Natural History Wanderings

I have spent the last few day in Redwood Country in Northern California. This past Thursday 10/10/13, we drove through the Avenue of the Giants area, which parallels highway 101 and walking around the Big Trees area in Humboldt State Park. (all state parks are open while Redwood National Park is closed due to the government shutdown). Besides being the giant redwoods being impressive by themselves they were accented by maple trees yellow leaves (which are about 50 percent turned) and the red of poison oak in its fall color. The fall colors are not worth coming up here for on their own but make nice complements to the redwoods and other conifers.

Friday 10/11/13 we hiked a scenic loop in Prairie Creek Redwoods Park of the Brown Creek Trail, Rhododendron Trail and South Loop Trail. More scenic redwoods in an old growth forest accented by yellow maples in spots, mushrooms, a few forest birds (Ravens, Stellar Jays, Chickadees and Pacific Wrens) and banana slugs. After the hike we had a number of Roosevelt Elk sightings. We hadn’t seen them at some of the usual spots we saw them in the past and I was concerned they had been furloughed with the government shutdown.

This morning  we went on an Audubon walk at Arcata Marsh. It is a top birding spot and we saw over 50 species. There were many water birds and highlights included Blue-winged Teal, Hooded Mergansers, Eurasian Wigeon and a hybird Wigeon. We saw a number of White-tailed Kites, had several sightings of Kingfishers.  Also seen were three river otters. To see the bird list go to: Arcata Marsh Bird List 10/12/13. This is an excellent place to bird and I highly recommend it.

In the afternoon we drove through the Arcata Bottoms area and walked along the Dunes at Mad River county park. The drive included a number of raptor sightings. We identified a total of 25 bird species. I am sure we missed a number without the help of the Audubon members we hiked with this morning.  The dunes included a number of late season wildflower bloom including Coast Buckwheat, Yellow Sand Verbena, Sea Rocket. (It was very similar to what I see in the sandy areas at Abbotts Lagoon at Pt. Reyes) We saw a total of 25 species. See the bird list at: Arcata Bottoms and Mad River Park 10/12/13

Related articles

• Birding Arcata Marsh (naturalhistorywanderings.com)