CNPS Field Trip

May 6, 2012April 1, 2017 - Wendy St. John Leave a comment

Went on a field trip today with the local native grasslands society (California Native Plant Society), although the site we visited was already very familiar to me – it’s our Western Pond Turtle field site in Lake County, California. It was different being up there and *not* looking for turtles. I learned some things about plants (which is good; I’m ridiculously ignorant about plants), saw and heard a bunch of great birds (including pileated woodpeckers and MOUNTAIN QUAIL! Only the second time in my whole life I’ve ever seen mountain quail).

The star of the day, however, was this little ring-necked snake. Such beautiful colors. Now I’m really looking forward to the start of my field season less than a month from now.

Lupine

Fairfield Osborn Preserve

April 4, 2012April 1, 2017 - Wendy St. John Leave a comment

Took my students on a field trip this week to one of my university’s nature preserves. We were mostly looking for signs of Sudden Oak Death on trees, but also managed to find some other really cool things. I’ll combine some photos from both days (I have multiple classes, so came out on two days).

The star of the show was this newt, which I’m calling a Taricha granulosa, or rough-skinned newt (I don’t think torosa are found this far south very often?), but I also loved the southern alligator lizard (Elgaria multicarinata), the trillium, the Pacific chorus frog (Pseudacris regilla), and the western fence lizard (Sceloporus occidentalis), and whatever sort of gorgeous fungus that might happen to be.

Red-legged Frog Survey

April 1, 2012April 1, 2017 - Wendy St. John Leave a comment

I did something really cool this evening: went out and surveyed for red-legged frogs (Rana draytonii), which are an endangered species in California. We found four frogs, and they are SUPER ADORABLE! Also, I look like a total dork in waders, but it was a really good evening. 🙂

Note – in the photo with the three frogs, the two on the ends are red-legged, and the one in the middle is a bullfrog (Lithobates catesbeianus), a species that is an exotic invasive in our area.

June 28th

June 28, 2011April 1, 2017 - Wendy St. John 1 Comment

Rainy day at the field site. Boring and cold. Had a good conversation with Nicole, but the day was kinda long without spending a chunk of it chasing turtles. We did go out for an afternoon walkthrough, though, and found a couple of awesome king snakes (see below). Hopefully it will clear up – and warm up – by tomorrow. I’m cold, and I don’t really like it. Might even sleep here in the rec room tonight, since it will be warmer. Not sure how comfy it would be on the floor, though, even with my thermarest.

Yesterday was a good day at the field site. Five turtles out of the water, and I think people were having a good time. Had a bit of a hassle with a telemetry turtle who couldn’t be located after nesting, even though we searched for an hour in the dark. Amazingly, we found her late this morning, though. We’ve already had a good season, so if it slows down now because of the rain, that’s okay. I would just like for the weather to get a bit warmer than it is now. It is weird to be getting rain at this time of the year. Then again, weather everywhere is screwy. And people still doubt that climate change is real?

Right now, I’m exhausted and really just biding my time until I can go to bed. Which might actually happen in about half an hour.

June 21st

June 21, 2011April 1, 2017 - Wendy St. John 1 Comment

Still at the field site. Just found out this morning that the Oakland Zoo’s turtle release is happening on Thursday, so we decided to just stay up here a couple of extra days, instead of driving back today and back again on Thursday. Plus, there should be plenty of turtle stuff to do. We found eleven turtles out of the water last night, which I think is the most any team has ever found in a single day. Pretty cool, especially since there were just three of us – me, Kristi, and my son, and he wasn’t working the whole time.

Tonight we have a big team, so I wouldn’t be surprised if we find even more. Yay turtles! Other than that, not much to report. It’s kind of quiet up here, so it’s not like I have a lot of adventures to detail. Well, I guess I could give more details about the turtle research.

Last night, most of the turtles we found were in the small meadow, but my son and I found one really exciting turtle in the far wooded meadow. Earlier in the day, I had removed an exclosure from one of last year’s nests, thinking that it would be good to get it out of the way in case another turtle, or even the same one, wanted to nest there. Guess what? We found a turtle nesting less than one foot away from the old nest. I don’t know yet if it was the same turtle, but if it is that is really exciting.

The other cool thing is that we found the turtle right after she finished nesting, so we didn’t have to wait around for her to finish. I love that turtle. #228. Bless her heart. Turtles are awfully cute.

In other news, my son and I held a king snake today, caught by Erika. Super cute! My son wants to get a snake as a pet, and I’m thinking about agreeing to that one. Oh, and I have lost the cables and charger for the field camera. That does not make me happy. I hope they turn up soon. We’re off to the field site in a few minutes, so I think I’ll call this one a wrap. Is that how they say it in Hollywood?

