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.

Celebrating Rachel Carson's Birthday

Today is Rachel Carson's birthday - a time to reinvigorate the challenge she posed to all Americans. 

We are part of the environment in which we live. The health of our air, soil and water is just as important to humans as it is to bald eagles, island foxes (video), humpback whales and monarch butterflies.

Rachel Carson's early books celebrated the sea, coastal habitats and the variety of interdependent life  in the ocean: Under the Sea Wind; The Sea Around Us; Edge of the Sea. Through her study of coastal habitats and in her work as a writer for the Bureau of Fisheries and eventually the Editor-in-Chief of publications for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Carson saw what most Americans did not have access to: scientific reports on the toxic impacts of overused pesticides.

Carson was not a political person, she believed that science fact crossed political lines. In the years following the publication of Silent Spring, the Clean Air Act (1963), Clean Water Act (1972) and the Endangered Species Act (1973) were enacted by Democratic and Republican administrations.

New science facts have been laid before us all: our use of fossil fuels in altering the global climate. Will we come together and act for the benefit of all humanity or let the well-financed voice of a few subjugate us into self-destructive inaction?   

Your life is already too busy to take on a topic that seems insurmountable? Like all of us, Rachel Carson had personal responsibilities that consumed her everyday life. From the time she was a graduate student during the Great Depression, until the day she died, she was the sole financial support for her parents, her sister, her nieces and her grandnephew. She worked a full-time job and was the head of a household, while writing her first two books. She suffered from a variety of illnesses, including breast cancer that would take her life only two years after the publication of Silent Spring. She was determined not to let the world she loved be destroyed for future generations, are you?

In Silent Spring, Carson took scientific information to the American people and challenged us to be engaged as advocates for our local environments, to question short-term commercial gain that disregards long-term damage to life forms and habitats, and to demand accountability of our government officials, from local representatives to the President.

If we all did these three things, we could change the future in a positive way.

More on Rachel Carson.


 

Mourning Cloak Becomes Butterfly

In April, mourning cloak caterpillars (Nymphalis antiopa) matured in our ornamental plum tree and became chrysalises.

I brought one into the house in a bug box hoping to catch the moment of transformation as it emerged as a butterfly. Resources said the metamorphosis should take 10-14 days. On the 12th day after forming a chrysalis, "Morty" emerged. As you might have guessed, one minute the chrysalis was hanging motionless, a half hour later I walked by and he (it) was pumping fluid into unfurled wings.

We missed the moment of emergence, but we still had the thrill of seeing how the black spiky caterpillar metamorphosed into a delicate winged butterfly. On the bottom of the bug box was a drop of fluid from inside the chrysalis. Some sources say this is extra pigment. Amazingly, when I washed out the box, the water turned an orange-pink. 

I always think twice about bringing a wild thing into the house because they belong outside. They have evolved to survive warm days and cool nights (saving a bird). We were diligent to maintain an even temperature and humidity, and to keep the enclosure out of direct sunlight.

At the same time, we watched a second chrysalis that was outside. The caterpillar had attached to the bottom of our "Welcome" sign 36 hours after the one we had in the house. We hoped to catch this second butterfly as it emerged, but...

As day 14 came and went without the color changes we had seen in the chrysalis in the house, we wondered if the cool night-time temperatures had delayed the transformation. We continued to watch the chrysalis and as the daytime temperatures warmed up, I started to see the yellow coloring coming through the chrysalis wall that had heralded the emergence of Morty. 

Then hot dry winds began to blow. I kept hoping the butterfly would emerge, but yesterday the color seemed intensified. (see original coloring) It appeared to be dehydrating. 

This morning the story ends. The photo shows a small hole gnawed into the side of the chrysalis. Some other insect has preyed upon the unlucky mourning cloak before it could complete its metamorphosis.

Morty is flying about the yard and hopefully some of its siblings are as well. I hope they will contribute to the next generation of mourning cloak butterflies.

On a recent trip to Orcutt Ranch Park, I saw a number of butterflies: mourning cloak, painted ladies (Vanessa cardui), western swallowtail (Papilio rutulus), and anise swallowtail (Papilio zelicaon).  Check out a video of this Hidden Garden in Los Angeles at TheEarthMinute.com.

A Bird on the Ground

Not all birds on the ground unable to fly are babies. Spring is definitely a time when people find and try to rescue baby birds, but just because a bird is small and grounded doesn't mean it is a fledgling.

 

 This bird was found on the ground and her inability to fly made people think she was a lost baby bird.

