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NATURALIST'S
ALMANAC
What to Look For This Fall
liese greensfelder
October
Thousands of spawning kokanee
salmon leave Lake Tahoe to thrash their way up Taylor Creek on
the lake’s southwest shore this month. Introduced to Tahoe in 1944, the
fish thrived until another introduced species—mysid shrimp, which arrived
in the early 1960s—depleted their food supply. Since then, the size of
an average Tahoe kokanee has plummeted from about 20 inches to less than
a foot. Kokanee, a form of landlocked sockeye salmon, reach spawning age
at three to five years. Before leaving the lake, male kokanee develop
their characteristic hooked jaw, and both sexes turn a striking red. A
few weeks after depositing and fertilizing eggs in Taylor Creek’s gravel
streambeds, the fish die. Their decomposing bodies nourish the aquatic
insects which will in turn nourish the young kokanee that hatch three
months later. An underwater viewing room, or “stream profile chamber,”
built by the United States Forest Service provides a fish-eye view of
the spawning action. Open weekends only in October, 8-5. For information
call the USFS at (530) 573-2674.
Hard-shelled nuts ensconced in green husks fall from
California black walnut trees this month and next. Though
the trees are not grown commercially (except where used as rootstocks for
the more familiar English walnut) many people garner a modest income by
gathering nuts beneath roadside trees and selling them to wholesalers. Shelled
and dried by commercial processors, the nutmeats are used in baking and
cooking. Native to California, Juglans californica is becoming
increasingly rare in the wild. Yet thousands of stately back walnut trees
planted last century still grace farmsteads and line country roads in the
Great Central Valley. The trees’ red-tinged, chocolate-colored wood is coveted
by craftspeople who use it for furniture, stringed instruments, and gunstocks.
Stands of the smaller, multistemmed southern California variety can be found
in such places as Elyria Canyon Park in Los Angeles, while many drainages
that cut into the Central Valley harbor trees of the northern California
variety. November
Before Europeans stormed the
state, perennial grasses such as purple stipa and blue
wildrye held sway over California’s grasslands. For reasons still not
fully understood, annual grasses like wild oats and ripgut brome that
arrived with the Europeans soon outstripped the native flora. These annuals
drop their seeds in spring and early summer and then wither away. Brown
California hillsides take on their green winter cloaks in November and
December after the season’s first rains germinate the fallen seeds. Because
heavy grazing, poor soils, and long, dry summers favor annual grasses
over perennials, coastal prairies—which benefit from cooler summers and
deeper soils—support the state’s most intact remnants of low-elevation
native grasses.
December
Migrating more than 6,000
miles from their summer feeding areas in the Bering and Chukchi seas to
lagoons in Baja California, gray whales usually hit northern
California waters in early December. By Christmas, San Diegans can spot
the animals. During migration, these 30- to 50-foot-long mammals stick
relatively close to the coast, so great whale-watching spots are promontories
such as those at points Reyes, Lobos, and Loma. The whales travel in small
groups at about five miles per hour, often blowing several times nearly
in unison every three to seven minutes. Spouts can be seen from land.
Binoculars will reveal the whales’ backs and flukes.
Dense beds of shiny black California
mussels cover vast tracts of rocks in the mid-intertidal zone along
California’s exposed coast. As the beds expand, they smother neighboring
organisms, and the mussels’ sharp shells shred competitors such as kelp
that wash against them. Yet not even the superglue-like threads that anchor
the mussels to their rocky perches can withstand wave action spawned by
December storms. The patches of rock exposed when mussels are ripped away
are recolonized by new mussels within a few years, but in the meantime,
the bald spots play a crucial role in preserving the coast’s biological
opulence by providing an anchoring site for myriad organisms such as sea
palms, algae, and barnacles.
Millions of monarch butterflies spend
the cool nights from October to mid-February hanging from favorite eucalyptus
and pine trees that grow between Mendocino and Ensenada, Mexico. On warmer
days the overwintering insects disperse to feed on nectar. This generation
of monarchs—which live about eight months—braves the entire southern migration.
Though most start their journey within California, some may arrive from
as far away as British Columbia. It takes three to five shorter-lived
generations to wander back north. (The fabled Mexican groves where monarchs
overwinter are reserved for butterflies that migrate from more easterly
regions.) One of the most lovely spectacles in California, hanging clusters
of monarchs can be seen at the Monarch Grove Sanctuary in Pacific Grove
(docents present daily, noon to 3 p.m., October 1 to February 14, (831)
375-0982), Morro Bay State Park, and Natural Bridges State Park.
| Aspenglow |
With leaf color waxing and
tourism waning, fall is a good time to visit the Sierra’s east side.
Studded with clear sunny days and chilly nights, October weather
pushes cottonwoods, aspens, and
willows to peaks of autumn brilliance. Sunlight
and warmth during the day spur leaves to churn out color-promoting
compounds. Cool temperatures at night trap these compounds in foliage
by limiting leaf respiration and slowing the flow of water and nutrients
from leaves to wood.
Aspens provide the most
spectacular displays on the eastern slope. Their color washes across
hillsides and runs like molten gold down the canyons west of Bishop,
Mammoth Lakes, and Independence. Most trees in a stand are genetically
identical, and can cover many acres. Timing of bud break, color
change, and leaf drop as well as the hues of leaves in spring and
fall vary from one clonal grove to the next. Such differences are
easily seen in October, when aspen valleys become magical patchworks
of color. |
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