heron and egrets ~ 12/19/13 ~ Rec Trail

black-crowned night heron
Nycticorax nycticorax

more information

great egret
Ardea alba

more information

snowy egret
Egretta thula

more information

I never used to look up in the trees while walking along the water, because I was so focused on otters and harbor seals.  One day I startled a night heron near the Coast Guard Pier, and I watched it fly off to perch in a tree.  From then on, I kept an eye on the tree.  Lo and behold, there's a small group of 4 trees, 3 cypress and 1 willow, each with its own night heron for most of the last half of this year.  I wonder if I'll get to see them make a nest or two in the coming months.  Once I started looking up, I also started seeing lots of great egrets and great blue herons (not pictured here) perched all along the Rec Trail. Whoa!  How could I have been so blind to all these large birds above my head?  I don't know if it's only my new found awareness, or if the herons and egrets are actually numerous this year.  For certain, I have seen more snowy egrets than in years past.  They're all so elegant and fashionable.

unknown willow ~ 12/05/13 ~ Rec Trail

 

willow 

Salix sp.

Salicaceae

This handsome willow has me stumped on what it could be. Of course, most willows stump me. Calflora lists 11 species of willows reported in the general area. I haven't found a visual match for the young, glabrous (hairless) red stems and wide leaves, and Jepson eFlora descriptions don't help me. I'm sure it's quite obvious as to what it is, but I simply don't know it. Can you ID?

ps 12/07/13 - I took another look at this willow area during my walk yesterday.  There's a much older willow tree with a white trunk nearby, and it has the same leaves.  So, I looked at the possibilities again, thanks to John Wall's suggestion.  If I were to make a guess, this could be the arroyo willow (Salix lasiolepis).  There's either an incredible amount of variation in the arroyo willow, or there are lots of people out there, just as confused as I am, who are posting pictures of mislabeled willows on the internet.  I think I'll pester Vern Yadon.  He'll know for sure.

pss 12/10/13 - Vern and I have been in contact.  He doesn't want me to quote him until he's sure.  He wants to take a look at the plants in person and maybe wait until the catkins come out.  To be continued...

habitat ~ 11/25/13 ~ Monterey Harbor & Marina

Monterey Harbor & Marina
November 25, 2013

I'm so glad we decided to stay home for the holiday.  With an easily walkable view like this, can you blame us?  Despite our desperate need for rain, I have been enjoying the gorgeous weather we've had.  This picture was taken from the Rec Trail that I so love. The City of Monterey has a nice site on the history of the Harbor, which I just discovered.  On this section of trail, I've been keeping an eye on a family of night herons, a laughing herd of Heermann's gulls, western gulls, several kingfishers, snowy egrets, great egrets, great blue herons, brown pelicans, and new seasonal gulls with spotty grey around the eyes that I have yet to ID.

sparrows ~ 02/12/12 ~ Hopkins

white-crowned sparrow (left) and song sparrow (right)
Zonotrichia leucophrys and Melospiza melodia

I love hearing the songs of these sparrows every time I walk past this 30 yard stretch of blackberries on both sides of the fence between the Rec Trail and Hopkins Marine Station. It's such a surprising and stark contrast to the sounds of Monterey Bay waves, gull cries, traffic, and jabber of tourists. Sparrow songs immediately transport me to a woodland's edge back in Ohio, even though they are quite common here in CA.

ps - I'm posting this 02/18/12 in honor of the Great Backyard Bird Count being held this weekend, even though I'm not participating in it myself. I'm learning about one bird at a time, and I think it would be an exercise in frustration for me to do a count on my own. The February Checklist for Pacific Grove is daunting.

