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CALIFORNIA WILD

Naturalist's Almanac

Naturalist's Almanac

July
To witness a foggy phenomenon in San Francisco, stroll to the top of Mt. Davidson. Native leather-leaf ferns grow on branches of eucalyptus and cypress trees there, but only where fog interception is maximized: at the very top of the hill and on the west (ocean-facing) sides of branches.

Various migratory songbirds from Mexico and Central America nest at mid-elevations in the Sierra Nevada foothills. When Nashville and orange-crowned warblers fledge in July, parents and young fly upslope to open, willow-fringed meadows between about 5,000 and 7,000 feet. There they spend the summer gorging on the season's profusion of insects and ripening seeds. Adult orange-crowned warblers seem to leave the best feeding grounds at higher elevations to the year's young, who are less efficient foragers. The young birds also need to mature physically as well as put on the fat that tides them through the long migration back south. Large mixed flocks of flycatchers (Hammond's, dusky, willow), warblers (Nashville, orange-crowned, MacGillivray's, yellow-rumped, Wilson's), sparrows (Lincoln's, song, white-crowned) and others make Sierra mountain meadows a birder's paradise through August.

Surf-grass (Phyllospadix) is a true flowering plant that looks like emerald-green mops blanketing wave-swept rocks of the open coast. It flowers in early summer with male and female flowers growing on separate plants. Inch-long spikes of male flowers produce two kinds of pollen: one form floats on the water's surface in raft-like bundles and pollinates floating stigmas on female plants, the other form is released underwater, and drifts with the currents to a union with submerged stigmas. Sheltering beds of surfgrass and its quiet-water cousin, eel-grass, host a panoply of ocean creatures, including marine worms, shrimp, and pipe fishes. Native people of the West Coast harvested these marine grasses for their sweet and crispy leaf bases and meaty rhizomes.

August
California's single species of sand dollars thrives in sandy, quiet-water beaches sheltered from pounding surf. These disk-shaped sea urchins are covered with diminutive purple spines and live in dense colonies below mean low-tide level from Baja California to Alaska. When exposed by the year's lowest tides, sand dollars lie flat, covered by sand. Otherwise, these elegant creatures cluster together like dominoes, standing on edge in the sand, using their tube feet to pass food-encrusted particles of sand into their mouths. Younger, smaller sand dollars trap and store iron oxide sand in their gut, perhaps using the weight to anchor themselves in place. Newport Bay, San Diego Bay, and Elkhorn Slough host fine beds of sand dollars. In summer, males and females release sperm and eggs into the sea, relying on the whims of ocean currents to unite them in fertilization.

Private cone picking crews in California follow the seed-ripening sequence of the state's big trees. Southern stands of Douglas fir near Sonora ripen first, around mid-August, followed by ponderosa pine, then incense cedar, sugar and Jeffrey pine. Red and white fir and western white pine mature last, in September and October. Outfitted with full climbing gear (although spikes are prohibited on disease sensitive species such as sugar pine), the crews scale trees to pick cones just before they open and lose seeds to the wind. State and private nurseries buy cones by the bushel and stock seeds for reforestation following fires or harvest.

Shiny-leaved California huckleberry bushes grow in thickets at the fringes of the state's coastal forests from Santa Barbara to the Oregon border. Their sweet and musky purple-black berries begin to ripen in August but can be plucked from bushes as late as December. The plants' dense leaves conceal their fruits, so only those who take a moment to look on the undersides of branchlets will be rewarded. Huckleberry novices can start with the bushes that line the trail between the parking lot and the lookout atop Mt. Tamalpais in Marin County. Once addicted, you'll want to travel to the more fruitful thickets of Mendocino and Humboldt counties.

September
The Feather River Hatchery near Oroville opens its ladder on September 1 for the fall run of chinook salmon. These fish entered the river system from the ocean in the spring during high water flows, and are only now ready to spawn. Visitors can watch the magnificent fish through underwater windows or from above, as the fish leap up the churning waterways. Last year, about 20,000 chinook ascended the ladder into the hatchery, an estimated 20 percent of the river's fall run. Visitors can view hatchery operations between 9 a.m. and 1 p.m. on weekdays. The hatchery will be open on one weekend day only, Saturday, September 23. For tours, call (530) 534-2306. Don't forget to watch the fish in the river below the hatchery, where they court and spawn naturally in shallow water.

Late summer marks the start of mating season for tarantulas. These uniformly dark, shaggy spiders with legs that could span a doorknob spend most of their lives in and around their underground tunnels. But when males reach sexual maturity at about seven years, they leave their homes for good in search of stay-at-home females. Males die soon after mating, but females live up to 20 years. In the east Bay Area, the lake at Del Valle Regional Park near Livermore is an excellent place to find the lustful males, which are on the move both day and night. Also look for them on Mt. Diablo's western slopes (they like to walk on the warm pavement on Northgate Road) or search for them in the Sunol Regional Wilderness. Despite their horror flick mien, tarantulas are gentle and their bite no more severe than a bee sting.

Hot Strategies

Summer's withering heat transforms California's lush green hillsides to golden fields of dried grasses and wildflowers. Native plants cope with the heat in various ways. The fuzziness on dove weed's leaves limits water loss from transpiration as do the thick, glossy leaves of plants such as interior live oak. California buckeyes employ a strategy unique among the state's deciduous trees. To conserve water, they simply shed their leaves in late summer. Leathery, pear-shaped pouches enclose the trees' plump, chestnut-like seeds, shielding them from the heat as they mature. A different scenario plays out along California's coast. Here summer's chilly fogs bathe plants in life-sustaining moisture, supplying north coast redwoods with up to 45 percent of total annual water needs. The trees' leaves (needles) have two ways of providing water; by direct absorption and by dripping condensed water to the forest floor below, where it's available to roots. Plants that grow beneath the majestic trees get a third of their annual water from this fog drip, double the amount of moisture that plants in the open can capture from fog on their own.

Summer 2000

Vol. 53:3