Earth Day Weekend Events

Limekiln Canyon, San Fernando Valley

Get out and experience the world around you. Here are two family-friendly FREE events and local places to head out to this weekend in the Los Angeles Area.

Southern California Flower Show

April 23 - 26, South Coast Plaza

for more info www.springgardenshow.com

Display gardens, CA native plants, flowers, fairy gardens, bonsai, if it grows you'll find it at the Flower Show. This is a treat for the senses. Did you know there is an orchid that smells like coconut? No kidding.

Escape to the Flower Show

Santa Monica Mountains Science Fest 

Saturday, April 25  10 AM - 4 PM

at Paramount Ranch

for more info Science Fest

Hikes, presentations with live local wildlife, booths from LA County Natural History Museum, Friends of the Island Fox, National Parks, Del Air Rockhounds and much, much more. Explore the old Paramount Studios lot for filming westerns and discover local wild California.

Walk to The Getty

Take a Hike

• Limekiln Canyon, San Fernando Valley
• Los Virgenes Open Space
• Hike to The Getty

 
Visit one of L.A.'s Hidden Gardens

Don't get stuck indoors!

Backyard Bird Journal by Keri Dearborn

The visiting winter birds are leaving, long distance travelers will soon be passing though and summer visitors will be arriving.

I know who to look for because I keep track in a Backyard Bird Journal. It is a spiral-bound book that lets me document four consecutive years.

Each calendar day has a space to write specific sightings and weather information. 

This is where I document nesting hummingbirds. March 3, 2014 there were two active nests: H1 and DR. The chicks hatched within 24 hours of each other. This year we found no nests in the yard. We have heard and seen recent fledglings, but they were hatched somewhere else.

The Journal also enables me to see patterns because four years of the same date are side-by-side. Here you can see that March 4th is typically when the Bewick’s wren are out comparing potential nesting sites. Bewick wrens build a nest. 

Entries for March 4, 2012, 2013, 2014 & 2015

You can also see that March 4 was a day that I noted winter visitors–the hermit thrush, Oregon dark-eyed juncos and white-crowned sparrows–were still with us.

There is space for additional notes on every other page and at the end of the month. June has been busy with Cooper’s hawk nesting for the past several years. (You can also see that I don't enter data absolutely every day.)

A species listing, with four years of monthly data, at the back of the Journal provides easily accessed information on each bird species.

At a glance I can see that since 2012 (the first row of squares) the hermit thrush has arrived in October and typically left by the first week of April.

Adding this information to the journals I have kept since 2002, I’ve documented gradual changes in hermit thrush migration. You can also see that 2015 (the last row of squares) was the first time in four years that we have seen American robins in our yard, and that was just flying overhead.
 

From small notations of observations, I know to expect the black-headed grosbeaks this month as they pass through my neighborhood.

While the hooded orioles should soon be arriving to spend the summer.

Occasionally, I have the thrill of noting something very unusual, like the sighting of an orange bishop.

I enter bird lists electronically through eBird.org, but this Backyard Bird Journal allows me to casually note who I saw that day and keep four-years of information handy at all times. I put this journal together for my own use (focused on Southern California species), but I have a limited number available for purchase. Purchase Backyard Bird Journal

The Benefits of Creating Wildlife Habitat

A walk in a natural place clears the mind and invigorates the senses. When you create wildlife habitat in your yard, you not only provide homes and dining areas for creatures, you build a natural oasis for yourself.

 

Take a minute and experience a morning in my California habitat. The plants attract insects, birds, reptiles and the occasional mammal. They also provide a healthy home for the California desert tortoises in my care.

Creating habitat means adding native plants, some for food and some for shelter. Planting natives isn't always successful in the way you envision. 

The lupine I started from seed was growing quite well until the tortoises roused from their winter slumber. I guess a lupine snack was a spring tonic. In moments, my months of nursing the seed to a vigorous plant was chomped away. However, native plants help to keep the tortoises healthier. 

Wildlife habitat also means staying away from insecticides and herbicides, and managing dead wood so that animals have places to nest or hide, while still eliminating fire threat. A small water source is also very important.