gray whale ~ 01/21/12 ~ Rec Trail

gray whale
Eschrichtius robustus
for more information click here, here, and here

Yep, these are not the best pictures. It's really challenging to get decent photos of whales, btw, at least with my slow, poor-zoom, point-and-shoot. You can see the mottled back of the whale just to the right of the man in the second picture. This whale was incredibly close to the shore and was moving north around the Peninsula. Considering Nature ID is essentially my personal nature journal, I wanted to record the date and species of this particular whale sighting. I borrowed a marine mammal book from a friend that had cute little graphics of how one is supposed to distinguish between different cetaceans based on the shape of their spray. Ha! A couple times a year I spot various whales in the distance from home, mainly thanks to numerous whale watching boats that circle around any whales in the Bay like sharks. This time, it was thanks to a crowd of folks on the Rec Trail all pointing their cameras that we thought to stop and look. It's been a few years since I've seen a gray whale so close to the shore. The last time (unfortunately, I never recorded when), I was able to run alongside a close-to-the-shore gray from the Monterey Bay Aquarium all the way through Cannery Row, past the Plaza Hotel, and to San Carlos Beach. I've included numerous links above, because there seems to be some conflicting online information about the status of gray whales.

elephant seal ~ 01/08/12 ~ Hopkins

northern elephant seal
Mirounga angustirostris

It looks like a sandy sausage, eh? I almost didn't post this, because I have much better pictures of elephant seals down at Piedras Blancas near San Simeon. However, I wanted to note the unusually large size of these beached elephant seals near home. In the past week or so, I've heard their distinctive grunts at night, even over the roar of the winter waves. While we've had some elephant seals at Hopkin's West Beach (I like to affectionately call it seal beach) in the years past 9 years, these are the largest males I've ever seen here. I'm fairly sure we have harbor seals all year round on this beach (those rock-looking slugs in the lower-left of the last photo above), but the appearance of a couple elephant seals seems to be seasonal and new.

Here are a couple decent local elephant seal links with original information:
http://elsealnotes.blogspot.com/
http://www.elephantseal.org/

barnyard goose ~ 07/14/11 ~ Hopkins

barnyard goose
species unknown (subfamily Anserinae)

I finally got a closer picture of this goose that's been hanging around since before May 31, 2011 at Hopkins. Despite it being the wrong time of year, I was really hoping it was a rare Monterey County sighting of a snow goose. I received confirmation from Don Roberson, author of Monterey Birds, that this is indeed a barnyard goose. Many years of domestication and hybridization with wild geese makes identifying this goose to species impossible to tell by looking at its features.

field bindweed ~ 07/14/11 ~ Hopkins

field bindweed / orchard morning glory
Convolvulus arvensis
Convolvulaceae

This is my best guess and I could be totally wrong as to the ID. It is a low-growing plant with fuzzy leaves and stem. The bloom was smaller than other morning glories I've seen, but that could be due to the growing conditions right next to the Monterey Bay. The other hairy morning glory that grows in this area is the stemless morning glory (Calystegia subacaulis), but that's generally a white or cream flower. I have a feeling once I get better acquainted with morning glories, I'll be revisiting this ID.

ps 08/20/11 - Yep. I think I got this wrong. I discovered my mistake from looking up another morning glory/bindweed from Elkhorn Slough. I initially posted this as a native coast morning glory (Calystegia macrostegia ssp. cyclostegia). I tried to convince myself that despite photos not quite matching, that Jepson's description could apply. I've made the ID correction above for this invasive plant from Europe and Asia. If Wikipedia is to be believed this is the broader leaved Convolvulus arvensis var. arvensis. Seriously, how does one tell the difference between Calystegia and Convovulus?

blackberry ~ 07/14/11 ~ Hopkins

best guess elmleaf blackberry or Himalayan blackberry
best guess Rubus ulmifolius or Rubus armeniacus (aka R. discolor and R. procerus)
Rosaceae

Good golly! I looked at Jepson's descriptions for each species and compared hundreds of pictures. Both species are found here and I'm evenly split as to which this could be. The bright pink blooms makes me think it must be an elmleaf blackberry. However, I can't figure out the difference between "finely toothed" for elmleaf and "sharply toothed" for Himalayan. Online pictures and descriptions seem to vary widely in the amount of leaf toothiness and prickles on the stems. I can't decide. Do you know?

harbor seal ~ 05/31/11 ~ Hopkins

harbor seal

Phoca vitulina

Here's my annual harbor seal pup post, a little later than usual. Most of the harbor seals around here are born mid-April. It's fun living just a block away from the bay, because sound carries very clearly up from the water. I remember hearing pups crying at night, which sound almost human-like, a week before the first reports of births at Hopkins' non-publicly viewable beaches. The pups have had almost 2 months to turn into fat beach sausages. Besides obvious size variations, I don't know how to tell the difference between the older pups, post-nursing moms, and males.