Cobb Mountain

June 19, 2011April 1, 2017 - Wendy St. John 1 Comment

Up in Lake County today, drove up with my son this afternoon. The weather is beautiful here, cooler than back at home, I think, which is good. It’s starting to get a bit warm for me. Apparently, there have been turtles galore over the past few days, so we should be busy at the field site this afternoon. Which is good, it will make the time pass quickly. I just hope we don’t end up being out there until some ridiculously late hour tonight. We’ll see.

Watched a pair of orioles chase away a crow. They must have a nest right near our campsite. The orioles are absolutely gorgeous, orange and yellow and black.

Will be off to the field site shortly, so I guess I’ll wrap this up. Feeling a bit out of sorts . . . hopefully being out with the turtles will cheer me up.

Here are a few photos from the first couple of weeks of the field season, including a Banana Slug Club pic. 🙂

259196_1865409708330_1033620039_31789675_4990422_o

255029_10150267169321963_573771962_8858931_5756619_n

246689_10150267169411963_573771962_8858934_7301142_n

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA

258209_1865411828383_1033620039_31789688_5390642_o

Biology Field Trip

May 28, 2009April 1, 2017 - Wendy St. John Leave a comment

Here are some photos from a field trip that I took back in April to the Fairfield-Osborn Preserve in Rohnert Park, a nature preserve that is owned and maintained by SSU. It was a field trip for my Diversity, Structure and Function class, a class which gave a systematic overview of the whole range of life on Earth, from bacteria through plants and animals. Cool class. 🙂

For our field trip, we just went out to the preserve and tried to identify as many different organisms as we could, armed with all the knowledge we’d (hopefully) gained during the course of the semester. Here are a few of my favorite things that we saw that day:

Western Fence Lizard (Sceloporus occidentalis)

Me holding the lizard:

A scorpion (maybe the California Forest Scorpion, Uroctonus mordax?). OMG SO COOL! I didn’t know until fairly recently that we had scorpions up here. But we just turned over rocks until we found this little guy. Adorable!

Pacific Chorus Frog (Pseudacris regilla). Also incredibly adorable:

Another view of the chorus frog:

A California Slender Salamander (Batrachoseps attenuatus). It’s amazing the cool creatures that can be found under rocks!

Spring Break Fun!

April 18, 2009April 1, 2017 - Wendy St. John Leave a comment

We’ve been on Spring Break this past week (later than just about everyone else, it seems), and the Bio Club at school (of which I am a member) had some fun activities planned. We went on two of them – a trip to a wild animal park called Safari West, and tidepooling at Pinnacle Gulch, near Bodega Bay. I also did a couple of other local things – I did some honest-to-goodness scientific research, counting pollinators on a species of wildflower that grows only at vernal pools, and I fed the animals at the wildlife rescue. Here are some photos from the two most photogenic adventures:

We went to Safari West on Wednesday, and it was a great day. I took a bunch of photos, and it was nice to have the camera out. It had been a while since I’d done any photography, what with being so busy with school.

At the park, we were given a walking tour, and then a two-hour tour on the safari truck, where we drove through the park, which has been arranged to have the animals in as natural a habitat as possible, and the truck goes into the “enclosures” (some of which are several acres large). It was a really cool place, and best of all we got in for free, because the woman who gave us our tour is a member of the Bio Club.

Here are a few of my favorite photos taken at the park:

A ring-tailed Lemur (pregnant, maybe?):

A whistling duck – these guys were so cute, all of us loved them:

Cheetah (and no, we didn’t go in this enclosure):

East African Crowned Cranes:

Cape Buffalo:

White Rhinoceros:

Chapman’s Zebra:

Not sure what these are, but they’re pretty:

On Thursday, a bunch of us went tidepooling at a really pretty little secluded beach just south of Bodega Bay. We had to walk a half-mile to get there along a poison oak-infested trail (and of course, it was harder work going back up on the way back to the car at the end of the day), but it was totally worth it. It was a great beach, and we got there about half an hour before low tide, so we had plenty of time to explore the pools, looking for invertebrates. Here are a few photos taken at Pinnacle Gulch:

Sea Star (although I still think of them as Starfish):

My son and Kate from Bio Club:

Anemone:

Bat Star:

Kate and a big crab:

Bodega Bay

August 27, 2008April 1, 2017 - Wendy St. John Leave a comment

Last Thursday, we took advantage of one of the last few days of summer to make a trip to the coast. I’d driven through Bodega Bay before (on our return trip from Mount St. Helens last year), but this is the first time I’d stopped and spent any time there. We had lunch in a bay-side restaurant, where we got to watch pelicans and seals and sea lions and cormorants and, yes, gulls who looked like they might go crazed and attack at any moment. 😉

Then, we went to the beach for a while, via the Bird Walk – a trail of about a mile (I’m guessing; maybe less, maybe a bit more, but probably less) which runs alongside a creek that flows into the ocean just south of the bay. It was a great day.

Doran Beach: