Back in January William and I took a walk at the Carpinteria bluffs, and saw that one of the big eucalyptus trees (Bluegum Eucalyptus, Eucalyptus globolus) along the Artists’ Passage had blown down in the wind. It was the easternmost tree, right where the path from the Bailard Avenue parking reaches the trees. The fallen tree was still there when I visited the bluffs today, and it actually seems to be doing okay for now; it’s at a steep angle, but the root ball seems to be more or less intact. I’m not sure if the city plans to do anything about it; I’ll have to ask Matt Roberts about that the next time I see him.

Toward the other end of the Artists’ Passage I noticed these interesting patterns in a fallen limb that had lost its bark:

I posted my photos to Bugguide.net, and Charley Eiseman (who else?) chimed in with some helpful pointers. The current consensus at Bugguide is that these galleries were made by the larvae of a species of cerambycid bark beetle, specifically, Phoracantha semipunctata, the Eucalyptus Longhorned Borer. That area in the upper picture where a bunch of small galleries diverge is where the beetle’s eggs were laid. As the larvae eat their way through the tree’s cambium layer they, and the galleries they make, grow larger, until you get the really wide galleries like the one in the lower photo. Eventually each larva eats a hole into the wood and pupates in it, before emerging as an adult beetle to repeat the cycle. I think that’s probably a pupation hole in the lower photo.

Like the trees they evolved to feed on, the Longhorned Borer is Australian. The Bluegum Eucalyptus trees were first brought to California from southern Queensland and Tasmania in the mid-1800s, and planted along the Southern Pacific Railroad lines as a source of lumber for railroad ties. According to Wikipedia, the railroad line that runs along the Artists’ Passage was completed in 1904, which I’m guessing is probably about the same time this row of trees was planted.

The beetles arrived in California in the 1980s, and have apparently become something of a pest. The galleries they leave behind are certainly interesting to look at, though.

Like the trees and the beetles, I’m not a native Carpinterian. I didn’t arrive here until 1995.

As we walked along the dirt road on the west side of the lake I took a look to the west, where some old conifer snags have been left standing, and lo and behold: There it was. The bird was very accommodating, giving us great views as we slowly moved closer to the snag, sharing the one pair of binoculars we’d brought among the three of us.

It really is a gorgeous bird, one that reminds me why I found bird-watching so exciting when I first started doing it as a child. Here’s some video that Ventura birder Don DesJardin took of this same bird at Lake Los Carneros a few months ago:

Lewis’s Woodpecker from Don DesJardin on Vimeo.

Here’s what the slough looked like before:

Here’s what it looked like when she got to the place where the jogger had made the channel:

Once that channel was made it didn’t take long for things to get exciting. Julia headed back to the docent office, made a call to her boss, and a few minutes later was back at the channel. Here’s a short video she made when she got back, before her camera’s battery ran out:

A few minutes after that, Harold Marcuse made the following video from the other side of the channel. You can see Julia on the far bank:

Harold has some more photos in his blog posting I found at Edhat: Devereux Slough Breached. According to Julia, it was a pretty exciting event. The “whoosh” of the water exiting the slough was really loud.

On the subject of things that go “whoosh” at the beach, Julia also took some video of an event down at Padaro Beach, just west of Carp, yesterday (Christmas Eve). My sister M’Liz, my brother-in-law Steve, and my nephew Jamie were up for a visit, and they gave William an early Christmas gift of a model rocket, and helped us set it off.

The first launch didn’t go so well; we were using an older motor that didn’t have enough oomph to get the rocket off the launchpad (though it did have enough oomph to start a small fire and melt the pad, which was fun):

We did a quick repair with duct tape (hooray for duct tape!) and used a newer motor on the next try:

I was surprised by how much altitude we got. We were using a C5-6 black powder motor, which didn’t mean anything to me beforehand, but which I now know was rated to generate 5 Newtons of thrust, and to fire its streamer-deploying charge 6 seconds after burnout. The rocket arched slightly in the direction of the ocean as it ascended, such that Jamie commented, “that’s going in the water” (which you can hear on the video). We lost sight of the rocket at apogee, and apparently the streamer never deployed. If the streamer had deployed, I think there’s a good chance the rocket would have drifted back onto the beach with the gentle sea breeze, but without the streamer the rocket landed in the ocean, because that’s where we eventually noticed it, floating just outside the surfline.

