Natural History Wanderings

Solano Land Trust has an update on Jepson Prairie wildflowers

All right, each year I pronounce ‘this is going to the best year since I started photographing at Jepson’. This is my 10th year anniversary pronouncement and it seems as though this year may produce a good, wet season and a expansive bloom.

Each year, while precip and temps vary nature finds a way to maximize what’s available. Last season, the thought of large patches of downigia and their attendant vernal pool flora, seemed illusory. Then April rolled around and the fresh water pools in Buck Pasture produced a magnificent display of D. bella, Castilleja campestris, Leptosiphon liniflorus, Plagiobothrys, Navarretia and Lasthenia . This was not only a beautiful, but fragrant as well, array of what they offer.

Olcott is beginning to receive runoff and some of the early flora are showing themselves.

As the days progress a flora report will be in the offing and soon our work will begin once again.

If you get a chance, check out North most corner of the docent triangle where the road crosses the railroad tracks (just west of the road). This always has a lot of late moisture, and the downinga were visible from the road.

Bird life included avocets, stilts, Canada geese, egrets, herons, killdeer, white pelican flyover, savannah sparrows, meadowlarks, red wing blackbirds, and some small sandpipers that I could not identify. There is an active nest of ravens in the tower in the east pool of Olcott.

See older posts at  Flickr: Discussing 2015 hikes. in Solano Land Trust.