Mid August of 2020 myself and the insect-obsessed hubby went on three day backpacking trip in Southwest British Columbia with two goals. The first goal was to search for insects on the snow banks in and around the Upper Lillooet Provincial Park boundary. The second goal was to see if this route we would take would be a viable way to reach Silt Lake, located at the headwaters of the Lillooet River (at the top…

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Ahh, the wonderful world of mushrooms. Winter in California means the arrival of rain and therefore the arrival of mushrooms! Yahooo! I wanted to put together a small collection of recently observed mushrooms from the Mendocino and Sonoma County area. Since mushrooms come in almost every color I thought I’d organize them into a rainbow-like pattern with a little bit of info on each. While plants in the winter are beginning their growing phase, fungi…

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For the last couple of weeks I’ve been admiring and perplexed by interesting looking leaves I find on the ground while mushroom and bug hunting. Most of the ground in the Central California coast is covered by brownish pine needles, tanish oak leaves, other fallen leaves as well as a thick layer of duff. But every once in a while a leaf stops me in my tracks and I MUST take a photo. Can’t resist.…

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For any Naturalists there are natural highs and luls in nature throughout the year. The high of spring when the flowers are abundant and organisms at their height of flourishing. Whereas the awkward end of fall when California is super crispy and the rains of winter haven’t injected life into dormant plants and fungi can be a total lul. However Trevor and I created a concoction of activities that maybe, just maybe qualify as a…

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From mid November to mid December we lived in the super cozy and friendly small town of Lagunitas, CA. This was the kick off location to our new nomadic lifestyle. When living in San Jose for the past three-ish years we would often go to Point Reyes to search for nature. In order to reach Point Reyes for an adventure it required driving through the town of Lagunitas. So it was a perfect first stop.…

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Bridge River Delta Provincial Park iNaturalist Project This summer Trevor and I collaborated with a UVic researcher who was coordinating for a BC Parks Project. The goal of our involvement in the project was to bioblitz our way in some remote provincial parks. A bioblitz is when you document all the different nature you observe. By documenting through iNat we recorded disjunct plants, rare insects, and contributed multiple first observations for iNaturalist and ebird. A…

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This November, besides some epic tidepooling has been a waiting game for the rain to come. Ummm. . . still waiting! With rain comes slime molds, mushrooms, and GREENERY! So it was time to focus on whatever remaining insects were still hanging around. With only a few native flowering plants still hanging on, to the dirt and bark we go! Who lives under bark, and in the soil? Millipedes! Yippee! Not everyone’s idea of cute,…

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The expansive Duxbury reef where we found this interesting creature! Red Algal Parasite, Asterocolax gardneriWhere: Duxbury Reef, Bolinas California When: November 2020, King TideiNaturalist observations:, best photos , second best Like many other iNaturalist observations we would never have figured out what the heck it was, or have had to invest hours of scrolling and come to many dead ends in order to make an identification. But that is the beauty of the iNat community, the…

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This past weekend there was a lot of hunting for and photo shoots of nudibranchs, also known as the sea slugs! While we found many of the common crew, the real stars were the ones we’d never seen before, the lifers. The list includes: Graceful Aeolid, Hammerhead Doto, Nanaimo Dorid, Humped Ancula, Laguna Beach Aeolid, and Yellow-head Aeolid. King tides for tidepoolers and naturalists is a calendar worthy event; a time to shuffle whatever else…

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Gorgeous late October day, perfect for a tidepooling adventure! California Sandcastle Worm, Phragmatopoma californica Where: Santa Cruz County, California When: October 2020iNaturalist Post This week’s post was inspired by this repeating pattern I’ve seen recently while tidepooling, but hadn’t investigated yet. The culprit/artist/architect is the California Sandcastle Worm! Also known as the ‘honeycomb worm,’ or ‘honeycomb tube worm,’ you can find this interesting creature from mid to North California down to Baja California. So how do…

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