satyr comma ~ 05/28/14 ~ Carmel Valley Road

satyr comma

Polygonia satyrus satyrus

(Shapiro, Tenney, Walker)

posted 06/13/14 - We found this in a small canyon behind the table rock horse stables on the north side of Carmel Valley Road.  The location is in the general vicinity as Hatton Canyon (satyr and oreas) and Santa Lucia Preserve (oreas and zephyr).  Note overall light appearance and 4 pairs of spots closest to the body on both the fore and hindwings on this individual.  Too bad I didn't also get a picture of its comma mark, but that's the way it usually happens for me.  I don't have a whole lot of patience waiting to take perfect pictures.

nasturtium
Tropaeolum majus
Tropaeolaceae

For exactly 21 years starting in 1982 after my grandfather died, my grandmother and I would holiday together in Morro Bay and Cambria. We always stayed at the same hotel, ate at the same restaurants, and shopped the same shops. The nasturtium was the flower I identified most with the coast. I have fond memories associated with this flower.

Then, sometime in the early 90's, I remember first being served a couple bright orange flowers next to my salad at a cutsie, coastal, cottage cafe in Cambria (phew! alliteration anyone?). We weren't sure if it could be eaten, or if it was merely served as plate decoration. Now I see them all the time in farmers' market salad mixes. To me, it tastes very green with a subtle bite of radish.

Nasturtium is a very popular garden flower from Morro Bay and Cambria to Carmel and Pacific Grove and elsewhere. I don't know if it's because I live on the coast now and have a different perspective of flowers that catch my attention, or if it's because people are planting more natives these days, but depending on the season I now seem to see more California poppies than anything else.

While Calflora lists this plant as invasive, I can't say I've seen it out in the wild during hikes at parks and preserves. I do see it creeping out of garden fences and down private property hillsides. I suspect many gardeners have to cut it back on a regular basis. It originated from South America.

ps 10/06/10 - Oh! I just read nasturtiums are often planted as a companion plant to repel insects like cucumber beetles. Haha! I'm not sure how well that works considering my spotted cucumber pics were taken in the same field. And, for an entertaining and informative post with a too cool nasturtium pesto recipe, check out Phyte Club's post.

male Anna's hummingbird
Calypte anna

female Anna's hummingbird

Calypte anna

Yes! I finally have half-way decent pictures of Anna's. Haha! You can't see the brilliant red head of the male, but how often does the light shine just right? These two were at the farm stand on Carmel Valley Road and I suspect they are fairly accustomed to people; considering my impatience of taking photos, this is saying something that I could easily get within 10 feet. At home I'm still enjoying watching the high-speed chases and dives of the Anna's, although the weather is starting to turn towards cooler and potentially stormy. They apparently live here in Monterey year-round. I wonder what these tiny birds do during the fierce coastal winter storms.

So, I started looking up which other hummingbirds I might see in our local area at this time of year and gave it up for a headache. No one seems to agree as to species or timing. Stating something is a "migrant" doesn't provide much information other than, hey, you won't see it all year. Doh! Plus, I've found many seasonal generalities to be unreliable for the local area compared to my actual observations; what does "spring" mean when we have blooms in January and birds from June to August that shouldn't be here in the "summer"? I think the best site for Monterey County is still Don Roberson's Creagrus (hummingbirds are shown around the middle of the page). Interesting to note, for the many, many birding organizations and sites out there, very few offer identifying pictures of birds online in any kind of findable manner. Most sites list checklists, tables, links to other equally uninformative sites, and/or (groan) how to pay them money in the form of membership, support, or guided field trips. I'm a little turned off to birding and bird people right now. I suspect the hobby of birding is an extremly lucrative business. Maybe I should rename this blog "The Grumpy Katie, listen to me rant"?

ps 10/05/10 - I should clarify that I was looking for online sites that had specific, local information (at least within this county), updated (not merely repeating outdated, published information that's been around for 30 years or more), and with actual photographs. There are a handful of "good" bird sites for all of North America or for areas not local to coastal, central California - see my online ID resources page at the top of Nature ID for the best birding links I've found.

