June 2 to July 3, 2012

These are wildlife sightings made during my Western Pond Turtle field season

May 6, 2012

Nicole and I went on a field trip today with the local California Native Plant Society chapter, although the site we visited was already very familiar to me – it’s our Western Pond Turtle field site in Lake County, California! It was different being up there and not looking for turtles. I learned some things about plants (which is good; I’m ridiculously ignorant about plants), saw and heard a bunch of great birds (including Pileated Woodpecker and MOUNTAIN QUAIL! Only the second time in my whole life I’ve ever seen Mountain Quail).

April 3 and 4, 2012
Overcast and drizzly

This week, I took two sections of introductory biology majors up to the Preserve to make some wildlife observations. Our primary goal was to survey some trees for Sudden Oak Death, but I never go to the Preserve without the supplemental goal of making wildlife observations, especially since there are always at least a few students who tell me that this trip is the first time they’ve ever gone hiking in some sort of “natural” or wilderness area.

March 31, 2012
Late evening

Nicole and I had the opportunity to go on this California Red-legged Frog survey as part of a workshop on local endangered and threatened species offered by the Laguna de Santa Rosa. I’ll just let the pictures speak for themselves. (In the photos with three frogs, the one in the center is an American Bullfrog).

January 20, 2012
Rainy, after dark

I spent the evening helping graduate student Tracy Bain with her California Tiger Salamander field study. We were recording data on salamanders as they approached Stony Point, preparing to cross the road to access the vernal pool where they breed. Stony Point Road (near Meecham) is terrifying, especially in the rain, because the cars so by so fast! As you might imagine, this is often disastrous for the little tiger salamanders trying to cross the road in the dark, in the rain. In order to reduce road mortality in this critically endangered species, a series of three tunnels were installed under the road, along with driftnet fencing, in the hope that the salamanders would use them to cross safely under the road. On this night, I was assisting with data collection to see if the salamanders were, in fact, using the tunnels.

December 4, 2011

The final Field Herpetology trip of the semester took us to Galbreath Wildlands Preserve in Mendocino County, primarily to look for Rough-skinned Newt.

October 22, 2011

Today, Field Herpetology returned for a second visit to Boggs Lake, to excavate another Western Pond Turtle nest that we had located during our field season back in June, in order to raise the baby turtles long enough to determine their sex, as part of an ongoing research study. In addition to the turtles, we saw a good variety of other wildlife, as well.

September 24, 2011

Nick, Nicole and I took the Field Herpetology class on a field trip to Boggs Lake for a tour of our field site and an overview of the research that we’ve been doing on the nesting behavior and sex determination of Western Pond Turtles.

September 23, 2011

After dropping my kiddo off with their dad for the weekend, I went on a solo birding adventure to Shollenberger Park. Loads of great birds (as usual), including American White Pelican, Northern Shoveler, Greater Yellowlegs and Pacific Golden Plover – a new bird for me!

September 18, 2011

We visited two sites for California Giant Salamander: Purisima Creek in Half Moon Bay, and Sierra Azul, near San Jose. We walked the creek at both locations, searching for salamanders.

August 1, 2011

On my birthday, I spent the day birding with Eclipse and Andrea. We started at Shollenberger, then had lunch at Lily Kai, and then visited Willow Creek in the Laguna de Santa Rosa.