To see more creatures living in our wildlife habitat check out the lizards, Valley carpenter bees, gray bird grasshopper, Bewick's wrens and more on The Earth Minute - wildlife.

This week marks a year of one-minute videos sharing biodiversity and wild places from around the world on TheEarthMinute.com

To inspire your own gardening choices check out one-minute visits to L.A.'s Hidden Gardens like the Pierce College Botanical Garden pictured below.

Climate Change Impacts on Valley Carpenter Bees

While our unseasonably warm January/February weather was enjoyable for us humans, it challenges normal life cycles for some of our native California insects. 

mourning cloak butterfly

The warm weather convinced many butterfly and bee species that spring had arrived. Then, just as suddenly, winter returned with cold damp days challenging their survival. Typically insects overwinter in one developmental stage. Some butterflies like the monarch and the mourning cloak overwinter as adults, while others overwinter as a chrysalis waiting for spring to metamorphose into an adult. Preying mantises overwinter as eggs.

The female Valley carpenter bee (Xylocopa varipuncta) overwinters as an adult, her male counterpart does not survive the winter. When the female emerges from a winter torpor in the spring, she starts laying eggs to start a new generation. It takes 40-45 days for the young bees to mature from egg, to larva and then emerge as adults. 

In early January I was surprised to see a female Valley carpenter bee active and stashing supplies in a carved-out wooden den. Now in the last few days, these young Valley carpenter bees have begun to emerge. Unfortunately, instead of the warm spring weather they were expecting to find they have emerged into crisp winter days with cold nights. 

Tuesday evening walking home from voting, I found this newly emerged female Valley carpenter bee listless on the sidewalk. She was cold and appeared thin.

She was just able to cling to a stick that I used to pick her up. I found some native ceanothus flowers and other blooms that I have seen Valley carpenter bees frequent. I put the flowers with the bee in a bug box. We kept her in the house over night.

female Valley carpenter bee with a dusting of pollen

In the morning I was afraid she had not survived the night, but she showed a bit of movement. We opened the box and put her out in the sun in the yard adjacent to flowering plants. By mid-morning she had warmed up and flown off.

The weather is warming again. I hope she survives to pollinate the spring flowers and raise a family of her own. When thousands of years of evolution have timed your entrance into the world to coincide with specific weather and blooming plants, small changes in that series of events can challenge your survival. These are the small impacts of climate change that many of us do not notice, but which will eventually add up to large change.

Hummingbirds challenged by weather changes.
Climate changes to native plants and the animals that depend on them.
Alaskan glacier melting

Video of busy Valley carpenter bees on The Earth Minute.
 Compare them to European honey bees.

What Kind of Junco?

My friend Douglas Welch of a Gardener's Notebook recently asked me this question:  

What's the current name for, what I knew as, the Oregon Junco?

male Oregon dark-eyed junco

Sometimes it does seem like bird names are constantly in flux. However, this is a different situation. There are several, what Sibley refers to as "regional populations" of dark-eyed juncos.

Dark-eyed juncos (Junco hyemalis) are found across North America. These are migratory birds traveling long or short distances in seasonal north-south migrations. Some regional populations, such as in southern California, migrate within a region by elevation. These forest birds don't like cold, but they aren't keen on hot weather either. They tend toward a moderate climate. (I think I might be a junco.) Most dark-eyed juncos spend the winter in a moderate climate, then migrate north or higher in elevation to breed in a forested area.

The most common dark-eyed junco in California and along the west coast is the Oregon dark-eyed junco. These are the small sparrow-type birds with brownish bodies, white bellies, and a distinctive blackish hood on their head. The males hood is more distinctive, females may appear to have a more gray or "sooty" hood.

Occasionally, we also see slate-colored dark-eyed juncos in the Los Angeles area. We have had a slate-colored junco visit for a short time in 2012 and again this February. These juncos are slightly larger. Their appearance is similar except the dark coloring tends to be more all-over slate gray and the hood is less defined or not defined at all. This junco population is found across the U.S. during the winter and summers in the Taiga forests of Canada, Alaska, and the northeastern U.S. 