Perhaps it's my arrogance and/or ignorance, but we have an incredible amount of diversity here in Monterey County that seems to be often overlooked. Even if I go to the ocean side of the peninsula (literally the other side of town) or 5 miles inland (where it can be 20 degrees warmer), I'll see a whole slew of life that I don't see at home half a block from the bay shore. I've had expectations to find a plethora of information specific to our unique area and have been very disappointed. I wonder if other people find this to be true where they live, too?

ps 01/22/11 - I found The Biology Refugia's recent blog post to be particularly interesting and relevant as I figure out how I feel about birding and birders.

western spotted cucumber beetle
Diabrotica undecimpunctata
Chrysomelidae

I don't have a garden, so I don't despise these beetles. I appreciate their stylish green beauty. Funny thing about these spotted cucumber beetles, they're camera shy. Every time I tried to take a picture of an individual, it would quickly walk to the other side of the stalk and yet rarely fly away. It became a game of chasing the beetle around the ol' corn stalk, as it were. I understand this species overwinters as an adult. Evans and Hogue state there are two species of Diabrotica in CA, but they neglect to state the other species. I only have one embedded link in the ID above, because most internet searches provide pest management protocols, which I try to avoid on Nature ID if I can help it.

Speaking of links, I also try to stay away from commercial business promotions. However, we were at Earthbound Farms on Carmel Valley Road this afternoon when I took these pictures. We had a lovely time exploring their annual corn maze, flower garden, children's garden, herb garden, and small store. Their humble farm stand has developed over the years into a pleasant destination. There were so many cucumber beetles on the corn that I'm fairly sure they're honest when they say they're organic. So, why do I mention honesty in all of this? Well, there was a local fracas a couple years back. As the story goes, they trespassed onto a Carmel Valley resident's yard and stripped her rare pink-fleshed apple tree to obtain propagation cuttings without her permission and then lied about it to the sheriff's office. I know several people who now refuse to patronize this fabulous farm stand. It's really too bad. What's that saying, a rotten apple spoils the barrel?

rape mustard
Brassica rapa
Brassicaceae

This is a very bold, non-native mustard and covers many hills in a bright yellow. I'm using Calflora for this ID. It's also known as Brassica campestris and is closely related to rapeseed (Brassica napus). As I was trying to figure out the difference between the two species, I came across this genetic Triangle of U theory. Interesting.

As an aside - speaking of rapeseed, does anyone else smell and taste fish in canola oil? I'm guessing it's a genetic trait like with phenylthiocarbamide. We've only recently discovered our sensitivity to canola oil's fishiness. And here I long thought fishy tasting fries at certain local restaurants were due to dirty fryer oil. Plus, it's too bad our local grocer has stopped carrying Best Foods mayo with olive oil, because the alternative brand Kraft primarily contains canola oil. Phooey!

ps 02/09/11 - For common names of plants, I often look to The Jepson Online Interchange from UC Berkeley, e.g., click to see the page for this particular species.

pond turtle ~ 03/04/10 ~ Carmel Valley

best guess western pond turtle
best guess Actinemys marmorata pallida

Would anyone hazard a guess as to which kind of turtles these are? I take a picture of them almost every time we drive down Carmel Valley Road looking for spring wildflowers.

ps 05/09/10 - I'm still unsure of this ID for several reasons. 1) The pic is fuzzy, and yet not as fuzzy as last year. 2) Audubon's California book states western pond turtles like to bask alone. 3) Linked above is the southern subspecies. There's also a more social-looking northern counterpart A. m. ssp. marmorata, but its range doesn't extend this far south. 3) There are isolated populations of different turtles, so maybe. 4) Other more social pond turtles have been introduced and have established themselves (red-eared slider and western painted turtle). 5) It's quite possible these are one of the introduced pets since there's an insane barbed fence surrounding this pond (even more than before), hence my fuzzy, zoom pics.

