Shifting Focus

One of the events taking place right now in Los Angeles is something called a "snailblitz", a concentrated effort to record snails and slugs. The fun thing about it is that who actually spends time looking at snails!? I certainly didn't, until recently. I mean sure I photographed snails, but I didn't actually put time aside to specifically look for them. For me, the majority of my experiences with snails were walks in the middle of the night or during a rainy morning, when I heard a sudden "crunch" under my feet.

You can't just happen upon a rare native snail, or, let's face it, even a common native snail. During the day, most snails hide out, in cracks of trees, or under bark. Many species are only 1-2mm in size too, and when a pinpoint-sized micro snail is only found in a shady crack of select trees in a great forest, it becomes troubling indeed. The biggest issue is that fallen logs are not easy to come by here for some reason. But I mean, snails eat your prized geraniums and cabbages too, so that's another reason why this event is a new frontier for many people. Certainly I had only puzzled looks when trying to convince multiple people, all independently mind you, that no, I did not in fact lose something in the leaf litter, but I was actually documenting snails.

One early hike that went out, one that I was invited to but could not attend, found a great colony of Southern California shoulderband, a stunning native species that is considered to be endangered.. Naturally, in such an urban superzone that is Los Angeles, most of our expected snails are introduced from Europe or Asia. To find a native snail, one had to be quite lucky and also search in the perfect spots. There are about 15-20 native snails in Los Angeles county, and guess how many I have seen. A grand total of 0.

Though I could not attend the event itself, I was able to turn up yesterday and look around. I found the fallen log, the only log of its kind in the area, and rolled it back. There was a discouraging 10 seconds of scouring the litter-ridden forest floor, but finally, hiding under a sycamore leaf, was that shoulder-striped shell I had been looking for. I found a few of them after a bit more searching, before returning the log to its original position and covering the sides with leaf litter to try and revive the sealed-off microhabitat that was originally there.

Southern California shoulderband, Helminthoglypta tudiculata!

What I could not find was the invasive rounded snail, Discus rotundatus. Why would anyone care about seeing an introduced snail? Well, it's another species to see, isn't it? More importantly, its one I haven't seen yet! With the target species achieved, I spent some time checking out other areas of Eaton Canyon. I knocked off some sycamore bark nearby which revealed an unusual miniature Zopherid beetle Bitoma sulcata. In the same park area I was also treated to a harvestman Protolophus singularis, sand pygmyweed Crassula connata, the somewhat uncommon jointed charlock Raphanus raphanistrum.

Bitoma sulcata

Sand Pygmyweed, Crassula connata. Blink and you'll miss it! Then again, it's easy to miss it even if it wasn't
1mm in size.

Jointed charlock, Raphanus raphanistrum

Also somewhat notable was the invasion of annual stinging nettle, Urtica urens. This one was in full bloom, which is not common, at least not for me:

Annual nettle, Urtica urens, in full bloom. Maybe not the most exciting flowers
in the world, but a show nonetheless.

A widespread plant here was common phacelia, Phacelia distans. Common they may be, but they are nice to look at. I was not entirely sure if these plants were part of the ornamental garden, or if they were actual wild plants, but several of them had occupied "weedy" spaces, so at least some of them seem good.

Common phacelia, Phacelia distans.

I found a second log halfway through the trail, shaded under a coast live oak. I did not see any more shoulderbands, but I did find Paralaoma servilis. These tiny little shells were easy to miss, but once you find 1, you suddenly see 10, and then 20...They were not the rounded snails I was interested in, but arguably they are an even better find though still not a native species. They are apparently common in Los Angeles, but they are not covered in any literature and few experts know about them.

Paralaoma servilis.

Satisfied, I headed off to explore a different trail. On the way down I found 2 small liverworts growing besides each other, both new species for moi, hairy crystalwort Riccia trichocarpa, and Campbell crystalwort Riccia campbelliana!

Hairy crystalwort, Riccia trichocarpa.

Campbell crystalwort, Riccia campbelliana.

