Cady Mountain Hike

Today I got the opportunity to go on a hike led by the San Juan County Land Bank at their Cady Mountain Preserve. This Land Bank property is the site of some of the Garry oak habitat restoration work being done on the island. The goal is to one day have walking trails on the preserve open to the public, but as that is not yet the case this was an awesome opportunity to get to see this Land Bank property. About 15 of us met mid-afternoon for our 2+ mile hike that was mostly off-trail (only primitive work paths exist).

The first thing I noticed as we headed up Cady Mountain was the wildflowers. The shooting stars were in full bloom, and in an abundance I haven't seen anywhere else. There were whole meadow patches just full of purple flowers:

As I went over my photos, I realized I took way more pictures of the shooting star flowers than I realized, probably because they're one of my favorite wildflowers. Here's a closer look at them:

We saw lots of other wildflower species during our hike, including chocolate lily, fawn lily, Calypso orchid, man root, small-flowered blue-eyed Mary, western buttercup, prairie star, spotted coralroot, common monkeyflower, small-flowered forget-me-not, field chickweed, and great camas. Whew! When I started that list, I didn't realize it would be so long, but we saw a lot of flowers!

It was interesting to see some of the Garry oak habitat restoration first hand. Garry oak prairie is a habitat that has declined greatly throughout the region, in part because of things like fire suppression that have altered native habitats. Work is being done not only on San Juan Island but in many regional areas to remove the Douglas firs that have encroached on these prairies. On Cady Mountain, there are still many adult Garry oaks that have been buried by the surrounding firs. Here's one that's been "freed". The fence at the bottom of the picture is protecting oak saplings from browsing deer, which are experiencing a population spike on the island.

We learned that there are several ways to deal with Douglas firs depending on their size. Small trees are removed entirely. Large trees can be "limbed" - many of their branches are removed to allow more sunlight in to the forest floor. Medium sized trees are "girdled", like this, to prevent nutrients and moisture from traveling through the live outer part of the tree to the rest of the tree:

Amazingly, some trees are still alive years after being girdled. How do they do that?!

I also learned that simply clear-cutting a fir forest area is not necessarily the best way to bring the native prairie habitat back. If you empty an area of trees, it's the weeds that will take over - blackberry, thistle, etc. If you partially clear an area, that allows the native undergrowth to re-establish itself. The bunch grasses and wildflowers will move back in, instead of having a weed explosion:

Some of the oak trees are pretty unique and have been given names. (Speaking of trees with names, as an aside, I recently read the book The Wild Trees, by Richard Preston. If you are at all interested in trees, I highly recommend it. It doesn't read like most non-fiction books in the sense that it's a real page turner. It's focus is on the canopies of the world's tallest trees and the people who study them, particularly coast redwoods. The largest trees are always named, which is what reminded me to recommend this book just now!) This oak tree is called the Octopus Oak:

This oak tree was one of the coolest things we saw on our hike: the Erratic Oak. It's a very old oak tree (no longer living) that has in its course of growth straddled a glacial erratic (a rock left behind by the glaciers that receded over 10,000 years ago). One of its largest branches was dated and the oak tree was over 300 years old.

We also saw some very impressive, large, old Douglas firs. This one that was cut down wasn't particularly large or old, but check out the size of those annual growth rings!!

Of course, it wasn't just about the trees and flowers. We saw lots of other interesting stuff, too, including quite a few morel mushrooms:

I saw and heard (mostly heard) over 20 bird species on our hike, including my first house wren (173) of the year. I heard four different warbler species: orange-crowned, yellow-rumped, black-throated gray, and Townsend's. I also heard a pileated woodpecker. In terms of other animals, we saw a tree frog, but as for mammals, it was mostly either scat or bones. There were quite a few deer skeletons around. This skull is from a young male deer. You can tell the gender because of the pedicles on top of the skull, where the antlers attach:

Mostly the hike was through the woods, but in a couple of places it opened up to some views. This vista was looking south over San Juan Valley towards Cattle Point:

Towards the end of the hike we traversed some private property of people who are working with the Land Bank to restore the landscape of contiguous parcels. Some of these lands may at some point be donated to the Cady Mountain Preserve. Here we were gathered on one of these properties, talking about the work these private land owners had done to restore their 20 acres of former Garry oak prairie habitat through a grant they had received. Notice the bluebird box? This is the same property I visited a year ago to help build a bluebird aviary. The western bluebird is one of many species that would benefit from more oak prairie habitat.

Overall, it was fun to see and explore the Cady Mountain Preserve. It never ceases to amaze me that there are always new places on this island to discover! After ten years of visiting and living here, I still see new sights every year!