In our southern California backyard, we have 2-10 Oregon dark-eyed juncos that spend the winter in the native habitat we've tried to recreate. They tend to arrive late September or early October. In 2014 and this year they arrived Oct. 15 and Oct. 7 respectively. They stay through March. (However, in 2013 they stayed until the first week in April and in 2014 one lingered until May 1.) Initially we had two males that came in 2000. Now we see males and females, but always more males. These individuals always leave to breed somewhere else. They may be only migrating to spend the summer at higher elevations in our neighboring Santa Monica Mountains or they may be going as far as southern Alaska and Canada's Yukon Territory.

I was thrilled in 2013 to see a female Oregon dark-eyed junco raising two chicks in Alaska. I'd never seen dark-eyed junco chicks before. This industrious mom was leading her two flightless youngsters along the ground through the black spruce forest. She was constantly catching insects and stuffing them into open mouths. There was no male around. All of the junco families I saw were single-mom affairs.

In 2014 we saw pink-sided dark-eyed juncos in Teton and Yellowstone National Parks. White-winged, red-backed, and gray-headed dark-eyed juncos are all still on my "to see" list.

For more on identifying dark-eyed juncos check out Cornell's All About Birds.

Great Backyard Bird Count - Go Out & Count Birds!

Can you see the nine band-tailed pigeons (Patagioenas fasciata) in the eucalyptus tree?

Today, Friday, February 13 marks the first day of the annual Great Backyard Bird Count 2015. All around the world people are out counting the birds in their yards, neighborhoods, parks and wild places. The real world has no fences! The Santa Monica Mountains and the Pacific Ocean are my backyard!

It's easy and important. When you count and enter your data on-line at http://gbbc.birdcount.org you are contributing to science and the world's knowledge of bird populations and migration. How is the snow in Massachusetts impacting birdlife? Will they see fewer birds than the last 18 years of GBBC?

This February day in southern California is going to be in the 80s. Are our winter migratory birds still here or have they left?

white-throated sparrow

This morning in our yard I saw 87 individual birds from 22 species, including this white-throated sparrow (Zonotrichia albicollis) which is somewhat rare for the Los Angeles area. The white-throated sparrow typically is a winter migrant to the south-eastern U.S. Some winters, a few show up here. E-bird and the Great Backyard Bird Count help to track these occurrences. Are more white-throated sparrows spending the winter in southern California? Is their range changing?

How can you participate?  

• Check out the easy instructions at http://gbbc.birdcount.org/get-started/
• Count days are Friday thru Monday, Feb. 13, 14, 15, and 16
• Take a minimum of 15 minutes and go outside wherever you are and count the birds you see, noting their species. (Even gulls in a parking lot count. Don't know what kind of gull it is? That is OK. If you know the basic family group–gull, sparrow, duck–GBBC has a box for basic IDs.)

Pair of spotted towhees and a single mourning dove

How do you count? Take a look at what you see at one time. For example in the photo above: two spotted towhees (Pipilo maculatus) and one mourning dove (Zenaida macroura). Counting in my yard. You don't accumulate the number, you go with the highest number of that species that you see at one time.

I'm going to a neighborhood park today: Serrania Park. My husband will take a few minutes at work to go outside and count. Maybe one of L.A.'s Hidden Gardens is near you. They are a great place to see birds.

Last year people counted more birds than ever. Let's break the record again. Get out there and Count Those Birds!

Subtle Impacts of Drought & Climate Change in Southern California

It's 66˚F outside at 2:30 pm on a January day. The sky is clear, the day is beautiful. Our mid-winter in southern California is mild and lovely.

Unfortunately, people have difficulty seeing incremental local climate changes if those changes do not have a concrete negative impact on themselves. In addition, most people who have relocated to Los Angeles from places with snowy or harsh winters do not even notice our subtle seasons.

toyon berries, 1/15/15

Today however I came face-to-face with an impact from drought and climate change that is having a direct impact on my neighbors and their migratory relatives. The toyon or California holly should be filled with red berries (what toyon should look like in December/January). Because of the drought the two bushes in the front of the house did not fruit at all this year and the toyon at the top of the hill has fruit that look like this...small and unripe.