 

But this is actually an adult female white-throated swift (Aeronautes saxatalis). As their Latin name suggests most of their life is spent in the air. They catch insects in flight, drink by scooping up a mouthful of water as they swoop over a pond, and even mate in the air. Some sources cite them as the fastest flying North American bird because they have been documented out flying their predator the peregrine falcon. White-throated swifts are considered the most aerial land-based bird; they land only to nest on vertical cliff faces and sometimes freeway overpasses (man-made cliffs).

 

Because they are an aerial bird, swift legs are tiny with feet for gripping vertical surfaces. On the ground a swift is out of its element, it can't really walk around. This female was found in an atrium at the hospital where my neighbor works. The hospital staff gave her water in a cup and bits of cracker. Unfortunately, both were completely foreign to this bird.

 

Why was she on the ground? We don't know for sure. There was no sign of a predator attack.  but she most likely struck a window on the multistory hospital and then fell into the atrium surrounded by high walls.  Fortunately, she did not break a wing or come to serious bodily harm. 

 

When the neighbor first handed her to me in a box, my first thought was a violet-green swallow that had fallen from a nest. But once I had her in a quiet place and could evaluate her closely, I realized the amazing creature climbing up my hand was a bird I had only seen flying high overhead–a white-throated swift. Their long pointed wings slice through the air and the white belly and white flank spot make them easily identifiable from below. Most references only depict their appearance in flight because no one is going to see them on the ground. Yet, here she was.

 

With a little water offered from a dropper, she drank and rehydrated. She has a short stubby beak, but her mouth opening is large. She also has a pouch in her throat for carrying insects back to nestlings. 

 

With her gripping claws she climbed up this brick wall and she spent the night sleeping while clinging to a vertical surface, much like a bat. (Insectivorous bats and swifts have similar lifestyles; one fills the ecological niche during the night and the other during the day.) 

 

Injured wild birds frequently do not survive long. I didn't expect her to survive the night. But come morning she was still looking at me with shiny eyes. Most rescued swifts are juveniles that have fallen from nests and there are several excellent Internet resources.

Swift First Aid & Carers (Britain, but excellent info.)

Commonswift (German based, but excellent info.)

An adult swift in your hand is a very unusual gift. As I held her I knew what a rare moment it was.

 

The female swift was much improved by midday and when a breeze came up she was able to take to the air with the help of our long sloped driveway. She caught an updraft and flew. I watched her circle over the neighbor's house and then head east. I can't think of a better Earth Day moment. I didn't have a camera to capture it, but it was definitely an Earth Minute I will cherish.

 

A swift is as different from a sparrow, as a cat is from a rabbit. The more you know about the wildlife in your area–bird, mammal or reptile–the greater assistance you can be to a fellow creature in trouble. Get to know the birds in your backyard. 

 

Cornell University All About Birds website 

Baby Bird Found Alone

This is the time of year when baby birds are about. 

If a baby bird is found out of a nest many people panic and think the tiny creature is in need of rescue. STOP!

Most likely that baby bird has parents near by. This California towhee is still downy and is unable to fly, but its parents have purposefully moved it out of the nest. It is sitting in this spot just a foot off the ground because its parents led it to this safe location and told their chick to stay there.

Some birds find greater survival rates for their chicks by encouraging them out of low lying nests and moving them to different locations in clumps of grass or low shrubs. This chick had two parents hunting for food only twenty feet away. 

Occasionally, the parents were no where to be seen, but for the most part they were close by all day long. 

When evening comes, the parents will probably move their two chicks again to a safe roosting spot for the night. A second chick was under our car port.

Birds are very good parents. Even in cases where predators have damaged nests and chicks have fallen out, parent birds will come back and feed their offspring. Handling a chick and putting it back in the nest will not scare off the parents. Hummingbird chick.

The best caregiver for a baby bird is its parents. They provide the right food and in some cases bacteria and enzymes necessary for digestion.

Baby birds need their parents. Watch from a distance and you will be amazed at the attention and care they give their chicks.

Bewick's wrens build a nest.
Baby bird in grass

See more California local birds - Walk the Beach in Malibu

Hummingbird nests.

Mourning Cloak Caterpillars

I first noticed them as a small mass of black threads high in the ornamental plum tree–black caterpillars about the thickness of a pen.

They were clumped together munching on the purple leaves. It has been a while since we have had mourning cloak caterpillars, but I recognized them immediately–bristly black caterpillars with spots of deep red. With all of the nesting birds gathering food for chicks, the caterpillars were fortunate not to be spotted in the top of the tree.