Douglas' wallflower
Erysimum capitatum
Brassicaceae

None of the books I have at home are in agreement for the common name or the scientific name. I'm a bit confused. It's also known as western wallflower and/or Erysimum occidentale and there are several subspecies of E. capitatum. This is a native mustard. I can always count on seeing this bright orange flower along the CV Road in the spring.

yellow-billed magpie
Pica nuttalli

A very striking bird and only found in CA! I wish my photo was better.

acmon blue ~ 03/04/10 ~ Carmel Valley Road

acmon blue on rape mustard
Plebejus acmon on Brassica rapa
Brassicaceae

I'm not positive about this ID. Usually I ID based on what's common, in this case an acmon blue, or simply state I don't know. However, it could be a lupine blue (Plebejus lupinus), because from above there's an obvious black border on the inside of the hindwing's orange band and the forewing black border is fairly wide. Then again, it could be an early spring acmon blue female. Erg! Can anyone help me with this ID?

It was happenstance that I even captured this butterfly on camera, because I jumped out of the car to get a close-up shot of the yellow flowers which covered the hills where Carmel Valley Road meets G17. I'll post pictures of the hills and ID the flowers later.

ps 03/07/10 - On a whim, I queried Art Shapiro, professor at UC Davis and author of Field Guide to Butterflies of the San Francisco Bay and Sacramento Valley Regions, about this butterfly ID. He was kind enough to promptly reply, "It's a female acmon of the early-spring phenotype "cottlei," but abnormally heavily-marked on the lower surface--so much so that it superficially resembles a Euphilotes battoides! The ID is made easier by the fact that nothing else but acmon would be out this early in the year on the central coast (or almost anywhere). Even at sea level, lupini--which is always found in chaparral in the central Coast Ranges--wouldn't be out before April (or May!). The flowers appear (I can barely see any leaves) to be either Brassica campestris or Brassica napus, both naturalized weedy Old World mustards. Thanks for the kind words." Thank you, Dr. Shapiro!

padre's shootingstar
Dodecatheon clevelandii
Primulaceae

I was a little surprised that shootingstar is not listed on CalAcademy's California Wildflowers site. Also, with my recent brouhaha about common names, I found it interesting that my three CA wildflower books at home (Yadon, Lamb, and Munz) call this "padres' shooting star," whereas most online sites state "padre's shootingstar." Needless to say, I don't know enough to identify these to subspecies. I was happy to find the white version.

fiddlenecks ~ 03/04/10 ~ Carmel Valley Road

fiddlenecks
Boraginaceae

This is the same hill as taken on April 8, 2008. I assumed back then that the deep yellow was poppies, but maybe I was wrong. Since fiddlenecks were out in bloom during this year's drive, the color on the hill more closely resembled those of fiddlenecks, rather than the bright orange of poppies.

bush lupine ~ 03/04/10 ~ Carmel Valley Road

bush lupine and fiddlenecks
Fabaceae & Boraginaceae

I'm feeling too tired to look up the genus species names for these flowers right now... just want to go through some of my hundreds of pics from several outings the past few weeks. I'll edit this post at a later date.

California goldfields
Lasthenia californica
Asteraceae

turtles

Yep, it's not the best picture, but I'm posting for the sake of continuity since I always take a picture of these turtles on Carmel Valley Road.

bush lupine and fiddlenecks ~ 04/08/08 ~ Carmel Valley Road

bush lupine and fiddlenecks
Fabaceae and Boraginaceae

This was an incredible color combination on the hillside.

ps 04/05/10 - I originally labeled this with poppies. After looking at pictures from March 4, 2010, I now believe the deep yellow are due to fiddlenecks, not poppies.

turtles