The northern mockingbird that only occasionally visits our yard was here this morning hunting for fruit, it found none. The hermit thrush who visits annually was also searching for toyon fruit. Unlike the mockingbird, it has come here from the north to spend the winter in a location that should offer winter fruit. Both are having to supplement their diets with more insects. 

High in the eucalyptus tree the mewing cries of a small flock of cedar waxwings caught my attention. Twenty-seven of these fruit-eating birds sat pondering their next move. They too were here looking for the toyon berries that they expected to find on our hillside. When they found nothing, they went hungry. They regathered and flew on.

For these birds, drought means smaller, less nutritious food. But subtle changes in our climate are also altering when the fruit ripens. Imagine driving across the Mojave desert with the plan to stop at that favorite restaurant only to find that the town is closed up and the next place to find food is 100s of miles away.

Subtle changes in our local climate are impacting wild species that are tied to the fruiting or flowering of specific plants. We need to increase our awareness. 

Encountering a Bull Elk

Why create habitat in your yard? Because when you interact with other living things you have a better understanding of yourself. Sounds a bit heavy-handed, but I believe it. 

A backyard with habitat attracts native species. Today a red-tailed hawk watched me trying to apprehend a pocket gopher. Check out video of our resident Bewick's wrens, valley carpenter bees, lizards, grasshoppers and red jumping spider.

this younger male is small by comparison and still in velvet

Living in a metropolitan area, my interactions with large animals come when I'm off hiking or traveling. This summer I had an amazing encounter with a bull Roosevelt elk (Cervus elaphus roosevelti). He was right off a heavily trafficked trail in Redwoods National Park, but few people noticed him. The Roosevelt elk is the largest subspecies of elk surviving in North America and this male was huge, the size of a large horse. He stood 5 foot to the shoulder, with a long neck, and antlers that reached 3-4 feet up from his head.

Bull Roosevelt elk average a 16-year life span in the wild. The older the male the larger and more branched his antlers. Elk antlers are a renewable resource; they drop off after the breeding season and are grown anew the following year.

The older male shown here is just entering the rut, or breeding season. While the antlers are growing they are covered with a thin layer of tissue and are vascular, blood flows through the bony growth. As the breeding season approaches in the fall, antlers stop growing. Blood stops flowing through the antler and thin skin layer. The tissue covering dries up and the bull rubs his antlers against bushes and other vegetation to remove the velvety covering. Here you can see that this male has been removing velvet that still had some vascular circulation; his antlers appear bloody. 

With the beginning of the rut, male elk are filled with testosterone. Breeding and competing for females take priority over any other activity, even eating. Few males remain the dominant or top breeding male for more than a season. A top male will frequently be so worn out by the end of the rut that he does not have the energy reserves to survive the winter.

two female elk with their calves at twilight

The Roosevelt elk is found only along the northwest coast from northern California, to Oregon and Washington, and on two Alaskan islands where they were introduced. The subspecies was named for President Theodore Roosevelt who created Olympic National Park in Washington state as a preserve for the 20 remaining members of this elk subspecies in the early 1900s. Today over 7,000 individual Roosevelt elk can be found across their range. They are another example of successful conservation, including well-managed hunting. Channel Island Fox.

This large member of the deer family plays an important role in clearing the forest understory. They help keep forests healthy by creating open space for other animals and encouraging the growth of young plants. Healthy elk populations, however, need predators. Let's keep our fingers crossed for the gray wolves making their way back into California and the mountain lions trying to maintain healthy numbers. 

In the mean time, make 2015 the year you make your backyard a habitat for native plants and wildlife.

Native Plants from Seed

Sometimes it is hard to find the native plants you are looking for. 

bladderpod seedlings

Seeds can be your answer.

fairy duster

I've admired the bladder pod and fairy duster (Calliandra ssp) in a friend's yard. This summer I asked if I could gather some seed from their plants.

I scattered a few seeds in some pots and watched over them. To my happy surprise, I have small plants.

They aren't quite ready to put in the ground, but some are ready to be moved to their own pots.

lupine seeds from a local native plant organization

Seeds represent future possibility. Not sure what to get someone as a small gift - How about seeds?

