28 March 05
Painted Ladies On The Move
We’re in the midst of a massive migration of painted lady butterflies (Vanessa cardui). My officemate alerted me to this late this morning, and when I went over to the Memorial Union for my lunch there were dozens passing by each second, moving determinedly northwest at a good clip — 15 MPH perhaps? — against a headwind. Pica went home for lunch and saw thousands while she was crossing the bridge, swirling around traffic like a tornado. (Not all of them made it across, and Pica retrieved a fallen one for me to sketch.)
The butterflies are in the middle of a three-day trek from the desert by the Mexican border to the Central Valley and the foothills of the Coast Ranges. The impressive turnout this year is probably due to the heavy rains and subsequent plant growth in the desert this past winter.
26 March 05
March Farmers’ Market
This morning I went to the Davis Farmers’ Market to have a go at sketching the crowd. In a week-and-a-half the Wednesday evening Picnic-in-the-Park starts up, but for now the farmers’ market is only on Saturday mornings. But Saturday brings the usual medley of kettle corn, fiddlers, strawberries, and rescue Labrador retrievers — a delightful stroll.
25 March 05
Downshifting Amid Butterflies
While DocRoc was off up the mountain to do Shakespeare with a bunch of brainy teenagers of different ages, I headed south to Anza Borrego to meet up with a friend from Boston and do some botanizing.
This friend is my best birding buddy, and we’re definitely out of our element looking at things that don’t fly off at the slightest provocation. Before I got to the visitor center she had found a black-tailed gnatcatcher; I pulled the car in under the nest of an incubating Costa’s hummingbird. But we were there to look at flowers, so we armed ourselves with lists, maps, directions, and a bag of Fritos.
North of Borrego Springs was a carpet of yellow stretching all the way up the canyon. This was desert sunflowers, primarily, interspersed with magenta sand verbena and white evening primroses. There were thousands and THOUSANDS of butterflies: painted ladies, they were called, and they were wafting through the morning while the huge caterpillars of some striped moth methodically chomped through primrose petals.
We headed south on our way to ocotillos and Yaqui Wells, but stopped as the colors shifted abruptly from yellow to white. What you do is you get out of the car and see the white flower (desert chicory, in this case). Then next to it you notice another large plant with a white flower which you hadn’t seen from the car (Fremont’s pincushion), but below that is one you couldn’t possibly have seen from the road, and underneath that is a diminutive white five-pointed flower (4mm diameter) I couldn’t find in any of the materials we had and will have to look it up in Jepson, scary though that prospect is.
It’s like Russian dolls. This just isn’t what happens when you bird.
We found our ocotillos. We also found blooming barrel cactus, blooming smoketree, blooming millions of DYA’s (damn yellow asters). And Lawrence’s goldfinches, singing, on territory, busily getting on with spring before summer hits and everything dies out.
I’ll post photos of some of these when I get back to Davis…
22 March 05
Creek Overfloweth
We had 1.05 inches of rain overnight, and sometime mid-morning the creek burst its banks on the stretch near where we live, in particular flooding the field (alas since last season covered with perennial pepperweed) southeast of the bridge up to the levee. Word has it that the Glory Hole is spilling over as well.
20 March 05
Northern Rail Line
We went on our usual Sunday run to the food co-op and noticed two locomotives of the California Northern Railroad on the tracks that run north-south behind the co-op. The geography of Davis has been built around a T-intersection of rail lines just east of downtown. There is a doubletrack line running northeast-southwest heading into Sacramento that get both Union Pacific freight trains and Amtrak traffic, and then there’s the line heading to the north, the one running by the co-op, that gets only light use, mostly by the California Northern.
This is a small railroad with a dozen or so locomotives. It’s based in American Canyon in Napa County, but they also run trains on a line stretching from Davis up to Tehama in the northern Sacramento Valley. We like them because the locomotives are pretty, with green and beige trim. Someday we’ll sketch one in color.
19 March 05
Berkeley for Indian and Blogging
We took a trip to Berkeley today to meet Allan’s sister et al. for lunch at Vik’s Chaat House (an Indian fast food restaurant in a warehouse, exceptional food, two-foot-wide pooris) and then to meet up with Tim of the Where Project.
We had a great cha(a)t with Tim about the future of Ecotone and how we might all get this back to the vital forum it was before it got so attacked by spammers… If you’re interested in joining this discussion, leave a comment here, and we’ll add you to the mailing list. It looks like there will be a new host, a new domain name, an archive of material that’s already there, and lots of new goodies.
18 March 05
Backyard Fowl
When I got home at dusk today, Pica was talking to our landlord about springtime trips to the desert. He went off, circling around the north side of the house. Then he shouted at us from outside — there’s a turkey under the walnut tree!
The Swainson’s hawks are back, though not in large numbers yet: I saw and heard one over the creek as I was riding home.
14 March 05
Turkeys By The Bridge
I was cycling to work this morning, heading up the rise to the bridge over Putah Creek, when I saw a flock of seven tom turkeys crossing the road. They were most of the way over on the east side of the road, but were indecisive and had thoughts about heading to the west side. When I came closer on my bike, six of them flew off west, joined shortly by the seventh who was already in the brush, and landed about 75 meters west from the road, just south of Putah Creek.
13 March 05
Returning
Some friends who live in the hills above Winters had their annual picnic today. The brodiaeas were out, almost past; the poppies up there are smaller and more yellow than the ones down here.
We ended up at the table with the pomologists and mathematical ecologists (hey, it was in the shade).
It’s an informal gathering, one where it’s completely acceptable to wander off for a hike or a sketch, which we did.
A year and a half ago, we got married at this spot. It’s a lot greener in March!
11 March 05
Swainson’s Hawks Return
And then, they were back.
I saw four Swainson’s hawks today, three of them over my office. They’ve been far, possibly as far as Argentina. It’s spring now.