ap2il's Journal

Weeklong collecting trip to the Desert! but, I didn't actually collect any insects. I got to see lots of cool stuff.

holy moly... I don't understand how people are capable of signing up for campsites so quickly! I woke up early, signed-into recreation.gov and even had the campsites I wanted bookmarked. Nothing is more surreal than having great sites and dates snatched out from right under you. This is not for the faint of heart nor is it for the ambivalent. That single moment, that lingering question of "do I really want to book something so far in advance" will cost you.

Anyway! I was able to book two nights of camping in Yosemite. Huzzah! Here's to good weather in July!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3yXNeylw3gw&feature=rec-HM-r2

Yesterday, Feb 14, I went to Coyote Hills with my class to do some vertebrate observations. The weather was actually much nicer than I expected (especially b/c it hailed the day prior). The temperature was in the mid to low 40's with somewhat cloudy skies. The tiny droplets felt like someone was spitting while speaking. It was somewhat windy which may explain why we didn't see as many animals as the the Friday field section.

Coyote Hills has a habitat that is characterized mainly by marsh vegetation and some scrubby oak woodlands.

Some of the things that I was excited to see include:
1) Loggerhead Shrike which is a predatory passerine bird which will impale it's prey on thorns and barbed wire fences
2) Northern Harriers! the males and females look so different
3) Blue-Winged Teal < I was told this was exciting... pretty duck w/ a half moon on its head
4) GREAT HORNED OWL!! I saw this guy chillin' in its nest. All I could make out were its little ear tufts. This is a monster bird! We dissected an owl pellet we found nearby and there were some rather large vertebra in there.

We went to Arrowhead Marsh which is next to the Oakland Airport. The sky was clear with very little cloud cover and the temperature was in the low 60's to mid 60's. The tide was high so most of the Spartina was submerged. This meant that we saw a lot of rails. I was in Jim and Coleen's group this week.

Cool Stuff:

1. TONS of rails. A dozen Clapper Rails, 3 Virginia Rails and about 10
   
   sora. Amazing!

2. The ring billed gulls will drop mussels and clams onto the walkway to
   
   crack them open.

Stuff that we missed

1. Normally there are Peregrine Falcons

2. A few years ago they saw a Loggerhead Shrike (a passerine bird that
   
   impales it's prey on thorns or barbed wire)

3. Burrowing owls are known to live here but they haven't been seen for
   at least a year

January 11, 2009

Yesterday, I went tide-pooling with Ken-ichi, Tiffany and a bunch of other people from Flickr. The weather was amazing. The sky was pretty clear and the surf wasn't really crazy like when we went to Bean Hollow. This time we went to Scott Creek, Davenport Landing which is near Santa Cruz. It was great, so much stuff was out!

List of some stuff I saw:
NUDIBRANCHS:
Triopha maculata
Triopha catalinae
Hermissenda crassicornis
Dendronotus albus
Peltodoris nobilis
Flabellina trilineata

OTHER:
Octopus rubescens
Pisaster ocraceus (ochre star)
Anthopleura sola (anemone)
Pycnopodia helianthiodes (Sunflower star)

Highlights included:

1. Finding TWO! octopuses (Octopus rubescens)
2. Smelling a sea lemon (Peltodoris nobilis)
3. Seeing more globs of nudibranchs than I knew existed.
4. Fording a small river
5. Seven people cooing over a tiny octopus
6. Watching an octopus squirt ink, frantically change coloring and siphon water