Celebrate California Biodiversity Day in the Park September 11

Posted on by friendsofthewildernesspark

September 7, 2021 marks the third official celebration of California Biodiversity Day, an annual event created in 2018 to celebrate the state’s exceptional biodiversity and encourage actions to protect it.  This year organizations throughout the state are hosting California Biodiversity Day events from September 4 to September 12, 2021, and the City of Claremont Park Rangers together with the Friends of the Wilderness Park be celebrating in the Claremont Hills Wilderness Park on the morning of Saturday, September 11.

Join us on Saturday morning, September 11th and learn how to use your phone to record observations of Wilderness Park flora and fauna with iNaturalist!  Just look for the canopy near the North Mills entrance for more information! All iNaturalist observations made in California from September 4 – September 12 will automatically be added to the California Biodiversity Day 2021 iNaturalist project.

Already an iNaturalist user?

Please come and help show others to use the iNaturalist app! Contact Vicki Salazar, our Volunteer Coordinator, at vickisalazar01@gmail.com, to let her know when you will be able to come. (Please note that all Friends of the Wilderness Park volunteers are required to be fully vaccinated for COVID-19.)

New to iNaturalist?

iNaturalist is an online social network of people sharing biodiversity information to help each other learn about nature. iNaturalist is a collaboration between National Geographic and the California Academy of Sciences.  Anyone can participate in iNaturalist!

Before arriving on Saturday please:

  1. Go to iNaturalist.org and create a free account. You should see “SIGN UP” featured prominently on the homepage.   Otherwise, there’s a “Sign Up” link in the top right corner.
  2. On your smart phone, go to the Apple Store or the Google Play store and download the iNaturalist app.

Once you’ve signed up, you can enter observations from either your phone or computer.  The iNaturalist site has a really good explanation here:

https://www.inaturalist.org/pages/getting+started
The page also has links to video tutorials.

In addition, we have two printer-friendly handouts created from the iNaturalist guide:

The Wilderness Park Biota Project:

iNat_project_header

In addition to the “California Biodiversity Day” project, any observations you make in the Wilderness Park (at any time) will be automatically added to the “Biota of the Claremont Hills Wilderness Park” project. This project was created by the Friends of the Wilderness Park specifically for documenting the plants and animals of the Wilderness Park.

If you’d like to check out the CHWP project and see what’s already been reported, just go to:
https://www.inaturalist.org/projects/biota-of-the-claremont-hills-wilderness-park

A few tips for best practices:

  • If feasible, crop your photos to feature the subject, especially if it’s not clear whether the subject is the bird or the tree, for example.
  • Include a little description. For one thing, you can use the description to say what’s the subject.  But you can also note any additional details, interesting behavior, type of habitat, odors, etc. that may not be obvious from the photo.
  • Give the most specific ID you can, even if it’s not to the species level. For instance, “insect”, “snake”, or even “plant” or “animal” is better than just having “unknown”.
  • Give a little info about yourself in your profile – it increases your credibility.

Northern Harrier Hunting in Johnson’s Pasture

Posted on by friendsofthewildernesspark

In the winter, you can often see Northern Harriers in the Wilderness Park. Unlike other hawks that hunt from on high, these unusual hawks fly very low over the ground, looking and listening for rodents. They have a disk-shaped face looks and functions much like an owl’s, with stiff facial feathers helping to direct sound to the ears, and they rely on hearing as well as vision to capture prey.

Last week one was hunting in Johnson’s Pasture and stayed in the same area for more than an hour, allowing your intrepid photographer to snap enough photos that some of them came our more or less in focus.

Here you can see how close they fly to the ground at times.

The Northern Harrier flying very low over the side of Johnson’s Pasture Road. ©Nancy Hamlett.

In the Wilderness Park, you can often look down on them and spot the distinctive white patch on the rump.

The Northern Harrier flying low showing its white rump patch while a cyclist rides by on Webb Canyon Road. ©Nancy Hamlett.

This Northern Harrier must have been a female, as the females are brown above (males are grayish) and pale with brown streaks below.

Another view of the Northern Harrier hunting showing the brown color above and the distinctive white rump patch. ©Nancy Hamlett.

If you see one of these in the Park, take a few minutes to watch it. They’re awesome! They’re not likely to be here too much longer for this year. Although some are sighted in LA County throughout the year, most of the Northern Harriers migrate to the very northern US and Canada for the summer.

For more information on Northern Harriers, check out All About Birds.

Spring has sprung!

Posted on by friendsofthewildernesspark

Even though it’s only February, it’s already spring in Southern California. Green leaves and shoots are popping up all over, and the earliest flowering plants are starting to bloom.

One of the first to flower is the White-flowering Currant (Ribes indecorum), which is making a show all over the Wilderness Park just now. This large deciduous shrub of chaparral and sage scrub has lobed, wrinkled bright green leaves that are slightly sticky and clusters of small white flowers in loose, dangling clusters, which are visited by bees, butterflies, and hummingbirds. The photo of the flowering plant above was taken last week in Johnson’s Pasture.

In late spring and summer, the White-flowering Currant has blue-purple berries, which are attractive to birds.

Berries of Ribes indecorum.
A bright green, wrinkled leaf of Ribes indecorum
The undersides of the leaves of Ribes indecorum have hairs that give them a whitish appearance.

Lots more plants will be flowering soon, so keep your eyes out! If you like looking at and photographing plants and animals in the Park, please think about posting to iNaturalist. Anything you post in the Park will be collected by our Biota of the Claremont Hills Wilderness Park project.

P.S. We have no idea why the specific name is indecorum. This plant’s decorum seems fine to us!

