March 19, 2021 Paramount Ranch

Today I re-visited the trail where in 2019 I did my informal survey of the Woolsey fire recovery. The trail I chose turned out to be great, as thanks to a lot of rain that winter, I counted at least 50 different species of flowers in probably less than a a mile trail--not all at once of course but throughout the spring season.

What a difference two years makes and unfortunately things looked very dry. I don't think I've ever seen so few flowers along a trail during spring. Everything looked heat stressed with the exception of a few plants including the ubiquitous (this year) purple nightshade. I saw at least two Sara orange tips fly by but I'm not sure if they ever found what they were looking for. I also saw a couple of blue butterflies, probably acmon blues--but again, they didn't stop for me or much else.

Yet, spring is in the air and so a lot of insects were out, the gopher was digging, the hawks were active and lots of lizards were sunning themselves. Check out the handsome side-blotched lizard...one of several I saw.

Two years ago, the meadow around the church was teeming with small flowers including hundreds of goldfields. Today I saw a couple dozen maybe. The only flower I saw much of was common stork's bill (most quite stunted) and I saw several honeybees working on those.

The blister beetles were eating the few morning glory petals around and even hanging on the purple nightshade plants. The blue elder was nicely leafed out but not a flower was on it.

I did find a couple of cool things today though. It's always fun to see a jumping spider--in fact I saw a couple but I only got a photo of one. I also found this really interesting insect--perhaps a wasp of some sort?--that I failed to get a great photo of but check out the eyes and thick antennae! This is one bug I've absolutely never seen before. I'm very curious as to what it is.

Spring is going to be a challenge for every living thing here due to the dry conditions. Fortunately, there are still pockets of habitat in our local mountains that do have water so I'm hoping that will see us through. And we can hope for more rain.

Posted on March 19, 2021 11:51 PM by naturephotosuze naturephotosuze

Observations

Photos / Sounds

Observer

naturephotosuze

Date

March 19, 2021 11:01 AM PDT

Description

Paramount Ranch

Photos / Sounds

Observer

naturephotosuze

Date

March 19, 2021 11:39 AM PDT

Description

Paramount Ranch
Definitely the coolest find today and maybe in the last few weeks. Should have been at f22 for this guy as f13 didn't do it and since it was on a blue elder leaf, the wind was blowing making focus even more difficult.

Photos / Sounds

What

Red-eared Blister Beetle (Lytta auriculata)

Observer

naturephotosuze

Date

March 19, 2021 12:07 PM PDT

Description

Paramount Ranch
There were a couple of these hanging out (literally) by purple nightshade plants presumably since there were so few other flowers available

Photos / Sounds

What

Common Side-blotched Lizard (Uta stansburiana)

Observer

naturephotosuze

Date

March 19, 2021 12:36 PM PDT

Description

Paramount Ranch
A handsome one

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