northern Pacific rattlesnake ~ 05/17/14 ~ Fort Ord

northern Pacific rattlesnake

Crotalus oreganus oreganus

(ssp. of western rattlesnake)

Rattlesnake or rattle snake?  Ugh.  In any case, you'll notice the max, fuzzy zoom on this baby.  Lyle, the Army Lands munitions safety officer, also served as the snake safety officer and kept all of us a respectable distance away.  This is probably only the third rattlesnake I've ever seen here in CA.  The other two sightings have been tucked in among rocks at Pinnacles at the east entrance to the Balconies Cave and the switchbacks along the Juniper Canyon Trail.  I sometimes forget we have these poisonous snakes, because for me their sighting is rare.  Gary Nafis has created quite a montage of rattlesnake warning signs.  Note the wide head and 3-segmented rattle.  Can you tell how old a rattlesnake is by the number of rattle segments?  This one was small, took up an area probably smaller than a salad plate.

large marble ~ 05/16/14 ~ Mal Paso Canyon

large marble

Euchloe ausonides

(Shapiro and Tenney)

Did I choose the butterflies, or did they choose me?  I guess it helps when studying butterflies that given enough patience they'll cooperate for poses on my fingers.  Am I the butterfly whisperer?  Not really.  Macro, macro, macro!  Mwahahaha...  In the hand, this large marble is totally a piece of cake to ID.  However, I still can't distinguish this butterfly in flight compared to the more ubiquitous cabbage butterfly, which has been extremely frustrating for me.  Chris is quite impressive with his flight ID skills (probably all those years spent as a birder), but it's hard to explain to another person exactly what you look for to make that ID.  I think everyone has different cues that work for them.  I know a local botanist who is color blind, and I actually think that helps him distinguish the slight color variations in plants.  We all have our gifts.

grunion greeting, 2014 #2

 fish p0rn

female grunion dug in sand and laying eggs

while male releases cloudy milt around her head

Leuresthes tenuis
(CDFW)

 

unusually small male, others were lethargic

W-1 (shown above) and at times W-2

grunion greeting

We try to arrive about 1/2 hour before high tide, because our experience has been if the grunion are going to run, they will usually have already started.  We also know that if we spot a black-crowned night heron (aka Charlie) on the beach as we pull up on the pier, there will be grunion.  This held true for both Wednesday (no blog post) and Thursday nights.  If there isn't too much human interference, we noticed the Charlies seem to know when the grunion are done and fly away. 

I submitted both night's reports to Dr. Martin through her online form and sent her an e-mail per her request because grunion sightings in Monterey are not common.  She invited me as her guest to the first Ocean Science Trust conference held at Asilomar last month.  The various perspectives on crunchable Citizen Science were extremely helpful to me as I embark on my own project.  Thank you, Dr. Martin!

I'm reformatting my typical grunion greeting blog posts, now 5 years after we began.  Man, I can't believe we've been doing this so long... okay, we did skip a year, because we got so discouraged from too many late nights with no grunion sightings.  I hope to add better information this year, although reading back through our experiences has been fun.

  

05/14/14 full moon 12:18pm
05/14/14 high tide 10:42pm 5.8 ft
beaches: Municipal
Charlies: 4 + 1 western gull
others: Chris Tenney, Dr. Matsumoto & friends, Steve the Fisherman
my observation time: 10:15pm - 11:45pm
W-1, 25-50 already running on arrival
 

05/15/14 high tide 11:22pm 5.87 ft

beaches: Municipal, San Carlos, Asilomar

Charlies: 5 + 1 western gull

others: J, Steve the Fisherman, Dr. Guacamole & crew
my observation time: 10:45pm - 12:15am
W-2, 100's already running on arrival

lupine blue ~ 05/13/14 ~ Pinnacles

lupine blue laying egg on California buckwheat
Plebejus lupini laying egg on Eriogonum fasciculatum var. foliolosum
(Shapiro and BugGuide discussion)
Polygonaceae

I told Art Shapiro about this day's visit, "Blues are numerous at Pinnacles with swirly flights of flirting and cooling fluttering clouds under shady rocks.  I love it.  I only wish I could tell them all apart.  Ha!"  This beautiful little blue butterfly has caused me so much headache you wouldn't believe.  No one seems to agree.  There are many variations of lupine blues depending on region, and there's also the look-alike acmon blue (Plebejus acmon) with a blue-colored early spring form female.  Who knew, all this time I've had a hard time figuring them out, and the experts also have a hard time figuring them out.

I didn't know I caught one laying eggs in a series of several photos until I got home and looked at my pictures.  I was so concerned with quickly sticking the little camera over there to hopefully, maybe, catch a decent picture that I wasn't actually watching what the butterfly was doing.  And, I'm paying attention to the difference between the two var. of CA buckwheat found at Pinnacles.  The one shown above could potentially be polifolium, the fuzzier one.

With Paul Johnson's encouragement, this is the butterfly that has changed my mind about collecting for research.  I wanted to make sure any collecting I do would not be merely self-indulgent.  I am not a hobbyist butterfly collector.  However, I believe collecting in this case is worth the contribution to our understanding of these fascinating little blue butterflies.  I will be applying for a collecting permit, and the specimens and associated plant data are tentatively earmarked for the Pinnacles National Park collection.