California Kingsnake

I caught it and put it in a cloth bag to keep it calm. It was one of those reusable shopping bags and it felt like quite an appropriate reuse of the bag.

Kingsnakes have a very unusual habit – they will hunt and eat venomous snakes including rattlesnakes. They have developed immunity to the venom. The “king” in their name comes from this habit. They are found throughout California. They are a sub-species of the Common Kingsnake which ranges over much of the USA.

I decided to release him near Sunol Regional Wilderness. When I opened the bag, it took some prodding to get it going. It slowly poked its head out of the bag and then glided smoothly out to its freedom. At first it wanted to head towards the road and I had to persuade it to go in the other direction.

Since it was not moving too fast, we were able to take this video.

You can find out more about Bay Area reptiles on our reptiles page. An earlier nocturnal encounter with a Kingsnake is in this post.

• Acterra
• Audubon Society
• California Native Plant Society
• Santa Clara County Open Space Authority
• Stevens & Permanente Creeks Watershed Council

Many students and a few faculty stopped by. The wildlife photographs we had on display were very popular. We were also promoting the Bay Area Puma Project on behalf of the Felidae Fund. We fielded a lot of questions about Pumas (Mountain Lions/Cougars) and a few about Bobcats.

One of the great things about participating in these events is that you make useful connections with the people active in other related organizations. You get to meet with people without the hassle of coordinating times and setting up meetings. We were glad to meet Joanne McFarlin of SPCWC and Dana Litwin of the Open Space Authority.

California Buttercup

It was a nice weekend in early April and Las Trampas Regional Wilderness was beckoning. There was no rain. It turned out to be a good day for lizards and butterflies. And some early wildflowers were already blooming. The most common were the California Buttercups.

Then I started seeing the butterflies. The first one was the Pipevine Swallowtail. This was a lifer for me (I am still a novice butterfly watcher).  I saw several more later but they all proved elusive for photography.

Next was a Margined White – a lifer.  This was identified later by experts on our flickr group and bugguide, based on this photograph. And soon after that I saw a California Ringlet which is a subspecies of the Common Ringlet. This is a fairly common species in grassy, open areas.

Margined White butterfly

California Ringlet

Following the Bollinger Creek trail, which runs parallel to the creek, I had tall trees on my left and grassy slopes on my right. The next species to show itself was the Anise Swallowtail which is a really pretty butterfly.

Anise Swallowtail

Under a fallen tree branch I found this millepede. If you know its identify, I would love to hear from you.

At the point where the trail turns left to cross the creek, I stopped to check out an interesting log. I saw a scurrying movement and then spotted a Western Fence Lizard.

There were several Fence Lizards on the log. To try and get good photographs of the lizards I went a bit close and then stood still for a while. My patience was rewarded by an uncommon sighting. A head poked out of a crack in the wood. Checking it out with my binoculars, I was thrilled to see that it was a Western Skink.

Later I was able to see its blue tail during the few glimpses I got while it foraged under the fallen log and the rotting debri around it. I also saw another skink which had lost its tail. Once before we had a great sighting of a skink at Las Trampas. Spring is a wonderful time to be out on the trail – go out and see what lucky sightings you might get!

A white butterfly flew by which turned out to be a Cabbage White. Then a bigger, more colorful butterfly caught my attention. It was a Painted Lady. This is the butterfly whose spring migration is in the news every few years. Veritable rivers of these beautiful insects flow through the Bay Area. The last migration we witnessed was in 2009. We were lucky in having one of these rivulets flow through our backyard that spring.

I shot a few photos with the zoom lens. Since it is nearing the end of the season, you can see that this lady was showing signs of aging. As I was looking through the photos later, I noticed something I had missed in the field. There was another lady nearby, a ladybird beetle. It is most likely a Seven-spotted Lady Beetle,  a European species that has become quite common in the US after an accidental introduction. It is useful for controlling aphids.

You can read more about butterflies and other insects on sfbaywildlife.info.

