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September 18, 2011
There is some good news to report in the battle to prevent the closure of 70 California State Parks. The second largest state park in the system, Henry W. Coe State Park, has been saved from closure for at least three years, thanks to an agreement between the California Department of Parks and Recreation and a foundation called the Coe Park Preservation Fund. The foundation will donate $300,000 annually for the next three years, which combined with revenue generated by the park will cover the operating costs and staff salaries of park employees. The ongoing budget crisis still threatens the existence of 69 other state parks, but hopefully this agreement will inspire more people to help with creative solutions to save each and every one of them.

Henry W. Coe State Park is the largest state park in northern California and offers an amazing wilderness right in our back yard. This vast park covers 87,000 acres in the rugged hills east of Morgan Hill, with more than 250 miles of trails, giant manzanita trees, wildflower-carpeted meadows, and the spectacular Coyote Creek watershed. The Coe Park Preservation Fund is supported by donations from the public and is working to raise one million dollars for the effort to keep the park open. Supporters are encouraged to Adopt an Acre of Henry W. Coe State Park - if each of the 87,000 acres were "adopted" at $11.50 per acre, the goal could be met. Our natural, cultural, and historic heritage is at stake here, and it is critical that the people of California say loudly and clearly that we value these wild places.

Henry W. Coe State Park

Copernicus is Released Back to the Ocean at Rodeo Beach

September 17, 2011
Today was Coastal Cleanup Day and volunteers were out, up and down the coast of California, picking up trash on beaches and enjoying a beautiful day. The Marine Mammal Center sponsored a cleanup event at Rodeo Beach, and in conjunction with this, three sea lions were released back to the ocean. Copernicus, Iriswet, and Dawlly were released one by one, while more than 150 people watched on the sidelines. They made their way happily back to the ocean, after recovering from a variety of diseases, infections, and traumas. Copernicus, a juvenile male sea lion, was the largest of the three, weighing in at about 150 pounds. He had been treated for acute domoic acid toxicity, a bacterial infection that stems from algal blooms caused by agricultural runoff. Copernicus took his time returning home, and stopped to lay down in the sand for a minute, before the waves began to wash over him and he seemed to remember where he had come from. He then dove into the surf and was last seen heading out to sea.

September 13, 2011
I went on a nice hike in the Marin Headlands yesterday afternoon, starting at the Rodeo Avenue trailhead and going up to the Alta Trail and the Bobcat Trail. This area offers a great contrast between the urban and natural worlds, with the skyline of San Francisco peeking up over the starkly beautiful hills of the headlands. The Bobcat Trail is one of my favorite trails, going deep into the headlands into an area that is peaceful, serene, and a great place to spot wildlife. A coyote wandered up a ridgeline in the distance until he saw me, and then changed his course. Hawks, turkey vultures, and even a peregrine falcon were riding the thermals above me, circling and diving as they sought out their prey. A garter snake lazed in the middle of the trail, until it sensed me approaching and quickly slithered into the grass. My destination was Sunspot Hill, a small outcropping of chert that is a great place to sit and read a book in the afternoon sun. I headed back home as the sun started to approach the horizon, walking back slowly, with a peaceful sense of well being.

The Marin Headlands

The Gravity Car Barn was quiet and surreal today, shrouded in fog that was billowing across the mountain. The little museum is dedicated to the memory of the old Mount Tamalpais Scenic Railroad, which was in operation from 1896 until 1930.

Just behind the Gravity Car Barn is the Verna Dunshee Trail, which makes a half-mile loop around the peak of Mount Tamalpais. The trail is lined with Golden Fleece (Ericameria arborescens), which is in bloom now with bright yellow flowers.

As autumn approaches, the Chamise (Adenostoma fasciculatum) begins to turn orange and reddish brown, adding beautiful fall colors to the slopes of the mountain. This drought and fire resistant bush loves dry, rocky outcrops, so it is very much at home on Mount Tamalpais.

Yerba Santa (Eriodictyon californicum) is another native California plant that can be found along the Verna Dunshee Trail. The name means "Sacred Herb" in Spanish, and this plant has medicinal qualities that have been used to treat asthma and respiratory diseases.

The Giant Chinquapin (Castanopsis chrysophylla) has a spiny fruit capsule that ripens at this time of year. Also known as golden chinkapin, giant evergreen-chinkapin, or goldenleaf chestnut, this tree grows mainly along the coast, from central Washington south to San Luis Obispo County in California.

The pinkish purple flowers of the chaparral pea (Pickeringia montana) are gone now, but this spiny shrub still maintains an elegant beauty. It thrives in the rocky soil at the top of Mount Tam, and has a nitrogen-fixing ability that can enrich the barren soil.