After a few minutes of staring at it and trying (unsuccessfully) to flag down a passing paddleboarder, William demonstrated why he’s such an awesome kid by stripping off his shirt and swimming out to recover it. I don’t think this particular rocket is ever going to fly again, but at least now we have it for forensic analysis:

We entered on Estero Way, and worked our way out to the mouth of the marsh. Then we retraced our steps, and wrapped around next to the railroad tracks until we could walk out along the dike on the west side of the Santa Monica Creek channel. Toward the southern end of the dike there is a large patch of an invasive non-native with tall spindly stalks; Andrea tentatively ID’d it as black mustard (Brassica nigra). Here’s a shot looking past one of those stalks back toward the northwest:

I took that photo because Andrea had notice something interesting in the plant. Here’s a closer view:

It’s a collection of six spherical objects suspended in a loose web; Andrea’s guess was that they were spider egg sacs. Here’s a close-up:

There was one more interesting thing we noticed: Where the stem holding the spheres met the main stalk of the plant, there was a triangular structure that appeared to be made from the same silk as the web. You can see it on the left side of this picture:

Here’s a close-up:

We couldn’t find any spider to go with the putative egg cases, but after I got home I posted photos on bugguide.net, and within 15 minutes Charley Eiseman, co-author of the upcoming book Tracks & Sign of Insects & Other Invertebrates (which I can’t wait to buy) had ID’d the spheres for me. They are indeed the egg cases of a spider, specifically the Bolas spider Mastophora cornigera.

The spider is nocturnal; it hides in plain site during the day by looking exactly like a rounded bird dropping. (When I mentioned that to Andrea, she replied that she actually had noticed what she thought was a bird dropping on the plant not far from the egg sacs. I didn’t notice it at the time, and I can’t find it in any of my photos, unfortunately.)

The spider also has an interesting way of hunting: It dangles a strand of silk with a sticky ball on the end, and swings it with one of its legs to capture flying insects. The ball gives off a scent that mimics moth pheromones, and researchers have found that the spider can vary the scent over the course of an evening to appeal to different moth species that are active at different times of night.

Here’s a segment from David Attenborough’s Life in the Undergrowth showing M. cornigera hunting:

One mystery I still haven’t solved: What was that triangular silk structure at the base of the stem? I tried sending an email to Peter Bryant, a biologist at UC Irvine who has posted some neat photos of Bolas spiders on the web. I wrote him as follows:

I came across what I believe are some Mastophora cornigera egg cases yesterday at the Carpinteria Salt Marsh. I’m curious about one thing, though: There was an odd triangular structure, apparently built out of spider silk, at the point where the stem from which the egg sacs are suspended meets the main stalk of the plant. You can view a photo of the structure in relation to the egg sacs here:

http://bugguide.net/node/view/356752/bgimage

…and a closeup of the triangular structure here:

http://bugguide.net/node/view/356754/bgimage

At first I was thinking the structure might be a hiding place for the spider, but now that I’ve had some help identifying the species, and have looked at the wonderful photos you’ve posted of the adult female, I don’t think that structure would be large enough to hide one (and it doesn’t sound like they go in for that sort of thing, anyway, given their impressive bird-dropping mimicry).

I’m trying to figure out what purpose that structure might have. My lay speculation so far consists of:

* The aforementioned hiding place for the adult spider.
* A structural reinforcement, to prevent the weight of the egg sacs from causing the stem to break off the plant.
* A barrier to help prevent egg-sac predators from traveling from the stalk to the stem.

I’m curious if you know the answer, or would be willing to speculate. Thanks!

Dr. Bryant wrote me back, but unfortunately he didn’t have any ideas about that triangular silk structure. He suggested visiting the location again to see if the spider is nearby, which I’d love to do, but so far I haven’t had a chance (and I’d need to go with Peter, or someone else with official permission to enter that part of the marsh).

More Bolas spider links:

• Wikipedia article on Bolas spiders
• Bolas spider, Mastrophora cornigera – Interesting photos and captions by Peter J. Bryant.
• Science Spider Friday: The Bolas Spider! – by DailyKos user hekebolos

I set up some Google maps of the count circle, and have been scouting likely locations. Last Saturday I had a really thrilling day of birdwatching. I started before dawn at Carpinteria Creek, then went into the normally-inaccessible part of the salt marsh with Peter Gaede and Andrea Adams-Morden (more about that in a future post), and then got to do something really special.

I’ve talked before about Santa Monica Creek. The lower, channelized part of the creek runs through my neighborhood, but upper Santa Monica Creek, which is not channelized, is a little harder to visit. It runs though Rancho Monte Alegre, which used to be a working ranch, but now is owned by RMA Partners, a development firm that is building a number of high-end houses there. A few years ago RMA Partners got together with The Land Trust of Santa Barbara County and The Trust for Public Land, and placed more than 3,000 acres along upper Santa Monica Creek into a permanent conservation easement controlled by The Land Trust.

