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| Goldfields in Serpentine Soil, Mt. Tamalpais |
I took a ride up to Mt. Tam yesterday to check on my trail cams for the first time in a month (and picked up my first tick of the year). I'd meant to check them a week after putting them in a new location but never got around to it. There were hundreds of captures on the SD cards, and the rechargeable batteries were almost dead.
A mass of earwigs had taken up residence behind one of the cams, nestling between the back of the cam and the bark of the Douglas fir tree it was strapped to. Perhaps they enjoyed not just the protection of the camera itself, but the warmth of the battery compartment.
I packed up the cams to take home until I can decide on a new location, then continued riding up the mountain to check out the wildflower situation. I could tell from a long way off that none of the big patches of sky lupine or showy silverbush lupine were happening, and indeed I found only a few scattered plants flowering among thick grasses.
Taking a left at Rock Spring I looked forward to seeing what was coming up in the recently burned meadow just north of the serpentine outcrop, but it was the serpentine outcrop itself that had all the wildflowers. I guess the exotic, old-world grasses don't do well enough in serpentine soils to crowd out the natives.
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| At a glance it looks like there's nothing but goldfields, but closer inspection reveals a few other species thriving here as well. The meadow across the street was burned over the winter but so far isn't producing much in the way of showy wildflowers. |
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| Bees and other insects were busy gathering pollen and nectar from the cream cups (Platystemon californicus) growing among the goldfields. |
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| Reaching for the Sun |
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| Lots of little purple phacelias (Phacelia divaricata) found the serpentine to their liking as well. |
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| A California ringlet (Coenonympha california) holds on tight to gather nectar from a goldfield flower (Lasthenia californica). |
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| A well-camouflaged western fence lizard basks on a warm, lichen-crusted chunk of serpentine near a patch of goldfields. |
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| Ditto for this guy. |
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| I knew what this was as soon as I saw it from the road, but I've never seen one so high up the mountain. Note San Francisco skyline in the distance. |
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| I believe it's Western Giant Puffball (Calvatia booniana). These were still pretty fresh and firm, but eventually they will fill with yellow-brown spores that will spread on the wind (and cover your shoe) if you kick one.... |
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| The sky lupine bloom of another year (4/18/2021). |
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| Numerous fairy slipper orchids were blooming in their usual place next to the portable toilets at the top of the Bootjack parking lot. |
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| I knew as soon as I arrived that I was going to have lots of deer captures on the SD card. There were deer lays all over the place. Many young bucks were just beginning to grow out their antlers. |
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| A gray fox passed through only twice in the month. I'd hoped to catch a bobcat coming toward the camera through that notch, but no such luck. |
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| Jackrabbits were the main event at this location, with just a few deer, a couple of foxes, and just one coyote. |
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| Sometimes you get a nice surprise, like this red-tailed hawk. Although it appears to be about to land, it actually did a touch-and-go, like a jet practicing on an aircraft carrier. If it caught something before flying away, I couldn't tell. |
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