The juicy berries of the California Huckleberry (Vaccinium ovatum) are not quite ripe yet, but they are turning bright red and purple. Soon they will turn a deep blueish black and be ready to eat. The Huckleberry has historically been a favorite treat for the native peoples of California.

The Pacific Madrone (Arbutus menziesii) is particularly beautiful at this time of year, with its bright red bark pealing off in long strips, revealing a smooth yellowish green wood underneath. The trunks of this tree remain cool to the touch, even on the hottest of days.

The California Bay Laurel (Umbellularia californica) is one of the most emblematic trees of Mount Tamalpais. Hiking the trails of the mountain, it is always refreshing to breath deeply and take in the rich aroma of this beautiful tree.

The bright orange trumpet-shaped blossoms of the Sticky Monkeyflower (Mimulus aurantiacus) have mostly faded at the top of Mount Tam now, but a few of them can still be found. This plant has a number of medicinal uses - the flowers and roots make a natural antiseptic.

There are 10 different species of Lupine (Lupinus) on Mount Tamalpais. Most of them are no longer in bloom, but this one next to the Verna Dunshee Trail still has one last holdout. This is another nitrogen-fixing plant that thrives in the serpentine soils near the top of the mountain.

Eastwood's manzanita (Arctostaphylos glandulosa) is among the most spectacular of native California plants along the Verna Dunshee Trail. The blood red bark seems to glow even brighter on a foggy day, and the twisted branches evoke an emotional call to the heavens.

Toyon (Heteromeles arbutifolia) is one the classic native California trees. The clusters of fruit have appeared and are still green, but will turn bright red this winter. Together with the serrated leaves, this tree resembles Christmas holly, and was called Hollywood by early travelers.

A lone Douglas-fir (Pseudotsuga menziesii) stands like an ethereal sentinel in the fog, just below the Verna Dunshee Trail. It was named after Scottish botanist David Douglas and is the second largest tree to be found on Mount Tam, after the Coast Redwood (Sequoia sempervirens).

There are 10 different species of Oak growing on Mount Tamalpais, including the noble Coast Live Oak (Quercus agrifolia), the Tanbark Oak (Notholithocarpus densiflorus), the Black Oak (Quercus kelloggii), and the Canyon Live Oak (Quercus chrysolepis).

The view from the Gravity Car Barn, near the top of Mount Tamalpais, was completely shrouded in fog today. On a clear day, Bon Tempe Reservoir can be seen from here, with the rolling hills of west Marin behind it, all the way out to the Point Reyes peninsula.

September 11, 2011
It was a cold, foggy day today, at a time when we are usually expecting the 90 degree temperatures of Indian Summer. I went up to the top of Mount Tamalpais this morning, where I worked as a docent at the Gravity Car Barn. It was a quiet day at the little museum, with only 26 visitors, so had I plenty of time to check out all the beautiful native plants around the area. They are coming into their fall colors, which can be as dramatic and colorful as the springtime blooms.

Many of the visitors to the Gravity Car Barn signed the big giant postcards that we are going to send to Governor Brown, urging him to support our state parks and not go through with the planned closure of 70 parks. The California State Parks Foundation has just launched a couple of new websites to promote this campaign. One of them is an updated version of the Save Our State Parks website, and the other is a brand new site: The Magnificent 70! - a celebration of the 70 state parks that have somehow been deemed expendable by the unenlightened members of our state government.

Visit these websites and find out more about what you can do to keep these parks open - they represent our natural, cultural, and historic heritage, and they are not expendable!

September 10, 2011
I went to the Presidio today and joined Michele Laskowski, the Seed Ecologist for the Presidio Nursery, along with intern Rogelio, for a couple of hours of seed collecting at Inspiration Point. I hadn't been to "IP" since May, when it was in its springtime prime and lush with a carpet of goldfields, Ithuriel's spear, blue dicks, tidy tips, allium, brodeia, California poppies, and the endangered Presidio clarkia. Today the area was dry and brown, although still quite a few wildflowers could be found around the rolling serpentine slopes. I was especially surprised to still see the clarkia, a beautiful delicate pink flower that was in such profusion a few months ago that it was to believe it is an endangered species. We collected a variety of seeds today, including wild dandelion, yampa, and California poppy.

The California poppy (Eschscholzia californica) was another surprise to still see in bloom, because it has been out in force since early spring. This is a flower that continues to bloom throughout much of the year, and we found plants that were just starting to flower, while other ones had already gone to seed. It is a challenge to collect the seeds of the California poppy, because it is important to find the ones that are at just the right level of maturity. With such a variety in the stages of development, this means looking at a lot of plants before we could find ones that are ready to have the seeds collected. Nevertheless, it is always a great experience to be out at Inspiration Point, a magical place that truly lives up to its name.