Day Three: Birding and Hiking Around SLO

Day three in Pismo Beach again dawned with blue skies, sunshine, and temperatures reaching the mid to upper 70s. It was another day for birding and hiking, and our first stop in the morning was to the Oceano Campground where a summer tanager has been seen recently. No luck with the tanager, but I did see my first tree swallow (139) of the year, with about a half dozen more to follow later in the day. The other interesting sighting at the campground was an odd trio of geese: a snow goose, a cackling goose, and a greater white-fronted goose, all hanging out together. There were some domestic geese nearby, but I thought it was interesting these three “loners” were hanging out all together:

Right across the street from the campground was the county park where we had a brief lunch on day one, and I wanted to go back and take a closer look at the bird life. That turned out to be a very good idea! One of the first birds I saw was an eared grebe (140), a species I tried and failed to get on the year list last year. It also turned out to be one of four grebe species on the same lake – there were also pied-billed grebes, two western grebes, and a single Clark's grebe (141). It was a nice opportunity to make a direct comparison between the western and Clark's – the most obvious distinction between them is whether the white on the face goes over or under the eye (click for larger view):

I found another great species in the scrub on the far side of the lake – an adult and an immature black-crowned night-heron (142). I always love seeing this species, and with the birds seemingly having deserted their former roosting site along the Columbia River in Portland, a this species was not a “gimme” this year.

Many of the birds from the previous visit were still there: hundreds of gulls (mostly western and California), mallards, Brewer's blackbirds, great-tailed grackles, and hundreds of coot. The coot were everywhere along the central coast, and it's easy to overlook a bird you see in great numbers. But when given a closer look, they're a pretty nice looking species too:

Next up we headed south to Oso Flaco Lake, where there's a boardwalk hike that goes through the forest, across the lake, and into the sand dunes that stretch along the coast south of Pismo Beach. Another rare bird had been reported here – a black-and-white warbler – but apparently I used up my twitching luck on the caracara the day before because this one wasn't to be either. There were some other species, however, that haven't quite made it to Washington on their northbound spring migration just yet. I saw a few more tree swallows, lots of yellow-rumped warbles, and my first orange-crowned warbler (143) of the season. There was also a single female American goldfinch (144), a large flock of chestnut-backed chickadees, and another Nuttall's woodpecker hanging out in the deciduous woods at the beginning of the trail.

Next, the boardwalk crossed the lake, where the most common species was the ruddy duck (about 75 of them), along with some northern shoveler, coot, gadwall, double-crested cormorants, and the only bufflehead we saw on the trip.

We wound our way through the sand dunes next, and I can only imagine what it must look like when all the lupine bushes on this part of the beach are in bloom. It was pretty quiet bird-wise, but we heard something when we stopped to look at a western scrub-jay, and it turned out to be a California thrasher (145)! This was a species we both especially hoped to see after reading about it on an interpretive sign at the Elfin Forest the day before, and with it's sharply down-curved beak it was an impressive bird to look at. In addition to being my 35^th year bird of the trip (!!!) it was also a life bird for me.

The trail went over one last dune before going down out of the beach grass and lupine bushes and onto the beach itself. We walked a little in the deep sand, but it was slow and difficult going, and that along with the strong winds had us turning back before too long and back-tracking our way back to the car.

As we crossed back over the lake, I paused when I heard an unmistakable sound coming from the reeds. It was a yellow-headed blackbird (146)! I'm confident this was what I heard as nothing else sounds quite like it, but I found out later this is an unusual species to see here, and was likely only stopping over here while migrating further north.

From Oso Flaco Lake, we drove inland and up into the rolling green hills to Lopez Lake Recreation Area. The area is popular with campers and fishers, and with all its hiking trails we hoped it would be good for birding, too. The first birds we saw there were also there for the fish – a hundred or more double-crested cormorants, dozens of western grebes, 18 pied-billed grebes (the most I've ever seen in one place), and a pair of osprey (147).

There wasn't much in the way of walking trails along the lake, so we started following a trail up into the hills, the muscles in my legs complaining the whole way after the Bishop Peak hike of the day before. As the temperatures reached 80 or so, along with the lack of wind, it was pretty warm for this northwest gal, but in the shade of an oak grove in a valley between two hills it was the perfect temperature. While stopping to enjoy this break from the heat, we spotted the first of several acorn woodpeckers (148), and watched them as they worked acorns into holes in the trunk of the oak trees:

Continuing up the hill, we heard a band-tailed pigeon (149) calling, and saw lots of turkey vultures circling the bluff above. They must like to glide on the thermals created around such peaks? There were also a lot of them around Bishop Peak the day before.

We came to a lot of broken rock that fell across the trail, and it was cool to see the fossilized remnants of shells on a lot of the pieces – evidence of a very different variety of fauna that inhabited this region in a bygone era:

The trail looked like it continued back into the hills and away from the view, so we stopped to take in the vista of Lopez Lake before heading back down to the car:

We stopped in the oak grove again on the way back down to take another look at the acorn woodpeckers. While there, I heard a different call that sounded like an off-kilter chickadee. It took a moment to locate the source of the sound: an oak titmouse (150)! My second life bird of the day. Unfortunately they were too far away for pictures, but there were at least three of them up among the upper branches. It was cool to see both acorn woodpeckers and oak titmice in the oak grove, species that are known for associating with that particular tree.

By this point, it was late afternoon, and we were warm and thirsty. We headed back to San Luis Obispo where we went to the tasting room at Tap It Brewing and enjoyed their IPA and APA (American Pale Ale) offerings along with a sneak preview of their summer seasonal ale. Then, it was back to the hotel in time to continue happy hour on the deck and take in another spectacular central coast sunset. Life is rough, eh?