habitat ~ 10/02/11 ~ Monarch Grove Sanctuary

Pacific Grove's Monarch Grove Sanctuary
October 2, 2011

I don't have any pictures of monarchs here. We saw maybe 5, mostly clustered on one lone pride of Madeira bloom. We were told by the ever-active volunteer Tama O. that the majority of monarchs don't actually arrive until mid-November. Many tourists are a bit disappointed to see so few monarchs now, even though most everything about the Sanctuary states the butterflies start arriving by October. A lot has changed in the park since we last visited.

The pride and joy of Pacific Grove has been surrounded by death and controversy. Back in 2004, an elderly tourist was killed here by a tree that broke during a wind storm, hence the sign. My question is why would anyone go out looking for butterflies during a storm? The City settled a wrongful death lawsuit for $1 million. Since then, the City has done extensive tree removal and pruning, which raised the hackles of some monarch enthusiasts. Through private donations and some City funds, new trees were purchased and improvements made to this small 2.4 acre park. For more information about the Monarch Grove Sanctuary, check out the Pacific Grove Monarch Conservancy.

habitat ~ 10/02/11 ~ Pacific Grove Shoreline Park

Pacific Grove Shoreline Park
October 2, 2011

I often take for granted how beautiful it is here in town. This is pretty much the views we get while driving home from the grocery store, although this day we were walking and exploring. On one side is the Pacific Ocean and on the other is Point Pinos Lighthouse and the Pacific Grove Golf Links with Crespi Pond.

Shoreline Park is a designation that the City of Pacific Grove calls public access coastal areas not otherwise designated as city parks. For the purposes of this blog and location labels, I consider all the unpaved path around the peninsula as Pacific Grove Shoreline Park, starting from Lover's Point (not Hopkins Marine Station) and ending where Asilomar State Beach begins. Ocean View Blvd. transitions to Sunset Dr. next to this unpaved path. I've called this the "poor man's 17-Mile Drive" previously on my blog. It's usually a great place to explore tide pools.

seaside daisy ~ 10/02/11 ~ Shoreline Park

seaside daisy
Erigeron glaucus
Asteraceae

It sure is nice to have an ID that I don't have to extensively search. I'm a little surprised this is my first post of this common coastal flower. Interesting to note, my Introduction to California Spring Wildflowers of the Foothills, Valleys, and Coast book states the seaside daisy "flowers from April to August." That's true. However, I also have a habitat post that shows it blooms as early as February, and here's evidence it blooms as late as October. That's a significant difference in timing of blooms.

As part of my Nature ID blog, I'm attempting to document when plants actually flower around here and not simply repeat others' claims, which may not be entirely accurate. This is the reason why I am so particular about posting to the date of my photos.

red seaweed ~ 10/02/11 ~ Shoreline Park

red seaweed / red algae
Rhodophyta

Last year, during the period of time from the autumnal equinox through October, I captured brown algae (kelp) at Asilomar State Beach and green algae (sea lettuce) at the Monterey Municipal Beach. Without prior intention, I am completing my algae collection with red, even though not all red algae is actually the color red. Just like last year, I again heard the waves starting to crash just before the equinox, which likely break up whatever is growing near the shore. I'm impressed the ocean has seasons just like on land. Like leaves littered on the forests floors, the beaches are littered with seaweed during autumn.

As much as I wanted to place an ID, if only to genus, on this red seaweed, any guess I make would be pure speculation. I even had questions as to how the red seaweed I see on the beach is related to the harmless "red tide" algae. There are macroalgae and microalgae. Lost in the Landscape has an interesting blog post about red tide causing bioluminescent waves. It's all a bit confusing to me, and I've got a lot to learn.

The larger much more impressive giant kelp seems to get all the algae attention around these parts, and information on red algae is difficult to find. The best local sites I've found that picture red algae are:
Stanford's SeaNet Rocky Shore Red Seaweeds
Stanford's SeaNet Subtidal Red Seaweeds
MBARI's Monterey Bay Flora Rhodophyta
CSU Sonoma's Marine Algae of Northern California