Mourning cloak butterflies are one of the few species, like monarchs that overwinter as adults. A tattered adult frequented the yard a few weeks ago. It must have been a female that laid eggs on the newly emerged plum leaves.

A few days later I saw them again, but the clump had become more dispersed and they seemed plumper. 

On Sunday, I just happened to see one "wandering" up the front of the house. It had trekked down the tree, across the ground, across the walkway and started up the wall. Wandering is the phase of a caterpillar's life when it leaves the food resource it has matured on and goes in search of a quiet place to start its metamorphosis into a butterfly. The caterpillar didn't know how lucky it was, I also spotted an alligator lizard waiting at the trunk of the tree and feasting upon some of the caterpillar's less lucky siblings.

Monday, I watched a second caterpillar troop up the wall of the house.

This individual attached itself to the bottom center of our "Welcome" sign. For about 24 hours it hung there, upside-down, in a "J" position.

But yesterday afternoon I was lucky enough to catch the moment when it dropped its spiky black outer skin and became a chrysalis. For a few moments it twitched and shuddered, hanging from the tiny base of silk that attached it to the ceramic sign. Then it became very still.

In the next 10-14 days it should emerge as a butterfly. How exciting! 

We planted nectar plants to attract butterflies and it seems to have worked. Hopefully, this is just the first of several butterflies species we will have this year.

Bewick's Wrens Build a Nest

The Bewick’s wrens committed to building a nest in the cow skull on the back patio this spring. Both the male and female are in on this venture, but I can’t tell them apart. Listen for their communications as one works and the other makes suggestions or comments.

Once you watch this, you will never question that birds communicate specific things to each other.

The Bewick’s wren (Thryomanes bewickii) is a medium-sized wren found across the southwestern United States. They are believed to be monogamous. Typically their nest is built in a cavity, like a tree hollow, but they will use a nest house or even a ceramic pot. 

The male is the primary nest builder with the female adding the finishing touches after she has approved the venture. She incubates the eggs, but he helps feed the offspring. Typically, it’s just a 14 day incubation and then just 14 days before the chicks leave the nest. The little ones are moderately feathered when their parents urge them out into the world. The little family tends to stay together for several weeks. The parents move the youngsters to various hollows and hidden areas and gradually teach them to hunt for insects.

For more 1 minute nature videos see TheEarthMinute.com

Each week take a minute to find inspiration in the natural world. Take a one minute hike, a one minute adventure, escape for a minute of exploration. TheEarthMinute.com

Managing Your Backyard Treescape

Daintree Rainforest, Cape Tribulation, northern Queensland, Australia

When you look into a forest, like the rainforest in northern Queensland Australia, it can be hard to see the individual trees from the forest. 

In man-made woodlands around our homes and workplaces, we get used to a specific look–big tree with smaller shrubs and ground covers. But a wild forest is forever changing and there is a progression of plants: small trees growing up under still standing larger trees. Too often we forget that trees have a lifespan or can be compromised by drought, disease, or poor management.

In our neighborhood we have seen these three variables reduce the large trees dramatically over 20 years. Our once tree-lined streets, now are sunny and mostly treeless.

During a botany walk a few years ago with representatives from some of the major botanical gardens in Southern California, I learned a valuable lesson–think like a forest and plan for succession of large trees. Several of these destination gardens had learned the hard way that wind storms and unexpected disease can wipe out your man-made forest in short order and regrowing those valuable trees takes time.

I know I have two trees that are past their prime. Our flowering plum tree (Prunus cerasifera) can put on a beautiful display in spring, but it is not a long-lived species and termites are now compromising this tree. She probably has a few more years, but it is time to think about succession. What will take this tree's place? Five years ago I planted a native redbud (Cercis occidentalis), just down hill of the plum tree. Finally, it is really taking hold and starting to grow. It too will offer flowers in the spring, but it will also offer food to native birds and insects. And three years ago I discovered a native coast oak (Quercus agrifolia) coming up as a volunteer. I'm grooming these two trees to take the place of the flowering plum.

Last year the arborists discovered a hollow in the Chinese elm (Ulmus parvifolia) that threatens to weaken the tree over the next few years. It will be a loss to our backyard shade when it goes, but we are planning ahead. We planted a native California sycamore (Platanus racemosa) just uphill to eventually take the elm's place.

Succession is natural in wild landscapes and with a little thought, you can make it natural in your landscape as well.

green ant from Australian rainforest

Intrigued by the Australian rainforest. 