California poppy (Eschscholzia californica)

Wildlife Safari at Elkhorn Slough

September 3, 2011
I went on an excursion today with the Friday Night Harbor Seal Crew from the Marine Mammal Center. We took a two-hour boat tour of Elkhorn Slough, a scenic waterway packed with wildlife, alongside Monterey Bay near Moss Landing. It was a great group outing for the crew, a fitting way to finish off a slow harbor seal season that saw a lot less patients than the year before. It is always a good thing to have fewer patients, since we are a rescue hospital for marine mammals. It makes us cautiously optimistic that the marine environment is improving and that the general public is becoming more educated about how to deal with what appear to be abandoned harbor seal pups.

Our boat was a small, flat-bottomed pontoon boat, which made its way slowly up into the slough. We had hardly left the dock when we began to see sea lions everywhere, lounging on the fishing docks, or swimming alongside us in the water. We passed a long fishing pier that juts out into the slough, and it was covered with hundreds of sea lions. They were piled on top of each other the length of the pier, big ones, small ones, noisy ones, smelly ones. They seemed to revel in the attention as our boat passed slowly by, and some of them even waved to us. A video of the hundreds of sea lions on the fishing pier can be seen on YouTube.

Then we started to spot the sea otters, which were busy chowing down on clams as they lay on their backs in the calm waters of the slough. An amazing thing that I learned from our onboard naturalist is that a sea otter will not only use tools such as rocks to smash open clams, but will also keep the same tool throughout their lives, storing it conveniently in their armpits. These creatures are a site to watch, as they dine on their meals, groom themselves, and playfully jump, dive, and twirl through the water. The funniest site was to see the hungry seagulls hanging out next to the otters while they ate, panhandling them and hoping to get a spare bite to eat.

Our crew works with harbor seals at the Marine Mammal Center, so it was an especially big thrill to see these beautiful, curious, and gentle creatures. First we saw a few of them along the banks of the slough, lazily lounging in the mud, so calm and quiet compared to the sea lions. A little bit further up the slough, we came upon a large group of them, seemingly floating on the water. They were actually laying on a sandbar, or just in very shallow water, creating an illusion of meditative levitation. Several of us were given small counters to keep track of the animals we spotted, and it was my job to count the harbor seals. I was overwhelmed when we came to this large group, because they were packed in tightly along a couple hundred feet of the slough. Colleen helped me though and together we came up with a count of 76, just for this group. The total number of harbor seals spotted for the day was 126. By comparison, the number for sea otters was 52, and the number for sea lions was over 400!

In addition to all the marine mammals, we also saw lots of birds. Elkhorn Slough is considered one of the top habitats in the world for seabirds, shorebirds, and migratory birds, and they were all out in force today. Seagulls, Brandt's cormorants, Canada geese, loons, godwits, terns, and murres were easy to spot as we made our way up the waterway. Great blue herons and snowy egrets lined the muddy banks of the slough, and we even saw a large group of egrets that had formed a rookery high in the branches of a eucalyptus grove. A peregrine falcon zipped past our boat at one point, and the captain pointed out that this is the fastest member of the animal kingdom, reaching speeds over 200 miles per hour. California brown pelicans were plentiful, in the water and overhead. We also saw a few of the much larger American white pelicans, which are a majestic site to behold.

After going up Elkhorn Slough a couple of miles, we turned around and made our way back to the harbor. It was then that we began to notice that the waters around the boat were teeming with jellyfish, or sea jellies as they are known today. They were spectacular as they loomed just below the surface, in bright orange, red, and yellow colors, of varying sizes, with some that looked like little babies. Their large mushroom-shaped heads undulated in the gentle current while their dangling tentacles seemed to push them effortlessly through the water.

After a great lunch at local favorite The Whole Enchilada, we took a side trip to Monterey Bay Operations (MBO), one of the satellite facilities of the Marine Mammal Center. We surprised the volunteers who were working there, but since they didn't have any animals onsite at the time, they were happy to show us around. MBO is much smaller than the Sausalito location, but they are actually responsible for bringing in the majority of animals that we treat. Our patients will often spend a night at the MBO facility while transport is being arranged to bring them to us. It was great to see another part of the system, and learn more about how we all work together. Special thanks go out to Colleen Rudd for organizing this trip, and to our fearless leader Pat Holt, who is a great teacher and mentor.