Rain Brings Renewal

bush anemone

Finally an inch of rain.

Time for putting native plants in the ground. It may seem odd to plant as we ease into winter, but our California native plants do best when they have the winter to establish themselves.

For our Mediterranean Climate Zone, dormancy comes during the summer. Winter and early spring are the seasons of growth.

I've planted a second bush anemone as well as white sage, San Miguel Island yarrow, and some white buckwheat. The yarrow and the island subspecies of buckwheat we planted last year have reseeded themselves and small plants have come up on their own. That is the joy of native plants. Even with the drought they are doing well. 

Drought Relief

Need an escape from the drought? 

Take a one-minute walk through 

New York's Central Park 

in the rain on The Earth Minute.com

Bright Red-Orange Bird in Los Angeles

Wednesday, mid-day, I glanced out the window to see a brilliant orange and black bird in the backyard. I dashed for a camera because this was no typical bird. Hooded orioles typically nest in our neighborhood, and males are striking orange-yellow and black, but this bird was nearly “caution-orange.” It had a black cap, black vest and wings.

I had heard stories of a breeding colony of an African bird in the Sepulveda Basin, but I had never seen one myself. When I saw that coloration I knew an orange bishop had come to see me.

The orange bishop (Euplectes franciscanus), also known as the northern red bishop, is so extravagantly colored that at first glance it looks fake. My first thought was that one of my yard house finches had gotten brightly-colored trash stuck on it.

In a dark tropical forest this brightly colored bird might not stand out, but here in a very dry southern California, I feared he might be easily picked off by our local Cooper’s hawk. The female orange bishop is more moderately plumed. With a yellowish head and back, and a white tummy, she might blend in with goldfinches and sparrows.

The lone male orange bishop stayed just long enough for me to hastily snap a few photos. He must have just been passing through because I haven’t seen him again. Was he a descendent of the breeding colony nearly 10 miles away or is he an escaped caged bird? Admired for their fantastic coloring, the orange bishop is sometimes kept as a pet. However, this bird did not seem comfortable with a human approaching.

As a potentially invasive species, there is some concern about the orange bishop as there is with the nutmeg mannikin (Lonchura punctulata). As seed feeders they could become crop pests or negatively impact native bird species. Orange bishop numbers seem to be increasing in North America. Sibley reports that there are breeding populations not only in southern California, but also Phoenix, Arizona, and Texas. So if you see a bright red-orange sparrow-like bird in your yard, maybe the orange bishop has come to visit you as well.

Native CA Plants in a Hidden Garden - Pierce College Botanical Garden

Pierce College Botanical Garden

I had heard there was a native plant garden on the campus at Pierce College in the San Fernando Valley, but I had not been there. I'm doing a series on Hidden Gardens of Los Angeles on TheEarthMinute.com, so I went scouting for the garden at Pierce.

At first I was hesitant because of the temporary fencing put up around campus construction, but I kept following the directional signage and soon found myself in a transformed landscape.

red mountain sage (Salvia darcyi)

What once was a grassy quad is now a garden of California natives with specifically sectioned areas of drought tolerant plants from the other Mediterranean-climate zones around the world. 

Despite the drought, this is a place of green and flowering vegetation. It also is an amazing example of how native plants create habitat.

In the middle of the campus there are not only Anna's hummingbirds, but scrub-jays and even California quail. Butterfly and dragonfly species are numerous and the pond habitat had a variety of wildlife. 

Valley carpenter bee

Native plants are more suited to drought conditions and surviving occasional frost. They provide important nectar and pollen food for native birds and insects (like the Valley carpenter bee, video). The insects become food for lizards and other birds. Native plants are the foundation of habitat. 

This Hidden Garden at Pierce College is a perfect place to find inspiration in how to arrange native plant species and to find the specific names of flowers or foliage that you find attractive.

See a video of the Pierce College Botanical Garden and information on visiting this Free oasis in the San Fernando Valley.

Women's Vote and the Environment

Today is an important anniversary for American women and the environment–August 26th, 1920 women won the right to vote in the United States.