For what was no more than an hour in Eaton Canyon, I was very impressed! On the walk back to the car park I found what may have been my first "tickable" population of sweet alyssum, Lobularia maritima. I've seen the species before, but I've never been crazily confident that those plants I've seen have not just been planted by human hand. It's a common garden plant, but they occasionally spread as a weed, and this group, alongside invasive carnation spurge and petty spurge Euphorbia terracina and peplus, london rocket Sisymbrium irio and western tansy mustard seemed "at home" outside of a garden.

Sweet alyssum, Lobularia maritima.

As usual, you can view my entire trip list on iNaturalist. Today's trip is found here: http://www.inaturalist.org/observations/silversea_starsong?on=2016-2-6

Tehachapi Travels II

Due to the success of the first bioblitz event at Tejon back in May, it was with no surprise that another event was held so soon after, this time in late August. But this was still only the second time that this sort of event had been held on the Tejon Ranch property, California's largest area of private land and superior in size to many national parks. Given that the property is an intermingling sanctuary of mountain, desert, chaparral and valley ecosystems, often in close proximity, it was a real privilege to gain any access to the land at all.

The wildlife was not particularly interested in waiting for anyone to give the go ahead for the event to begin however. In the rolling hinterlands many of us were able to observe a pronghorn frozen in place under the dry, burning sun, well before we reached base camp.

Pronghorn in the Tejon valley grasslands. Despite how it may look, it was unfortunately not particularly
close.

 Additionally, a roadside stop on the drive up procured a new late-summer buckwheat for me, Eriogonum baileyi.

Eriogonum baileyi growing at the base of a chaparral hillside.

To most perhaps not the most assuming or obvious of flowering plants, and indeed easily overlooked.

A few bumps later, and we finally arrived at the wind-strung realm of Sacatara Canyon and pitched the tents. We had good looks at a relative to the common "stinkbug" on the desert track nearby. Though it was much later in the season, several wildflowers were still in bloom, and many new species rose up to exhibit their best. Lessingia glandulifera was one such plant, flowering well along a small segment of the lower valley oak areas.

The Tenebrionid beetle Philothus cf. actusosus.

A small but showy growth of Lessingia glandulifera.

Heterotheca sessiflora, a close relative to the ubiquitous telegraphweed.

We were then treated to a bioblitz introduction talk by Scott Pipkin and Laura before being "let loose", so to speak. Given the large quantity of events, I'll keep myself to posting a few highlights for the remainder of the post.

The first highlight I'd like to post is a new ladybug for me, Exochomus aethiops. It comes from the notoriously difficult subfamily of Chilocorines, which often cannot be identified without the specimen, but this guy is relatively diagnostic in California fauna, if only for its complete lark of markings.

Exochomus aethiops swept from Ericameria nauseosa.

Care should be taken to separate other Exochomus, but
the high domed shape and shine rule out other species.

A new odonate for me, and a species that had been on my wishlist for some time, was the desert firetail, Telebasis salva, common around stagnated ponds just below the north and eastern hillsides. Others were able to see the dragonfly equivalent of this damselfly, the cardinal meadowhawk Sympetrum illotum, but they didn't show for me!

Desert firetail, Telebasis salva.

Perhaps one of the greatest surprises for me were the large numbers of Bell's sparrow in the canyon. This was a bird I had been seeking for several years without luck, not only did it surprise to see this species at all but it soon became apparent that it was easily the most common bird in the entire canyon at this time.

The sparsely streaked back and dark malar separate these birds from the closely related
and once conspecific sagebrush sparrow. 

One could only ask that they weren't so skittish and, at times, hard
to approach...

The lower portions of the canyon held great numbers of two more buckwheats I had not recorded before, Eriogonum wrightii and Eriogonum rosea. Eriogonum wrightii was a larger shrub with bigger flowers:

Yet despite its size it was still an easy plant to miss if you weren't paying attention:

In contrast Eriogonum rosea's colour made it a little easier to notice:

A curious find in the lower wetland was the European species Mantis religiosa. Though not uncommon since its introduction in California, it is supposedly absent from desert and dry regions, so this was an interesting record for the ranch property. The species is easily distinguished by the black spot on the front legs (which is usually but not always is adorned with a white bull's eye). The wetland itself held a number of plants that were new for me including scratchgrass Muhlenbergia asperifolia, Clematis ligusticifolia, Erigeron breweri, as well as the venus thistle Cirsium occidentale var. venustum.