Interesting to note, Stanford Hopkins' seanet site names harbor seals down to subspecies, P. vitulina richardii, and calls them Eastern Pacific harbor seals. Other references spell the subspecies P. vitulina richardsi with an 's', which I chalk off to Gray having really bad handwriting back in 1864.

Oh! There's a funny white goose in the middle of the last picture that we've seen around for a couple of months. For much better pictures than mine, check out local photographer Peter Monteforte's marine mammal shots.

red-shouldered hawk
Buteo lineatus

I'm amazed at the variation of red-shouldered hawks, even among my own pictures. I could be wrong with this ID, as I think I've seen 2-3 different kinds of hawks around home in the past couple of months. They're often being harassed by crows and in flight they look very different from each other in size and shape. Don Roberson lists numerous hawks and related for Monterey County.

I really should get a new bird book, as I've finally decided the one I have isn't so good. The reason why I've been putting off getting one of the recommended books (National Geographic or Sibley) is silly: there's a little part of me that suspects that once I start really getting into birds, then I'll want to join all those bird groups, then I'll want better photographs of birds for ID, then I'll want to get a better camera and binoculars, then I'll want all the trappings of nature photography (lenses, tripods, external hard-drives), then I'll end up hauling a bunch of crap everywhere (that could potentially be seized by a government, see BBB), then I'll end up not really enjoying actually hiking, then I'll be spending even more time behind the computer looking at photographs, etc. So, I almost simply do not want to start down that path...

ps 02/16/11 - I queried Don Roberson yesterday after receiving a couple comments questioning the ID of this post. He's been kind enough to answer my e-mails about bird IDs. I really try not to pester the experts too much with my incessant questions. With many thanks he's given me permission to post what he wrote in a reply e-mail. Here's what he says, "...it is often difficult to identify a hawk from a single photo, and especially one in which the tail, wings, and back cannot be seen. However, I think this is an adult Red-shouldered. I can see white barring on the rufous things, which rules out Red-tailed (among others). Further, our usual Red-tails have a prominent white chest. [Some dark morphs of Red-tail, which are scarce locally, can be dark-chested.]" Don goes on to say, "I think adult Red-shouldereds look pretty much alike, but the variation you mention is in immature stages of plumage. Further, there is huge differences in Red-shouldered Hawk between our local California population and populations in the east, and another population in Florida (which looks very different). There has been some talk of separating our California birds as a separate species, and to revive the old name given to it over 100 years ago, Red-bellied Hawk." So, there you have it folks. Thank you, everyone, for your interest.

habitat ~ 11/25/10 ~ Monterey Bay Recreational Trail

Turkey Trot
November 25, 2010

It was beautiful here for Thanksgiving this year. Andy took these pictures as he ran to the start at Lover's Point for the decidedly unofficial, annual Turkey Trot. As I understand it, the goal is to run towards Asilomar and back within 1 hour exactly. Whoever returns closest to the 1 hour mark gets an ugly trophy to hold and keep safe until next year. We have several pictures of friends and I'm still figuring out if sending pics as an e-mail attachment is couth.

naked lady ~ 08/08/10 ~ Rec Trail

naked lady
Amaryllis belladonna
Amaryllidaceae (formerly Liliaceae)

With all the August fogville gloom around here, I'm happy to post something bright and cheerful. The cool, wet weather sometimes gets me down, but I'd rather pull on a sweater than have to endure the 90-100+ temps inland. While I suspect these naked ladies were purposely planted along the rec trail, I'm keeping them under my non-native plants label for now because I have seen them growing wild. I may have to rethink this later as most I've seen lately have been in yards and should be labeled under garden plants. You may notice many of my label categories seem arbitrary, but they make sense to me and I do try to be consistent.

ps 03/19/14 - For an excellent post of this March lily, as they are known in South Africa, check out Elephant's Eye.