Take a 1 minute escape to this far away landscape at TheEarthMinute.com

Desert Tortoise Takes a Drink

After a winter snooze of over four months, a desert tortoise can wake up thirsty. 

They walk right into a shallow pan of water and submerge their head for few moments. Here you can see the water is over his nose and eyes.

They drink through their mouth, but this guy also blew bubbles out through his nose under water. Especially after a dry winter, it probably feels good to rise out dry nasal passages. He relaxed with his head under the water for a while, periodically taking large gulps of water or lifting his head slightly to take a breath. Then he would resubmerge his head.

In recent years, scientists have discovered that Aldabra tortoises, on dry islands in the Indian Ocean, can draw water up their nostrils to drink. A flap in the nasal passage closes off the pathway to the lungs and allows the tortoise to use its nose somewhat like a straw to drink from shallow puddles of rainwater.

I'm wondering if North American desert tortoises might have a similar adaptation. They also live in a dry habitat where rainwater is sporadic. When they drink, they prefer to include their nose in the process. I have never observed them drinking with their mouth submerged and their nose above the water's surface. Can they drink with just their nostrils pressed down into a shallow film of water? I don't know, but it is definitely worth investigating.

Note - Don't confuse this with breathing underwater. Desert tortoises are land animals. They can not swim and the weight of their shell causes them to sink in water. They may drown if they fall into a pool or pond. Because turtles have slow metabolisms and very complex circulatory systems they can survive without access to oxygen longer than mammals, but they can still drown.

Desert tortoise and western fence lizard
Plants for desert tortoise
More on turtle adaptations 
See the similarity with tortoises in Turkey

A Cow Skull Nest

The Bewick's wren is nest building. Do you see him about 6 inches to the right of the Nature's Nest raw cotton nesting material?

Look for his black eye and the white stripe of an eyebrow. About an inch to the right of his eye, the cotton fuzz in his beak is sticking out from behind a leaf.

The wren has already built a nest in the lariat house. Now he is building a second nest in the brain cavity of the cow skull that hangs on the patio wall.

He has been considering this location for several years. This year he decided to go for it.

The male Bewick's wren builds two nests and then tours his mate through the two sites. He's hoping one will meet with her approval. 

Will we have baby wrens in the cow skull? We'll see.

Allen's hummingbirds have already successfully nested once this Spring 2014.

Yellow is the Color of Spring

Spring has definitely come to Southern California. A little bit of rain and the sticky monkeyflower has bloomed. This native monkeyflower hybrid with light yellow-orange flowers was a fall purchase from the Santa Barbara Botanical Garden.

Warm days are bringing out the creatures that hibernate–desert tortoises and western fence lizard. The longer warmer days have also enticed a male valley carpenter bee (Xylocopa varipuncta) out of the wooden tunnel where he hatched and grew as a grub. He is all golden and pristine on his first day out in the world.

His mother burrowed a tunnel into the trunk of our bottlebush. Then she laid eggs in the tunnel (each with a supply of food) and  sealed up the tunnel. The young male had to burrow his way out of his nursery.

It is easy to tell males and females apart, because the females are black and the males are golden. 

Spring promises more discoveries.

 

Animal Craft Using Repurposed Materials

March is supposedly craft month. So what can be better than a gathering of creatures made with socks and gloves?

Two friends and I spent a rainy Saturday creating critters. With odds and ends we fashioned some pretty fun animals. This is my Horse of a Different Color and Ready Pup.

 
Socks, gloves, buttons, yarn, ribbon, and fabric remnants. It was joyful recycling.

We've made mosaics for the yard in the past. Mosaic Birdhouse. This time I'm glad the rain kept us indoors.

Stop Yogurt Cups That Kill Wildlife

What seems like benign trash to us, can be life-threatening to small animals. A deadly example is the design of the Yoplait plastic yogurt cup.

Yogurt is an attractive food to many animals. The shape of the Yoplait container makes it easy for a squirrel or skunk head to go in, but nearly impossible to come back out.

Wildlife Emergency Services, a non-profit animal rescue organization, sees many animals trapped in these containers every year. Minimal changes in the yogurt cup's design could make a huge difference and save the lives of wild animals. Check out video of the deadly yogurt cup design.
 