Mantis religiosa, the "original" praying mantis.

Venus thistle Cirsium occidentale var. venustum.

We met back several times to share finds. One interesting spider was this nice example of Phidippus comatus, a spider that, as is typical of the jumping spider group, would rather sit perfectly still and stare at you than run away. Before night fell it was clear that the canyon was not going to spare us the curse of the eternal wind. It was above 20 mph within less than an hour, and above 30 mph before it turned completely dark. Despite this it was far from unsuitable conditions for wildlife hunting. 

Phidippus comatus.

We were treated to some nice early nocturnal species, though the wind made it virtually impossible to attract any proper moths or insects to the sheet. One bonus was seeing Ateloplus luteus on the desert track, an incredibly poorly known species that has not been photographed before, all thanks to Jeff Cole's oatmeal trails! The male seems to live up to the name luteus, while the females are greyer in colouration. Another bug, stripe-tailed scorpions Vaejovis waeringi, were not rare in the darkness, and we were able to demonstrate its bioluminescence under blacklight. One of these scorpions decided it was going to live directly under the center of my tent!

Ateloplus luteus on the desert track late at night.

Vaejovis cf. waeringi.

I saw a desert pocket mouse beside the path just before I decided to turn in for the night. I do wish I stayed up longer to scope out some neat nocturnal life. It would have been far more lucrative to spend more time doing that as opposed to trying to sleep in the high gusty winds of Sacatara Canyon which was a force in the ears as well as against anyone trying to stand still. The next day we spent the morning out again before packing up for the day. There was a period to pull in some final ticks for the event during that time, starting with the unusual leafhopper Cuerna yuccae which occurs only on joshua trees.

Cuerna yuccae.

I was additionally able to attend a short outing with Jeff Cole which landed some new grasshoppers for the range list. Not to mention many of the species were new for my personal list as well, including Trimerotropis californica, Melanoplus marginatus, Aulocara elliotti and Derotmema laticinctum. 

Trimerotropis californica.

Another individual of Trimerotropis californica demonstrating the
hidden wing pattern.

Melanoplus marginatus (note the chemical defense spot that it left on my finger!).

Derotmema laticinctum.

We also encountered some more common species in California, but a few were good crowd-pleasers nonetheless, especially Dissoteira pictipennis:

Another nice species was the hedgenettle stink bug, Cosmopepla conspicillaris, which as its name suggests is specific to Stachys. The lower plants here were home to small groups of another grasshopper which suffered from dull colouration, but made up for it with a great name: Melanoplus devastator.

Cosmopepla conspicillaris.

Melanoplus devastator.

Two of the best spiders were the shining silver Argiope trifasciata, and a really nice example of the uncommon genus Titiotus sp. Perhaps my biggest mistake of the trip (besides not understanding how tents work) was not photographing the epipygium of this spider. There are three identical species only separable from this feature, and two of them are completely endemic to this area. I'll never know which one it was! All three species lack photographs and information on the internet. Hopefully future excursions onto this property will nail what species occurs here specifically, but that may well be past my lifetime.

Argiope trifasciata crossing the path.

Titiotus cf. icenoglei. At least the rainbow iridescence on the base of the legs makes
up for its lack of species identification.

The final awesome find of the day was this guy on the path. Given that I had been stuck on 4 species of reptiles in North America for a good two years, it was fantastic to finally find a fifth. 

The coast horned lizard Phrynosoma blainvillii!

We spent the final hour sharing observations and potted specimens, and looking back on the experience and how it could have been improved. For me all I could have said was that, as usual, I wish I spent my time a bit better! But nonetheless a tremendous excursion with over 50 new species for my personal list, and a big thanks to the "big three" Scot Pipkin, Laura Pavliscak, and Mike White for organizing the event and sharing their knowledge. 

PS, turn the wind dial down next time. Anything above 20 is too high :)

The complete list of my sightings (there was too much to include here) can be found at this link.

Antique Roadshow

In other notes, I embarked on a little adventure today to cover some local interests. The first stop was the all-too familiar Marina del Rey, a coastal estuary location that has proven itself many times before. My last visit here was to view the vagrant blue-footed boobies that had set up on the outer breakwater.