seacliff buckwheat ~ 08/01/10 ~ Hopkins

best guess seacliff buckwheat

best guess Eriogonum parvifolium
Polygonaceae

I can't tell you how many times I've walked past this and wondered what it was. The pink pom-pom flowers are whimsical. Often it's buzzing with visiting bees and flies. Considering there are 266 records of Eriogonum in Calflora, I'm making my best guess as to species. What struck me for ID were the narrow leaves and bush-like appearance. It's along the Rec Trail, but I'm including this post under Stanford's Hopkins Marine Station for location 'x.' The reason being is that there's a section of the trail in front of Hopkins that looks to me like someone, many years ago, decided to plant various CA natives, even ones that would not necessarily be naturally found in this spot. Those tall smoke stacks in the upper right of the last photo are fake; they're part of Monterey Bay Aquarium's nod to its historical cannery location.

ps 03/29/13 - Evan Moor Educational Publishers contacted me for use of these three photos above in a unit that talks about the El Segundo blue butterfly.  I declined their permissions request, and I gave the following explanation for my refusal:

"While I'd love to get a little extra cash for my photographs, I'm afraid I cannot let you use mine for the purposes of illustrating the El Segundo blue.  I'm a stickler for accuracy on websites and educational materials.

Here's why my specific photographs will not be appropriate for your use:
1) I state in my blog post that I was making a best guess as to species.
2) Even if my pictures are indeed the specific Eriogonum out of a possible 250+!!! found in CA, I've seen variations in plants depending on location.  My Rec Trail ones may indeed look different than those found near the LA airport sites, but I can't be sure since I've not been down there.
3) The El Segundo blue has an extremely short flight period when the sea cliff buckwheat is in peak bloom in June.  My pictures were taken August 1 long after the flowers have aged to deep bright pink.  By August I suspect this blue butterfly is in the late caterpillar instar stages. 

My suggestions to you is find photographs actually from SoCal, preferably taken on the same day as ones with the El Segundo blue butterfly in them, such as http://sittingknitting.blogspot.com/2008/06/el-segundo-blue.html.  Or if you'd like, I could ask some of my CNPS contacts for pictures.  I used to be an entomologist, a science content editor, and a rights and permissions coordinator, so I feel for you as you search for publishable photographs."  

monarch ~ 06/27/10 ~ Rec Trail

monarch butterfly
Danaus plexippus

My hometown of Pacific Grove is somewhat known for its overwintering sites of the monarch butterfly. In fact, there's a registered something somewhere that says PG is "Butterfly Town, U.S.A.", in addition to "America's Last Hometown" and "America's Most Romantic Town".  I think our local chamber of commerce went into overdrive with these "known as" slogans.  And get this, there's a city ordinance on the books that'll fine you $1000 if you're caught molesting a monarch.  I'm not joking.  As I've stated before there are at least 300 known monarch overwintering sites all along the Central Coast of CA, so PG is hardly unique.

As evidenced with my picture above, monarchs are here during the summer months, too. An older friend Pat Antonio (doing well in her 90's) says she remembers there being more monarchs here year-round when the Southern Pacific Railroad still operated and milkweed grew wild along the tracks.  She lives within view of the old railroad station.  The former track path has since been converted into the Monterey Bay Recreation Trail.  She claims that since the City started maintaining the trail and removing milkweed, she noticed a dramatic decrease in summer populations of monarchs.

ps 09/18/14 - Pat passed away last year March.  I was sad to hear of it, but she lived an amazingly adventurous life.  She gave me Powell and Hogue's California Insects when I first moved back to CA.  I had Jerry sign it, and I treasure it.  Thank you, Pat, for your stories and encouragement.

