Visitors 28
Modified 3-Jul-24
Created 3-Jul-24
58 photos
In mid-April, just inside Escobar Gate, a tiny springtime display nears its peak. Approaching this splash of color, we discover golden blossoms of California Goldfields, contrasting with Owls’-clover, purple, and sprinkled with white Leptosiphon. Insects appreciate the show too – the flowers probably appreciate the insects more than they appreciate us. Nearby, insects and spiders visit other flowers amidst the broader carpet of exotic annual grasses: native California Buttercups with a bee, exotic English Plantain with a tiny spider.
Beyond: Blue Dicks and their cousins Ithuriel’s Spear; Common Yarrow; Fremont’s Star Lily, producing seeds; and some other flowers awaiting your kind identification. A caterpillar of the Variable Checkerspot Butterfly munches on a budding Owl’s-clover. Iconic Valley Oaks rule over the old road, winding over ridge and through hollow. A Turkey Vulture glides low across the chaparral. A spring wind caresses the serpentine grassland.
Returning the next morning, we watch a bumblebee lazily floating amidst flowers of Owls’-clover. A little way along Trail 15, we encounter a brown mound covered in green sprouts – Golden Yarrow, Toyon, and more. An old Leather Oak, persisting in the inhospitable serpentine soil, nibbled smooth by passing deer, offering protection to young plants.
BONUS: the morning between these two visits to Jasper Ridge, a Golden-crowned Sparrow shows off in Portola Valley Ranch.
Beyond: Blue Dicks and their cousins Ithuriel’s Spear; Common Yarrow; Fremont’s Star Lily, producing seeds; and some other flowers awaiting your kind identification. A caterpillar of the Variable Checkerspot Butterfly munches on a budding Owl’s-clover. Iconic Valley Oaks rule over the old road, winding over ridge and through hollow. A Turkey Vulture glides low across the chaparral. A spring wind caresses the serpentine grassland.
Returning the next morning, we watch a bumblebee lazily floating amidst flowers of Owls’-clover. A little way along Trail 15, we encounter a brown mound covered in green sprouts – Golden Yarrow, Toyon, and more. An old Leather Oak, persisting in the inhospitable serpentine soil, nibbled smooth by passing deer, offering protection to young plants.
BONUS: the morning between these two visits to Jasper Ridge, a Golden-crowned Sparrow shows off in Portola Valley Ranch.
Dan Quinn