Home»Portola Valley Ranch, Windy Hill, Etc.»May 2025 Small Treasures: Wildlife and Flowers

As we enter the dry season, let’s remember what it was like earlier this month. Mating season over, Pacific Chorus Frogs make their solitary ways to moist refuges, to hang out until they can return to the full Frog Pond in the fall. Banana Slugs look for moist hideouts for the hot months. Buckeye trees begin to flower. First, the baroque female flowers on the tip of the flower stalks emerge. The mass of male flowers follows later. (Perhaps this timing difference helps reduce self-pollination?) Later, each stalk produces one or a few buckeyes, to decorate the then-bare tree until the next rains come. Photos and text by Dan Quinn