Pt. Mugu State Park is in Ventura County, just up the way from Pt. Dume in Malibu, and has amazing hikes. I have been there maybe 5 times, and always get lost, because I basically have no sense of direction. My hungover friend who came with me was a little annoyed we ended up on a meandering 5 hour hike, but I had a great time taking pictures of new flowers (see below). The Coreopsis weren't quite in bloom here yet, despite going off on Pt. Dume, but the California lilac (Ceanothus spp.) were going nuts with flowers, which I had never seen before. Another bonus was a western fence lizard (Sceloporus occidentalis) my herpetologist friend caught with her bare hands (which was so impressive!). The males have blue stripes on their bellies, and these lizards also have a protein in their blood that neutralizes the bacterium that causes Lyme disease in the gut of ticks that carry the bacterium around, which is just about the coolest thing I have ever heard of a lizard doing.
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This winter, I have taken a renewed interest in getting out and hiking and trying to learn about the plants in the area. This is partly driven by my procrastinating on my thesis, and partly driven by wanting to get in better shape. But mostly, I just miss seeing flowers! And one of my favorites is a late winter bloomer: the Giant Coreopsis!! So in February I made several forays to the Malibu coast to try and catch this weird, beautiful plant that flowers in a showy synchronized blanket of yellow. The trunk kind of looks like a Joshua tree, while the top is an explosion of yellow daisies out of a neck of slender arugula leaves. I have always wondered who the pollinators are (all that gorgeous flowering display has to be for someone, right?), but I have never seen anyone visiting the flowers except tiny flies. It remains a mystery. Point Dume is a great place to see this plant, as well as lots of cool marine life. That day we spotted a multitude of barking sea lions off the coast, brown pelicans with young on the cliffs, and tons of fun invertebrates in the tide pools below. These included gooseneck barnacles, purple and orange sea stars having a crazy orgy, a chestnut cowrie, and a sea hare (which is a large sea slug that is used in neurobiology studies and is super alien and awesome looking)! Afterward, I heard from a marine biology friend that the area is a Marine Protected Area, which may explain why there was so much cool stuff to see. A little over a week ago, the Sork lab and various friends took a trip to Catalina Island. Catalina is one of the Channel Islands, which lie off the coast of Southern California, and harbor many endemic plant and animal species. There is a tiny fox (!) that is native to the islands, and one species of oak (Quercus macdonadii) that is only found on there as well. We got an insider tour of Catalina, thanks to Sarah Ratay, a first year grad student in Phil Rundel's lab, who worked with the Catalina Island Conservancy for several years before coming to UCLA. We got to travel around the interior of the island, meet Tachi, the "spokes-fox", see some introduced bison, and snorkel in the cold but beautiful waters with kelp forest. Here are some plant species we learned on the trip, thanks to our botanist friends :)
Yesterday we drove way up Highway 2, the Angeles Crest Trail, and took a hike in Cooper Canyon. It was beautiful! Lots of lupine and yucca blooming, and the conifers up there (about 6500 feet) are amazing!! Doesn't seem like LA at all... the trail, which you can reach from the Buckhorm campground parking lot, follows a river until you scramble down a hill with the help of a rope, and hit a 25 foot waterfall. There were lots of kids playing in the cold water. We saw a few really cool things, a snakefly (weird insect in the order Neuroptera, with a long thorax), and a snow plant (Sarcodes sanguinea), a red parasitic plant that takes nutrients from fungi living underground. |
AuthorI like nature! And hiking, and taking pictures, especially of nature. Archives
September 2014
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