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The target for this location was the "penguin"-like seabird better known as the ancient murrelet, a member of a small group of oceanic seabirds. If you thought that was hard to pronounce, try its scientific name Synthliboramphus antiquus! The name murrelet is an expanded term that originated from murre, the American name for guillemot (similar to auk and auklet). What I can't tell you is what the name "murre" actually means. I also can't tell you why the ancient murrelet got its name, whether it is because it is a member of a fairly primitive group of diving birds or whether it is the "elderly" markings on the head as Wikipedia might suggest. All I can tell you is that "auk" is thought to come from an ancient Norse word! 

Though ancient murrelets are annual winter visitors in this part of California, they are incredibly erratic, often rare, and well, well out to sea. The finding of just one this close to shore, let alone several hundred metres from the sea in a marina was a spectacle. The "twitchability" of the bird in that it stuck around in one place for a rather long time made it rather popular. In a matter of days this bird, a star performer by itself, has been accompanied by 6 others of its own kind. 

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I approached Marina del Rey in the usual fashion, walking from Pacific Avenue (the "Playa del Rey" side) and over the bridge to the cycling path. A preening male bufflehead had caught the light perfectly, its usual black hood lit up with a seldom-seen iridescence. 

Along the bike path I asked birders along here if they had seen the birds, and some said they had, albeit distant hazy views deep into the marina itself. The troubling part was that these views were from some serious looking scopes, a certain league of equipment that I did personally carry, nor did I come close to matching with my current camera. The birds were a good kilometer away from my current position, an impossible distance to see such a minute creature. 

Summary map of the area in question. Parking at the white circle. Yellow square indicates viewing point
of 1km to birds. Dotted yellow rectangle indicates the ideal viewing location in the circumstances, with
the white line detailing my eventual path to reach this location.

An escapade through a labyrinth of apartments, closed off coastguard areas and dead ends later and I was finally in place to see them. They were quite obvious once in range, with a group of 3 at first followed by a group of 2. As time ticked on the groups seemed to split and reform so it did get a bit confusing as to how many birds were actually present, but I can vouch for at least 5! The nearest views were about 40 meters before a kayak-er ignorantly passed right through the center and shooed them off much further out. I was impressed how close the kayaker got before they dived away! He must have been only a few meters off them. Now if only I had a kayak...

One of the more abundant residents in the Marina today was the surf scoter, a type of ocean-going duck. It is a rather uncommon bird for me so I always appreciate seeing them, though they are not too rare overall. Here is the female which traveled beneath me while I was watching the murrelets:

In comparison the male is far more striking:

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This would-be series of paragraphs featuring missed birds in boring nondescript locations is not interesting enough to type.

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The other success of the day was searching for the continuing Pacific wren at Alma Park near Long Beach. Unlike the common Bewick's wren and house wren it is a stubby compact little bundle of feathers that pays better homage to the "original" European wren. The song and calls are quite similar as well! The bird was camping out in a corner of the park, a small shady corner no bigger than 2 meters or so squared. The park itself was tiny as well, it took about 20 seconds to walk to the other side from the car. An unfortunately placed bush obscured viewing, and you could only watch a fraction of the area at a time.

It took nearly 30 minutes before the bird was heard. A few observers saw a silhouette from their side of the bush for about 2 seconds. About 5 minutes later I then saw a little rusty figure from my side pop out of the lower hedgerow. I managed one single shot out of my camera before it flew up into the honeysuckle. I didn't have the zoom set at all, and all the settings were whatever they were before, but fortunately something decent came of it. Though a second picture later was a bit more interesting, and a little closer, so I'll show that one instead:

See if you can find it.

This remains one of two photographs I managed of the bird, here is the other one. It is frustratingly good at zipping in and out of cover! It even crossed the open twice but it was so fast that no one managed to raise binoculars in time. During this madness a white-throated sparrow briefly stopped by, a bird which is actually rarer than the Pacific wren. I took a few poor shots of it before returning to the wren, and unfortunately I did not see this newcomer a second time. I had seen the species before in Canada so it wasn't such a big deal.

All in all a decent day out, and a good start for 2015!

Back to Posting

It's about time I got back to posting on here! And what better then new birds to clear away some dusty cobwebs?