In those 94 years, women have been a powerful voice for the environment. Some have supported Clean Air and Clean Water legislation for the health and welfare of families and children. Others have supported the same measures to protect the plants and animals with which we share the planet. (Endangered Species Act) (Rachel Carson)

Whatever the motivation, the result is the same: a healthier landscape for living things.

Over the past few weeks I've been traveling and I've seen places that were inspirational and locations that are under siege due to human greed. This day reminds me that I have a voice to express my thoughts and concerns.

Women across our country, with different political ideals, came together to give generations of daughters a political voice. Some of these women gave their lives for a right many of us too often take for granted. If every eligible woman voted in the coming elections, we could change the course of the country.

The first year they had the vote, Democrat and Republican women pressured elected officials to pass the first federal program to assist women and infants–The Sheppard-Towner Maternity and Infancy Act. At that time more children were dying in infancy annually across the United States than the toll of American soldiers killed in World War 1. This single act saved the lives of many of our grandparents and great grandparents.

A healthy planet with biodiversity benefits everyone. Toxins and climate change have no respect for borders or political ideals.

Vote, it is a sacred right won for us by our grandmothers who did not have a voice. 

Touching Climate Change

Do you question climate change?

In my lifetime I have watched glaciers in Alaska retreat by miles. Check out the video we shot of Mendenhall Glacier in Juneau, Alaska.

I've seen dramatic changes in the breeding of Allen's hummingbirds in my California yard and changes in the migration patterns of native birds that visit. Many of the animals are responding to impacts on native vegetation.

Rainfall in California has declined creating our current drought, but the truth is we haven't had a wet season since 2005. Flood years mixed with low rainfall years are normal for us, but the flood years are disappearing.

Small changes can sneak up on you as you ease into them. But if you are documenting daily events in the natural world, either in data, journal, or photos, the dramatic accumulation of change is undeniable. 

I remember when the Mendenhall Glacier covered most of the rocky outcroppings that are now completely exposed. I remember a 300 foot thickness of ice that nearly hid the top of the waterfall that is now completely free to tumble down a barren rock slope. Watch the video and see the beach beside the churning waterfall. I sat on that beach and cried, because when I was a child that beach was completely covered by a wall of glacial ice.   

The Success of Island Fox Conservation

San Nicolas Island fox, Keri Dearborn

In 2000, four subspecies of Channel Island foxes were on the brink of extinction.

I became involved with island fox conservation in 2002, first as an observer and then as Education Director for Friends of the Island Fox, a non-profit organization focused on education and informing the local California community about this rare animal disappearing on our doorstep.

Santa Cruz Island fox, Michael Lawshe

Friends of the Island Fox has worked with biologists and land managers across the six Channel Islands that provide habitat for this endemic California species. Today the island fox is the perfect example of how the Endangered Species Act should work and how scientists, conservation organizations, government agencies and an active community can save a species.

At the low point, only 15 individual animals survived on San Miguel and Santa Rosa Islands. Check out the annual update from the meeting of island fox biologists.  
2014 status of Channel Island fox.

You will be inspired. Individuals can make a difference.

Visit the Channel Islands and see island foxes.

Hear my interview about the island fox and how it came to be endangered.

Hidden Gardens of Los Angeles

red-legged frog sculpture at Malibu Legacy Park

Here and there in the corners of the city, there are wonderful public gardens.

I'm spotlighting a few of them on The Earth Minute (theearthminute.com). Each profile offers a one-minute video of the location and details on parking, accessibility, and amenities.

The Malibu Legacy Park offers native plants, a host of birdlife, and mosaic sculptures of California wildlife.

Orcutt Ranch Park is a quiet stroll through California history–complete with lemons, adobe, and an ancient oak tree.

Orcutt Ranch Park rose garden

Where Would You Spend Your Last Day?

Great Barrier Reef, Australia

The world is filled with beautiful places. 

I love Paris, London, and Istanbul. 

Walking along the beach is heavenly whether it is Maui or Malibu.

I love the Sierra Nevada Mountains with their big trees and the variety of both Alaska and Australia, from the Great Barrier Reef to the rainforest.

But if I had just one day left on this earth, I would spend it on Squanga Lake in  Yukon Territory, Canada.