Wildlife Emergency Services has a petition on Change.org in an attempt to encourage a change in the container design.
It's important. Will you sign it too? Here's the link:

http://www.change.org/petitions/for-35-years-yoplait-cups-have-been-killing-wildlife?recruiter=36398084&utm_campaign=signature_receipt&utm_medium=email&utm_source=share_petition

Great Backyard Bird Count 2014 Bigger Than Ever

Last weekend, people around the world counted birds in their backyards, local parks, neighborhoods and wildlife areas. India turned out a large number of people submitting this year. In total, 132,656 observation lists have been submitted as of today. The last day to submit lists from the Feb. 14-17 Great Backyard Bird Count is Feb. 28th.

It was fascinating to watch the world map on the GBBC website as lists were turned in and their location marked. As I watched, someone in Australia posted their list. There were observers in Iceland, several lists from New Zealand, multiple locations in Africa; people all over the world providing science with a snapshot of bird numbers and activity. Check out the GBBC map.

Malibu Lagoon State Park

I went out to Malibu Lagoon one morning and to Santa Barbara the next. It was a beautiful weekend for spending time outside. Several of us saw a peregrine falcon at Malibu Lagoon and the best sighting at the estuary wildlife refuge in Santa Barbara was two pairs of greater scaups.

My favorite birds this weekend, however, were in my own backyard. The Allen's hummingbird babies are feathering out. It won't be long before they start trying out their wings.

We found their nest in January.

And this weekend I spotted a second hummingbird nest. This female Allen's is sitting on two white eggs. The warm weather in California may bring us a series of nesting hummingbirds this year.

Allen's hummingbird on nest

Now that you've counted birds for the Great Backyard Bird Count, think about FeederWatch or eBird. 

• FeederWatch: Count birds in your backyard two consecutive days every week or bi-weekly, Nov. - April.
• eBird: Count birds where and whenever you see them and enter your lists in the largest citizen scientist database in the world.

Go Count Birds - Great Backyard Bird Count

Do something romantic this weekend - Go to your favorite outdoor location and count birds. 

Friday, Feb. 14 - Monday, Feb. 17 

is the

Great Backyard Bird Count

Across four days each year, people across the country count bird species to take a snapshot of avian populations. 

• You can count for 15 minutes or longer. 
• Watch from a stationary location, like a window, take a walk in your neighborhood, or visit a park.
• Watch in your yard or even from a terrace.

I even try to count the parking-lot birds at my local coffee house at least once over the GBBC weekend. All wild birds are important. If you don't see anything, that is important too.

The Great Backyard Bird Count is one of the country's largest citizen scientist opportunities. What you count is important for scientists who study bird populations, migration, the impact of climate change, and specific species information. 

The mourning dove pictured here is typically in the top ten species list for every U.S. state. They are daily visitors to our yard. But last year, mourning doves fell off the lists for some states. Will they be back on the top ten list across the country this year? Or will they continue to decline? 

The more people that count, the greater the nationwide picture of how birds are doing. 

Check out the Great Backyard Bird Count website for more information. And GO Count!

Footprint in the Garden

Sometimes the visitors to your backyard habitat, come and go under the cover of night. We don't know they've dropped in unless they leave a calling card. 

This morning, we found this print in some damp soil. At first glance it looks like the handprint of a tiny person. But I don't think we currently have any trolls or gnomes. 

Typically, a "tiny handprint" appearance is the sign of a North American raccoon. We questioned that at first because the raccoon usually has plumper ends to the digits and visible claw marks. However, it must have been how the animal was walking and the dampness of the soil. 

We have been seeing raccoons off and on since last summer. At about two inches across, this is probably an adult raccoon.

Staghorn fern and Sago palm

While I'm trying to restore native plants to our yard, two of my non-natives are doing extremely well. An Australian plant–a staghorn fern (Platycerium bifurcatum)–and a plant from a Japanese island–the cycad commonly called a sago palm (Cycas revoluta). The funny thing, neither plant is what it's name suggests.

The staghorn fern was a wedding gift over twenty years ago. I nearly killed it twice. Finally it is thriving because I stopped forcing it to live in the shade. The staghorn isn't really a fern at all and it was a revelation to see these epyphite plants growing in the wild in the Australian rainforest. While we might think of these plants as delicate forest dwellers, the staghorn is a sturdy plant that likes to live high in the forest canopy reaching for the sun.

The staghorn fern lives on other plants, usually trees. It settles into crevasses where water and nutrient rich plant debris collect. It doesn't have much in the way of roots and survives on the branches of others. You can see the leaves of a staghorn fern on the left side of this photo from Morris Gorge, north of Cairns, Queensland Australia.

