Viola sheltoni is often called Fan Violet in field guides, but the other local species with fan-like leaves, Viola lobata, is called Wood Violet in those same guides.  To make matters even more confusing, two other species of yellow violets that should arrive in a few weeks have oval-shaped leaves with few or no lobes. They are Viola purpurea and Viola pinetorum. So I'll need a refresher on how to tell them apart. Still later in Spring and early Summer are the white McCloskey's Violet and the violet Western Dog Violet.  The challenge now is to just take in the beauty of these early Spring wildflowers without getting too wrapped up in taxonomic hair-splitting.

 Another exciting (to me) development of Spring is the emergence of the first leaves of some plants that will bloom later.  There's a pleasure in recognizing them at this stage, like getting reacquainted with old friends.  Below is a photo of a young Bedstraw, and below that ...

 The first of the Corn Lilies to arrive on the FRC campus this year.  In a few months, most of them will be over six feet tall and blooming.

Hopefully I'll get back to sharing my finding from that wonderful March 29 afternoon - especially the bugs that are awakening.

Intimations of Natality?

With apologies to William Wordsworth, a man with a way with words, it's the time of year I'd rather think about natality than mortality. As a scientific term, natality simply means birthrate.  But I have in mind something closer to Hannah Arendt's idea of becoming. We are still becoming as a species.  Linnaeus jumped the gun when he labeled us Homo sapiens (wise) and appointed himself as the "type specimen." Every year, as spring approaches, I love the feeling of waking up from winter sleep.  The first leaves of flowering plants have me staring at the ground as if I could force them to hurry up and bloom. This year it has been difficult to get that feeling. As indicated by the above photo - while the first leaves of our tulips have merged, our snow shovel stands at the ready. We've had several big snow storms in recent weeks (below photo) and expect more.  The tulips will be buried in snow before they bloom.

 This two-foot, overnight blast interrupted my weekly hikes on the Keddie Cascade Trail with my son Greg.  Each time we walked that path I was trying to stare the blooming flowers into appearing, to no avail. Then last weekend I took a drive around American Valley and made many pit stops to crawl around on hands and knees and look for signs of the first wildflowers of the season.

 I finally scored.  On Golden Eagle Avenue, the road out to Feather River College, I spotted my first blooming wildflowers of the spring. The Filaree (above) and Spring Whitlow Grass, AKA Draba, below. I kept staring at the ground intensely, hoping to spot the first Henbit Dead Nettle. No luck, and as of this week, another few inches of snow has delayed spring yet again.  However, On that same aforementioned drive I found quite  few new blooming species and the first invertebrate activity - various bugs and slugs.

 On my way home from that drive, I pulled over to the side of the road to answer a text message. Then, I couldn't resist taking the photo below.  It put me back in the Hannah Arendt territory and her concept of natality (becoming). In the not too distance future, I'll be rejoining the earth in a different form and will definitely be a part of earth's "becoming." When I spotted another vehicle in my rear view mirror, I was reminded of one of Homo sapiens'  unique traits: while we may not yet be wise, we are capable of looking forward and backward simultaneously. There is much pop psychology chatter online about being in the moment, but I rather prefer the idea of looking forward and backward simultaneously.  I love to stretch the time scale orders of magnitude - the supposed age of the universe, and what came before that, the age of our solar system, the earth, our species, me, the latest little cut on my finger, and so on, all of which are still becoming. I like that.

 

 On a lighter note, the new sign on the local mortuary reminded me there is some business I need to take care of.  This in turn reminded me of a little sign I used to have on the wall when I was involved in designed the layout of an animal rights magazine years ago.  It's still on my wall.

Nature from the Driver's Seat

 It's been a while since I last found the time to post to this blog, so I'm out of practice.  I forgot my password, and I forgot some of the steps that used to be automatic. For over a week I have dithered
about a more serious post "inspired" by the glut of news about COVID-19. It's sort of an intimidating subject. Now that I seem to be succeeding with posting photos I took this morning during a rainy drive around American Valley, I might be ready to tackle the big subject.  If so, that will be followed by a series of posts on a lighter note - namely signs of spring; flowers blooming, bugs crawling, etc. The above photo is of two of my favorite huge trees at Gansner Park which borders Spanish Creek


On an embankment just behind where my truck was parked for the first photo were clusters of Lupines, not yet blooming, but looking ready.  By the way, I have no idea how this photo popped over to the left margin.

Further downstream on Spanish Creek are a couple of turnouts giving access to some favorite swimming holes.  From one of them, I got this shot of the muddy, rising water of the creek.

Next stop was Golden Eagle Avenue, the entryway to Feather River College.  I found it ironic to see a welcome sign hanging while the college is closed to all visitors, and even staff (me) except for a select few needed to keep the college running for online education. I didn't venture far beyond the sign before heading out to Quincy Junction Road to inspect other creeks.

Here I've stopped at a turnout on Chandler Road on the north side of the single-lane bridge over the point where Spanish Creek and Greenhorn Creek converge.  I could only see Spanish Creek from this view.  I did venture out onto the bridge on foot to take a photo that  included both creeks, but I didn't post it here because it would have conflicted with my theme.

Last, but not least, I ventured out toward Oakland Feather River Camp and shortly after crossing the low bridge across Spanish Creek, I paused over the culvert that carries Berry Creek to join Spanish Creek in another 30 yards or so.

Followers of this blog may recall past posts in which I've mocked so-called nature lovers for photographing fall foliage or any other natural phenomena from the front seats of their cars.  I now feel humbled.  I just didn't want to get wet.