We've posted two short videos of this slice of wilderness heaven on The Earth Minute.com

Check out Squanga Lake and floating down the outlet stream. 

Stunning scenery and wildlife. I hope you have a place that fills your heart as this one does mine.

Encountering a Wild Lace Monitor

When we began our trek to the beach at Cape Tribulation in Queensland, Australia, we hoped to see wildlife among the exotic foliage. Butterflies were varied and numerous. A chorus of forest birds called out all around us. 

In the dim forest light, spotting this rufous night heron (Nycticorax caledonicus) was exciting. This was the wildlife we expected. Amazing how similar it was in appearance and behavior to the black-crowned night heron we frequently see in the Los Angeles area.

But our thrill came when a rustle in the mangrove leaves revealed a 5-foot-long lace monitor (Varanus varius). Monitor lizards are primarily predators, hunting birds, small mammals and other reptiles. Some species also eat insects and crustaceans. The lace monitor is the second largest monitor species in Australia, and Australia is the land of lizards. In a country where most of the marsupial predators have become extinct, monitors are important mesopredators (predators of small prey).

 
Southern California's equivalent mesopredators would be the gray fox, island fox, coyote, bobcat, and red-tailed hawk. Predators are much fewer in an ecosystem than prey species, making the sighting of one an unexpected pleasure. However, like our mesopredators, lace monitors are adaptable and with the decrease or extinction of large predators, mesopredator populations increase. The more resourceful species can sometimes get in trouble frequenting campgrounds and picnic areas, or even cities, where people create an opportunity for food. While this lace monitor might scavenge in the near-by park, we watched it exhibiting natural behaviors–using its forked tongue and Jacobson's organ to sense for food and other monitors. Watch the Video at TheEarthMinute.com

Monitor lizards have a deeply forked tongue like a snake and a keen chemosensory ability. As solitary creatures, they use this sense to communicate with others of their species. We watched this lace monitor mark its territory by rubbing glands, on the head and near the cloaca, on a tree trunk. Another lace monitor traveling this trail would be able to tell the gender, size, and probable health and mating status of this monitor from its scent marking. 

This behavior is very similar to that of wild felines, which also mark territory with chemical scents. (Your cat is actually marking you as its territory when it rubs its cheeks against your leg. Watch the lace monitor video and see if it doesn't remind you of your cat.) In Australia and Indonesia where there are no wild feline species, monitors are large lizards that fill the same niche. They are able predators, moving rapidly, tracking prey, climbing trees, and living in a variety of habitats.

In North America, our largest lizards are fairly small (under 2 ft or 70 cm, snout to tail tip) and the second largest, the chuckwalla is primarily herbivorous. There is no niche for a large predatory lizard because we have wild felines, bobcats, mountain lions, lynx, and the occasional ocelot or jaguar. I've only seen local bobcats on rare occasion and only felt the watching eyes of a mountain lion. Seeing this lace monitor was a reminder of the importance of predators in a healthy ecosystem and how special it is to see a mesopredator in the wild, especially when you are just taking a walk to the beach.

Cape Tribulation, Queensland, Australia

Take An Earth Minute

Step outside and take a minute to reconnect with the other living things that share our world. 

You can do that close-by at a quiet neighborhood location like one of Los Angeles' Hidden Gardens at Orcutt Ranch Park in the San Fernando Valley.

Or travel far away, like outer Mongolia - Listen to the wild wind and see the extreme terrain of Western Mongolia.

island fox footprints

No matter where you go, if you look closely you will see what other people miss: A wild tortoise living among ancient Roman ruins (Temple of Aphrodite, Turkey); flying fox bats in downtown Cairns, Australia; the endangered island fox on California's Santa Cruz Island.

When you take the time to engage with the world around you it will bring you peace, wonderment and inspiration. My husband and I are posting a minute of adventure - large and small - at TheEarthMinute.com each Friday.

Sometimes you can find a minute of wonder at your back door, like the Bewick's wrens that built a nest on our patio. 

This Friday I'm posting a moment with some of my favorite micro-carpenters. Subscribe to the e-mail that tells you when a new Earth Minute has been posted; you won't want to miss these bee-autiful builders.