From the time I initially wrote this post in 2010, I asked another friend Bee about Pat's report of milkweed along the railroad tracks here in town.  While Bee was a student up at Stanford studying plants, she would often ride the train home.  However, she didn't live here in town and would be picked up for the short ride down to the Highlands.  She claims there never was any milkweed.  She's also 15 years younger than Pat, so it could be a timing thing if the City had already started weeding.  Then, Vern Yadon, our local botanist of piperia-naming fame, told me he doesn't believe milkweed can even grow on the Peninsula because of the climate.  It's often loudly proclaimed that Pacific Grove does not have monarchs here year-round (I'm not sure why, maybe to boost the specialness of the overwintering tourism?), but this post is evidence to refute popular knowledge.  With all my butterfly activities this year, I specifically noted seeing monarchs flying past my living room window in July, August and just yesterday.  So, I'm telling you, there's gotta be milkweed somewhere near.  It just hasn't been found, yet.

pss 10/25/14 - I originally, and quite ignorantly, included a bit about tagging by the Ventana Wildlife Society, mainly because of my tagging experience in Ohio.  They don't tag!  They do an annual Thanksgiving Count.  Ha!  That was a gross error on my part.  Also, I discovered a friend of ours has non-native milkweed growing in her yard.  She said she got the seeds at the local natural history museum, and she had plenty of monarch caterpillars this year.  According to the package, the seeds should not be planted within a mile of the Sanctuary.  There you go.

west coast lady ~ 06/27/10 ~ Rec Trail

west coast lady
Vanessa annabella

This "lady" was defending its territory (or was it flirting?) with the red admiral shown below in a frenetic butterfly swirl and chase. The red admiral was definitely the aggressor in this encounter. Shapiro states the two species can hybridize. To see what this hybrid V. atlanta var. edwardsi looks like check out BugGuide.net.

red admiral ~ 06/27/10 ~ Rec Trail

red admiral
Vanessa atalanta

The flash went off for the first photograph and I kinda like the result. If all I had was that pic, I'd have a hard time identifying this butterfly. Usually at rest, red admirals show much more of the underside of their forewing with distinctive red, blue, and white stripes (a little early for the 4th of July). Click on the common name above to see what I mean. From the topside, the red stripes makes it obvious which butterfly this is. Red admirals are quite common around here and are indeed common around the world. Like buckeyes, they like to sun themselves in the afternoon on dirty paths, which doesn't make for a pretty backdrop.

California sea lion
Zalophus californianus

Are you tired of seeing sea lions here? I know I am. The pictures above don't give an accurate sense of just how many sea lions are still in the area. I've mentioned previously that they're really stinky, which makes watching them for any amount of time almost unbearable for me. Please see my previous posts dated June 6, 2010 and May 5, 2010 for postscript notes of my observations of unusual birthing and new local gathering spots during the past couple months. True to their word, the Marine Mammal Center and NOAA taped off some beaches and placed additional signs up designating the "temporary rookery" and federally protected status of CA sea lions. Quite honestly, with all the yellow plastic tape around the rec trail, it looks like there's a police investigation or something.

Recently (06/18/10), I chatted a bit with a local, nationally recognized marine sanctuary volunteer. He calls the birthing of CA sea lions in our area a catastrophe. While he's seen mothers trying to nurse their newborns, he hasn't seen any milk produced. He thinks there's a lot of misinformation being given out to the public by local organizations. He said the females didn't have enough food down in the Channel Islands and that's why they headed this far north. I'm not sure how he would know this.

I am curious to know how the mass numbers of sea lions this year are affecting the populations of squid, sardines, mackerel, smelt, anchovies, and grunion.

ps 06/28/10 - For more information check out The Marine Mammal Center's post on this unusual local birthing.

Coulter's matilija poppy
Romneya coulteri
Papaveraceae

I'm adding the label of the fried egg poppy to garden plants, even though it is a native wildflower to some parts of California. This particular plant is easily 10 feet tall with 7 inch wide flowers and is going gangbusters right now.

strawberry tree ~ 06/20/10 ~ Rec Trail

strawberry tree
Arbutus unedo
Ericaceae

Well, color my bark red, this is a different species than our native madrones (A. menziesii) that I've seen at Los Padres Dam and Mt. Madonna County Park. This strawberry tree is very popular here in Monterey and can be found in many city-maintained areas. The fruits, which are so bright they appear to be fake, stain the sidewalks when they drop. I'm interested in how the pink flowers and orange and red fruits can all be on the same tree at the same time. It's native to Europe.

ps 12/07/11 - To see these trees in their native habitat, check out Cittaslow Botanik Park in Turkey. There they call it