Eventually there is supposed to be public access to the area via a series of trails, but for now one can only visit it by special arrangement. With the upcoming Christmas count as my incentive, I got in touch with Tad Buchanan at RMA Partners, and he agreed to let us enter the parcel for a scouting trip, and again on the count day. Last Saturday we did the scouting trip.

It’s beautiful. Here’s the view we had as we started hiking up the dirt road that parallels the creek:

One of the neat things about the trip was that Peter Gaede came along. Peter is one of the best birdwatchers I’ve ever met; I always learn a lot when I get to go birding with him. Do you think he’s excited about getting a chance to check out habitat that hasn’t been actively birded in years, maybe decades?

Here are all my companions from the scouting trip. From left to right, that’s Peter Gaede, Andrea Adams-Morden, Geoff Stearns, and Rob Denholtz. They’re enjoying the view of the salt marsh, which was at a max high tide of about +6.3 at the time.

We saw lots of birds (naturally) but the most exciting thing we saw (for me at least) were all the fresh tracks on the road. Along this one stretch of road there were tracks of coyote, roadrunner, weasel, bobcat, and bear — two of them, a mother and her cub, I assume. That’s mama bear’s track on the left, and baby bear’s on the right:

This old cabin was just a few yards from the creek:

Finally, here’s some really nice riparian habitat where I know we’re going to get some great birds on the count day:

The chaparral mallows (Malacothamnus fasciculatus) were really in bloom at the salt marsh a month or so ago, when I snapped this photo of a particularly attractive set of flowers. There still are a few mallow flowers here and there at the marsh, but lately it’s the coyote brush (Baccharis pilularis) that has been catching my eye. I think it’s interesting how there are male and female coyote brush plants, with each gender having its own, specific kind of flower. I’ll try to get some photos of those the next time I’m at the bluffs or the marsh.

But no, it turns out this cricket was quite happy to let me locate and sneak up on him, and continued singing even as I got close enough (too close, it turns out) to snap this photo:

I say “too close” because the image is a little out of focus, something I didn’t notice until I got inside and uploaded the image to my computer. But by then I couldn’t go back and try for a better-focused shot, because while taking the above image I accidentally jostled a branch, causing him to stop singing and lower his wings (which are in their raised, singing position in that shot above). Here’s an even-fuzzier shot I got after he lowered his wings:

I got in trouble with Linda for making the cricket stop singing, and she forbade me to bother it any more; she’s still mad about it two weeks later. So that’s the best I can do, image-wise.

It turns out, though, that there’s lots of information about tree crickets (which is what this guy was) online; so I’ve since learned that this was probably either a snowy tree cricket (Oecanthus fultoni), which is found all through the lower 48 states, or a Riley’s tree cricket (O. rileyi), found only in the western states.

To tell the difference, I could have examined the little black markings in the first two segments at the base of the insect’s antennae. Or I could have carefully measured the temperature, and the rate at which the insect was chirping; Riley’s chirps are somewhat slower for a given temperature, while snowy chirps are somewhat faster. Snowy chirps also are faster in western populations than eastern ones, possibly because that helps the insects distinguish themselves from Riley’s.

I love the Internet.

Lots more about tree crickets is available at http://www.oecanthinae.com/, which apparently is the product of an amateur tree cricket lover who got bit by the bug (so to speak) fairly hard.

Finally, here’s 7 seconds of video of a male snowy tree cricket singing, courtesy of YouTube user TreeCricketFan, who may be the same hard-bitten obsessive mentioned above, or a different one; I’m not sure:

Linda was the one who taught me to pay attention to the tide. Low tide is her favorite time to check out the rocks at Tar Pits, or walk the beach to the marsh entrance at Sand Point. If the tide is high, she’s not really interested.

But high tide is a great time to visit the marsh. I took a walk there last weekend, and timed it to coincide with maximum high tide. It was a 6.3; that is, the water’s surface was 6.3 feet above Mean Lower Low Water (MLLW). A 6.3 isn’t as high as it gets; at new moon a couple of days later (a couple of days ago, now, as I write this), the tide got up to 7.2.

At 7.2 pretty much all the low marsh habitat, which is dominated by pickleweed (Salicornia virginica), is underwater. Here’s a shot I got last weekend of some pickleweed taking its saltwater bath:

It’s a neat trick for a plant: being able to live in the open air, while also being able to survive immersed in seawater for hours at a time. The high marsh plants, like saltbush, ragweed, mugwort, and sagebrush, can handle a lot, but immerse them in salt water and they’re history.

