Home»Jasper Ridge Galleries»A Day at a Time: Individual Visits»3/14/2017 Traversing Jasper Ridge: Evanescent Mistletoe, Crab Spider, Cedar Waxwings, Deer Topiary, and Much More

I begin from Escobar Gate at moonset/sunrise; accompany the monthly birding along the ridge, enjoying early spring Lowland Shooting Stars, Narrow-leaved Mule Ears, Kellogg’s Yampah, and even some early Owl’s-clover and California Goldfields, all visited by energetic pollinators or a predator Crab Spider; descend through woodland, chaparral, and grassland, past flowering Ceanothus, Warrior’s Plume, Fremont’s Star Lily, Miners’ Lettuce, Blue Witch Nightshade, Western Blue-eyed-grass, and fields of lupine, to the creek; and end near the Sun Research Center -- traversing many of Jasper Ridge’s ecosystems. Along the way: resting Cedar Waxwings and darting swallows; deer molding young Coast Live Oaks into fantastic shapes; a fawn accompanied by an immature buck; Field Ants busy on a serpentine rock; and a different spider dancing in the grassland.

The lone Valley Oak at the crest of the ridge is probably over two centuries old. When we first met, in 2008, it was devoid of mistletoe. It remained that way through to 2024, the time of this belated sharing of my 2017 photos – except for a year or two right around 2017. As we see here, a tiny sprig of mistletoe has a toehold on the very top of this lone oak. A couple of years earlier, or later: no mistletoe. So: how does the tree keep itself free? What happened around 2017? Why did that mistletoe disappear so soon after its late arrival??

Looking at these old photos seven years after I took them, I am nostalgic for my nice Nikon macro lens – such nice Crab Spiders and dewdrop lens! My Tokina wide-angle lens was nice too. On the other shoulder, it is great to carry one camera only, capable of nice zoom bird photos and pretty good at the rest. Tradeoffs…