California Biodiversity Day at the Wilderness Park

Posted on by friendsofthewildernesspark

Thanks to everyone who participated in California Biodiversity Day at the Wilderness Park, and especially the Rangers, who set it all up!  On Saturday and Sunday, Sept. 7 and 8, forty-eight new observations were reported to our iNaturalist project.  Thirty-seven different species were reported, including 13 species not previously reported to iNaturalist for the Park.  Here are a few of our favorites.  The ones with * are new species for our iNaturalist project.

*Lorquin’s Admiral (Limenitis lorquini):
Limenitis_lorquini-090819-5389The Lorquin’s Admiral is thought to be a Batesian mimic of the California Sister, which is reportedly much less palatable to predators.

Woodland Skipper (Ochlodes sylvanoides) nectaring on *Douglas’s Threadleaf Ragwort (Senecio flaccidus var. douglasii):Ochlodes_sylvanoides-090819-5517The Woodland Skippers were all over Evey Canyon on Sunday.  Douglas’s Threadleaf Ragwort blooms later than most and attracts a lot of bees and butterflies in late summer and early fall.

A robber fly (*Stenopogon sp.) with a *Western Yellowjacket (Vespula pensylvanica) prey:Robber_fly-090819-5435This was a two-fer!  Both the Stenopogon robber fly and the Western Yellowjacket were new additions to our project. Isn’t the robber fly a fearsome-looking creature?

A long-horned beetle (*Tragidion annulatum):Tragidion_annulatum-090819-5486With its blue iridescent body and coppery elytra, this large, colorful beetle is an amazing tarantula hawk mimic.

*Genista Broom Moth (Uresiphita reversalis) caterpillar on Spanish Broom (Spartium junceum):Uresiphita_reversalis-090819-5573There were quite a few of these on the broom in Evey Canyon – four on this plant alone. Who knew there was a moth that used broom as a host plant?  We say, “Go caterpillars!  Eat broom!”

If you made observations in the Park but didn’t report them, don’t worry!  You can submit them any time, and they will still be counted both for the Park and for the statewide California Biodiversity Day project.

Question of the Day: … but it wasn’t a rattlesnake … or was it?

Posted on by friendsofthewildernesspark

Today’s question was posed to us by recent Park visitor.

The question is:
I saw this snake on the trail, but it wasn’t a rattlesnake … or was it? It didn’t rattle.

We checked it out!  Here is a photo of the snake in question:

Crotalus_oreganus_helleri-071219-3615.jpg

And the answer is:
Definitely a rattlesnake!

It’s a young Southern Pacific Rattlesnake (Crotalus oreganus helleri), which is the only rattlesnake that occurs in our area.  The only other snake in the Wilderness Park with a similar pattern is the San Diego Gophersnake (Pituophis catenifer annectens).  Here’s how to tell them apart (image and information adapted from California Herps’ “Living with Rattlesnakes”):

rattlesnake-gophernake.jpg

Rattlesnake:
• Triangular head, definitely larger than neck
 • Thick, dull, non-glossy body
 • Blunt tail with one or more rattles

Gohpersnake:
• Head only slightly larger than neck
 • Slender, glossy body
 • Pointed tail

You can see that the subject of our question meets all three criteria for rattlesnakes!

Close examination of this one’s tail reveals two rattle segments in addition to the terminal button (which it had when it was born).  Young rattlesnakes grow quickly, and they add a new rattle segment each time they shed their skin, so this one is probably less than a year old.

As evidenced by the snake that prompted the question, rattlesnakes do not always rattle. Again, from “Living with Rattlesnakes”: “They will often remain silent when they sense a threat, using their cryptic color and pattern to blend into their surroundings to hide from the threat. In this situation making noise risks advertising their presence. They also use their natural camouflage to hunt by sitting still and not rattling, trying to remain invisible as they wait for a warm-blooded prey animal to pass close enough for the snake to strike it,” although they do often rattle loudly to warn potential enemies of their presence.

Rattlesnakes are the only venomous snakes in our area. (Although some people might call them as “poisonous”, they’re not – poisonous snakes are technically ones that make you sick if your eat them.) Although rattlesnake bites can be extremely dangerous,  rattlesnakes are not aggressive or vicious.  They do not strike or bite without provocation. If rattlesnakes are given some space and time to escape to a safe place, they will usually just crawl away and avoid confrontation.

What should you do if you meet a rattlesnake in the Wilderness Park:

  • Leave it alone!
  • Give the snake a wide berth and walk by; if you can’t pass comfortably at a distance, retrace your steps.
  • Don’t even think about picking it up or poking it with a stick!
  • Don’t yell at the snake or throw rocks at them. They have poor hearing, so they won’t hear you shouting and hitting one with a rock will just irritate or injure the snake.

Be proactive to minimize rattlesnake encounters:

  • Be alert! Rattlesnake behavior changes with the weather. When they want to warm up, they may bask right in the middle of the trail.
  • Stick to the trails. (You’re supposed to do this, anyway!) During the day, snakes may hide in tall grass, weeds or heavy underbrush.
  • Check out stumps or logs before sitting down.
  • Don’t hike alone. Always have someone with you who can assist in an emergency.
  • Leash your dog. (This is already required in the Wilderness Park!) Dogs are at increased risk of being bitten due to holding their nose to the ground while investigating the outdoors.

What should you do if you are bitten?

  • Stay calm but act quickly.
  • Remove watches, rings, etc., which may constrict swelling.
  • Call the Claremont Police Department emergency number (909) 626-1296.
  • Transport the victim to the nearest medical facility.
  • Don’t apply a tourniquet, pack the bit in ice, cut the wound with a knife or razor, or use your mouth to suck out the venom!

More information:

What’s your question?  If you have a question about the Wilderness Park, please email us at info@friendsofthewildernesspark.org.