Once I moved my staghorn onto a deciduous tree, where shade was provided in the heat of summer and sunlight was available in the winter, it begun to look like its rainforest relatives. The Australian rainforest has dry periods and seasons of rain, just like we do in California. Temperatures can dip into the 40s. While the staghorn would probably be more robust along the coast where the higher humidity would be more to its liking, it seems to feel somewhat at home on a slope where the evening breeze stirs the air.

The sago palm is not a palm at all, but a cycad. Cycads are amazing plants with an ancient heritage. Their relatives lived alongside some of the earliest land animals. This cycad's palm-like appearance often makes people think it belongs in a tropical rainforest. When I planted two in the yard several years ago I worried that hot dry summers might take a toll on these exotic plants. However the sago palm thrives in our Mediterranean climate as long as its roots are well-drained. 

Our plants receive little water other than rainfall. Even with this year's drought, they are robust.

While neither of these plants contribute food or habitat to our native creatures, they do provide visual beauty in the garden. Neither is invasive in our environment, so they offer an opportunity for something different in the yard.

Bird Nesting Time in California

Here in California where winter rains have eluded us and the days have been spring-time warm, it is hard to believe the rest of the country is shivering through ice storms and record low temperatures.

Allen's hummingbird nest 1/27/14

The birds are gauging that the warm weather means spring. The Bewick's wren is singing to attract a mate. The oak titmouse has found a mate and the pair have been checking out bird houses.

Amazingly, we already have an Allen's hummingbird sitting on two tiny eggs. I'm not sure when they were laid, but I do know that this little architect lined the inside of her nest with natural cotton fiber that I put out. The cotton fiber is the cream colored material on the inside of the nest.

January should be the depth of winter. We should have wet weather that puts a damper on nesting for another month or so. Unfortunately, that isn't the case. The birds are breeding and nesting, so it is time to put out quality materials to supplement what they can find naturally.

I make a knotted holder out of natural wool yarn that is too rough for making garments. Then I fill these holders with natural raw cotton fiber. 

Hummingbirds, bushtits and lesser goldfinches are just a few birds that prefer to use soft plant fibers to line their nests. Nature's Nest.
  
Anna's hummingbird with Nature's Nest.

Placement is important too. Nesting fiber needs to be located where birds can find it, sit beside it on adjacent branches to gather fiber, and the location should be far enough from feeders that small birds are not intimidated by larger birds eating.

I have to make sure that nesting material is on small branches to avoid tree squirrels stealing the nesting material for their own use.

The continuing drought means plant fibers are not as abundant as they should be. Man-made fibers are easy to find around human homes, but those fibers can be problematic, even dangerous, to bird hatchlings. Materials that cause nest failure.

Bird houses should be cleaned out too, so new occupants can move in. Mosaic bird house.

It's January, but this year in California, birds are already starting to nest.

Warm Autumn Impacting Tortoise Hibernation

There are signs of autumn all around. The leaves of the peach tree are daily turning red and golden.

The toyon fruit (aka California holly) is turning red and attracting the attention of the hungry hermit thrush.

But the on-again, off-again autumn weather is making someone grumpy. The angle of the sunlight signals autumn–time to hibernate–but the warm days keep tempting the desert tortoise to stay up.

As you can tell from the photo, this guy is not asleep. His son, has gone in for the winter. Typically, the old guy is in by mid-October, but this year he can't seem to commit to hibernation. He comes out, sits in the sun, takes a few bites of food then grumbles back into his den. Today he stuck his head out and immediately turned around.

He wants to be asleep, but the warm weather is confusing. Some of the migrating birds have been off in their annual cycles as well. For this desert tortoise who has been in captivity, since the mid-1970s, fluctuating climate is an irritation, but for desert tortoises in the wild there can be serious consequences. If they miss time hibernation, they can get caught away from a protective den when the weather does turn cold. They could use up food reserves before they hibernate.

They do not digest food well without basking in the sun and having hot temperatures. They need to stop eating and completely digest what is in their stomachs before going into a deep sleep. Undigested food in their system can rot while they are hibernating, causing them problems. When tortoises awaken in the spring they have expectations of flowering plants and new greenery that they depend on to replenish themselves after months of not eating or drinking. Changing climate can impact all of the timing in this delicate dance making survival even more of a challenge for wild tortoises.

This grumpy guy has us as caretakers to make sure he has food and vitamin supplements. Wild desert tortoises are on their own. Tortoises around the world need our help. They are important members of their ecosystems and all too frequently they are taken out of the wild, both to their detriment and that of the other plants and animals that depend on them.

Tortoises in Turkey
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