Mountain Roads

Descent through Redwoods, Panoramic Highway.

Hairpin Turns.

Magic Forest.

Thar Be Hobbits About.

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Orange Leopards

I'd noticed some Leopard Lilies in bloom while biking up to Mt. Tam along Panoramic Highway a week or so ago, so when I drove up to Rock Spring the other day I visited a spot nearby where I figured I could find more.

It was still early in the morning and the sun had yet to shine in the ephemeral creek drainage where they grow among rushes and hedge nettle, California hemp and giant chain ferns, and also stinging nettle. Just as I was setting up on this blossom, a ray of sunshine beamed right onto it. Later in the day, when the sun pours in, the flowers will attract butterflies and hummingbirds.

Despite the fact that I was wearing short pants, I managed to get in and out without brushing up against any of this stuff. I don't mind terribly if I do get zapped by stinging nettle (Urtica dioica), and I even take a kind of perverse pleasure in continuing to feel the sizzle on my skin when I'm back at home in the city downloading and processing the pictures I took back on the mountain.

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Giddy Up

The other day my wife and I were looking for a nice place up on Bolinas Ridge to lounge around, eat some cheese and crackers, and drink some fancy birthday wine. We pulled over at a spot we've enjoyed before, but it looked like there was a swarm of bees waiting to greet us. We wondered if there was a hive nearby. 

This was an unusual experience for me on Mt. Tam, and I didn't want to drive away without at least checking it out, so I got out of the car as quick as I could, and then I just stood still among the buzzing chaos, hoping I wouldn't get stung. It didn't take long to realize that the insects weren't bees at all, but horseflies, which are arguably worse! 

I swatted a couple of them off me and jumped back in the car, but one of them got inside and was going crazy. I started the engine and rolled a window down so it could escape, and felt lucky that no more took the opportunity to charge inside and bite us. 

Horseflies, also known as gadflies, are in the genus Tabanus. The name was first recorded by Pliny the Younger (the Roman guy born in 62 A.D., not the triple IPA from Russian River Brewing), and it stuck. Horseflies have been found in the fossil record back to the Jurassic, and I wouldn't be surprised if dinosaurs owe their reputations for ferocity to the fact that they didn't have arms to swat the hordes of biting gadflies off their skin. As with mosquitoes, it's the females that do the biting to procure the nutritious mammal blood they need to reproduce.

We did finally find another lounge area along the ridge with just a few buzzing horseflies that let us pass without incident. As we were enjoying our repast, another car pulled in next to ours, and whoever got out screamed about the "bees" and got back in her car to drive to a better spot. We chuckled a little, since she headed off in the direction where they are even more numerous.

For some reason they liked to perch on the side of my car, so when I returned a couple of days later with my Nikon I simply parked and waited for them to land so I could grab a picture.

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