Because of the tide, the marsh’s plant communities are vertically stratified, and once you learn to look for it it’s really obvious. Going from lowest to highest, the marsh’s major communities are:

• Eelgrass beds – Below the lowest of low tides, in the bottoms of the channels that wind through the marsh, is eelgrass. These are strictly aquatic plants.
• Mud flats – A little higher, in the intertidal zone, are the mud flats. Not much in the way of visible vegetation lives here, but there’s lots of decaying detritus. There are also microorganisms that feed on it, and lots of invertebrates, and aquatic vertebrates (like fish) and terrestrial vertebrates (like shorebirds) that take turns exploiting the flats as the water rises and falls.
• Low marsh – This is the area where the pickleweed reigns supreme. Most of the time this community is above the waterline, but twice a day the high tide soaks its lower reaches, and twice a month (at the time of new and full moon) the high tide goes all the way to the top, killing any would-be invaders from the high marsh, and maintaining the boundary, as level as if it were layed out by a surveyor, between the two communities.
• High marsh – A wider assortment of plants, tolerant of the high salt levels in the marsh soil, but incapable of actually being immersed.

There’s something else that happens during the highest tides in the marsh: Aquatic predators (like fish) invade the inundated area, picking terrestrial insects off the pickleweed stems. I’d love to see that.

Lately I’ve been seeing a single mute swan, now in the stunning all-white adult plumage, in either the Franklin Creek or Santa Monica Creek channels at the marsh. Whenever I’m there with William and we see the swan he insists on my snapping a photo with my phone, so I have this to share: a shot of William watching the swan in the Franklin Creek Channel last weekend:

This past Friday I was visiting UCSB as part of the incoming-freshmen-and-parents orientation (because Julia will be starting there in the fall), and as we were walking around near the dorms (which I note are in a more beautiful setting than anywhere I’ve ever lived), we spotted two mute swans in the campus lagoon. Here’s the (slightly fuzzy) shot I took:

I wonder if these are the other two of that original trio of siblings.

(Wikipedia image by Matthew Field.)

I’ve noticed this bee several times over the past few years: gigantic (bumblebee-sized or bigger), a beautiful golden color all over, with a habit of hovering for minutes at a time, pausing a few seconds in one place, moving a few feet, hovering again, and repeating, in a circuit that causes it to cruise a limited area over and over. Every time I’ve seen it engaged in this “hover patrol” it has been near some flowers being visited by ordinary honeybees, but I’ve never seen the giant golden bee actually land. I might be reading too much into it, but I get the impression that the bee is aware of me; it seems to face me and check me out, then decides I’m uninteresting and moves on.

I’ve seen this bee in our front yard in Carp, and outside the office building where I work in Santa Monica. (I’ve mentioned my ridiculously long commute, right?) Last Sunday William and I watched one patrolling outside some condos on Sandyland Road, as we walked from the State Beach campground (where we spent the night Sunday night) to the marsh and back.

I asked William what he thought the bee was doing. What’s up with that ceaseless patrol? It has to have a reason, I argued. The bee wouldn’t devote all that energy to the behavior unless there was some point to it.

I’ve tried to google for information about the bee before, without success. Today I tried again, and hit the jackpot.

The bee is the Valley carpenter bee, Xylocopa varipuncta. I’m used to seeing the female patrolling the eaves of houses and other wooden structures, looking for good spots to make a nest hole, and I knew that big black bee was a carpenter bee, but I never realized that this big golden bee was the male of the same species. An article from the UC Davis Department of Entomology quotes entomologist Lynn Kimsey as follows:

Carpenter bees, measuring about an inch long, are the largest bees in California. Their eggs are the largest of all insect eggs. The Valley carpenter bee egg can be 15mm long.

The males are territorial, Kimsey said, and can be quite aggressive. They hover and lie in wait for passing females.

“Female carpenter bees sting, but the males don’t have that apparatus,” Kimsey said. “You can pick up the fuzzy males and they won’t sting you.”

User INaturalist at bugguide.net posted this great image of the bee:

INaturalist wrote:

These big chubby guys come out in the spring and fly around in the willows where Coyote Creek flows into the percolation ponds. In Sunnyvale I find them in the Baccharis at the WPC ponds. They have a very short flight season — a couple of weeks and they’re gone. The females are black and yellow. This one is a drone — presumably its only function is to mate, so what is it doing patrolling? Waiting for a receptive virgin queen to emerge?

I think INaturalist’s speculation is probably right: The bee is on the lookout for females, and is patrolling a territory he’s staked out that seems likely to attract them.

So: Another mystery solved. :-)