Late 2014 was not the most bustling of Los Angeles winters, but at such a quiet time of year you can't really have expectations. The biggest "event" was the horde of varied thrushes that have scattered all over southern California. Usually a bird that makes a single appearance each year, the reported total has exceeded 500 in December 2014 alone. 

Apart from being scarce, they are also quite nice to look at. Unfortunately I haven't seen one yet. So instead I will link you to a google image search. They are certainly quite impressive, but the local birdwatchers here are apparently sick of seeing them. 

Leo Carrillo

It was somewhat nostalgic to hear a family beach trip was being planned today. A few years ago, such a family beach trip found me a rarity in Australia which brought about, in Melbourne's terms, a serious twitch.

Like Mordialloc, there was nothing of interest recently reported (or ever, too be quite honest), but there was something compelling about a bit of seawatching. There was also a hiking trail in the back, though not a long one as I soon found out.

I saw my first breeding plumage Brandt's cormorants today, intermingled with a scattering of pelagic and double-crested cormorants as well. All of the aforementioned birds were located on this rocky outcrop a few metres out to sea. My first surprise was a grey wader that flew by and hopped onto the rocks, a wandering tattler, which was a new tick for me though it did not stay for long. Cruising past the rocks were a few royal terns, a lone caspian tern, the typical gulls and pelicans, and an probably black-vented shearwater that was too far out to identify.

Wandering tattler with double-crested cormorant (left) and Brandt's cormorant (right). Don't ask what
the background cormorant is, no idea!

On the start of the hiking trail I noticed some odd checkered-style butterflies in the genus Pontia. From afar they were just white, nothing more could be seen, but closer to their "flight snapshot" was undeniably odd*.

*(flight snapshot is a term I've developed referring to the "frozen" images you see of butterflies in flight when they are nearby. Presumably because the human eyes cannot detect the swift motion of the butterfly wings in flight properly, there is often some "lag" in what is seen. Such snapshots allow the observer to see "flashes" of the markings and colouration of the upper wings as if it was perched still. Otherwise the blurring motion of white butterflies would be just that, a white blur.)

When they finally landed the mystery was resolved; they were Becker's whites, a very localized species that I had only seen once before. Though similar to both checkered and western whites, the markings, particularly the underside ones, are much bolder and the central spot on the front wings is bigger and wider.

Male Becker's white.

On the sage I saw a fluttery, dull, moth-like...not-moth. It was a tattered Behr's metalmark, a common but localized species in this area that I had not seen before. This is the first time I have ever observed a species of the metalmark family Riodinidae as well, giving me a chance to see their unique behaviour that is not mentioned in textbooks. Apart from their odd flight, they are unique in other ways as well. At flowers they have a specific behaviour cycle, starting with spread wings, with a few wing flaps to about 45 degrees, before completely closing their wings for a few seconds. Then they completely spread out again, and repeat. Most butterflies are quite motionless at rest, so it was odd to see. I saw others as well, and it seemed that the more I saw the more pristine they looked. At first they were a bit tattered, but the final one I saw was very immaculate.

Good

Better

Best.

I was able to spot some nice bee flies as well. I usually only see 2 or 3 varieties per outing, but I had at about 6-7 species here, many of which I have never seen before.

One of many bee flies, this one is the relatively distinctive Poecilanthrax arethusa.

At about 2pm back along the coast a "probable feral rock pigeon" flew over my head, easily told from the small, long-tailed mourning dove by its large size and short tail. A few seconds passed and it flashed white in its wings, something not originally visible from the underside view I first observed when it flew overhead. That changed everything; this common bird often considered a pest quickly morphed into a rarity for this area in the form of white-winged dove, a desert bird usually found quite far to the south from here. While rare, multiple records exist of its wandering along this coastline, so it is clearly quite migratory in nature, albeit in the wrong direction. This bird landed on the west cliff, about 2 metres from people on the beach (you bet I wish I was standing there) before flying off around the coastline again before I could walk more than 3 steps.

The white wing patch on this white-winged dove is quite visible even with the naked eye. The long bill (for a dove)
is not seen here but it is obvious in other images.

No, not a bad trip at all. I'm starting to like these family beach trips.