We had a small booth with lots of information about wildlife. We had photos of local wildlife and checklists of various common species. There were some very useful, colorful brochures on birds, reptiles, amphibians, and butterflies generously provided by Brenda Montano of  East Bay Regional Parks. We were also giving out a handy checklist for kids to record the animals and birds that they spotted.

We sponsored a contest for kids to record their sightings of some common wildlife species and send them in for a prize. Throughout the event we were talking to visitors about what wildlife they have been seeing recently and recording that on a whiteboard. Here is what the board looked like at the end of the event.

Many thanks to the volunteers who staffed the booth – Lalitha,  Ralph, Vivek and Jasmine (not in picture). And thanks to Toby Goldberg of SCVAS for extending us an invitation to participate in this wonderful event.

Lalitha, Mihir, Vivek and Ralph

]]> http://blog.sfbaywildlife.info/education/wildlife-education-day-in-cupertino/feed 0 http://blog.sfbaywildlife.info/trip-report/san-antonio-valley-in-spring http://blog.sfbaywildlife.info/trip-report/san-antonio-valley-in-spring#comments Mon, 03 May 2010 00:38:42 +0000 ameet http://blog.sfbaywildlife.info/?p=130 This trip consisted of a long drive, starting from Livermore via Mines Road, continuing past the junction with Del Puerto Canyon, into San Antonio Valley,  over the slopes of Mount Hamilton, past Joseph D. Grant County Park  and ending in San Jose on Alum Rock Avenue. There is mostly private land on both sides of the road but you see a fair bit of wildlife because it consists of large open ranches with lots of good habitat. (See map below).

Along Mines Road you encounter a lot of chaparral habitat. At one point a stream crosses Mines Road. This is a annual stop to check for tadpoles and indeed there were plenty of them. There were Western Toad tadpoles and Northern Pacific Treefrog tadpoles. The toad tadpoles, which were very dark, were present in large numbers.

Wildflowers are everywhere in San Antonio Valley. There are vast expanses filled with lupines, poppies, California buttercups and other species. And they are framed by the majestic oak trees. On prior trips Tule Elk, Coyote and Lewis Woodpecker have been seen here.

At a serene farm pond by the roadside, there was a pair of Ring-necked Ducks.

The highlight of the trip was a California Red-sided Garter Snake. It was sunning itself on top of one of the large corrugated metal pipes under a culvert. Garter Snakes are hard to identify and this identification is based on much consultation with the excellent site – www.californiaherps.com. Let me know if you have anything to add.

Other sightings along the way included  several Black-tailed Jackrabbits, Desert Cottontail, Black-tailed Deer, a few pairs of Wood Ducks, flocks of Wild Turkeys, Yellow-billed Magpies, California Thrasher, California Quail, Acorn Woodpecker.

Follow these links for  more information about our local reptiles , birds, mammals and amphibians on sfbaywildlife.info. See an  earlier trip report from August 2009 with photos of Tule Elk.

View Larger Map

A Google search leads me to believe that the bush with the red berries is a Pyracantha, though I am not entirely sure. You will be surprised how hard it is to identify a plant with an obvious feature like bright red berries. And plants do not move around or disappear on you.

Sharp-tailed Snake

In early November, I came across an interesting inhabitant of our backyard. It was a Sharp-tailed Snake. We see them every once in a while, usually in summer. This was a small one, lying still under some leaf debris because of the cold weather I suspect. At first I thought it was dead but it had burrowed under the surface by the time I came back in a few minutes.

These small, secretive snakes are seldom seen by most people. I had never seen one until we moved to this house on the outskirts of town in the Tri-Valley area of the East Bay. They are nocturnal and tend to burrow under things – leaf litter, logs, rocks. Their favorite food is slugs. They are reddish in color above and have a striking black-and-white pattern below. The tail ends in a sharp spike which gives them their name.

Sharp-tailed Snake underside

They are gentle and harmless and should be left alone.

More information can be found at sfbaywildlife.info.

Las Trampas Regional Wilderness

Las Trampas is one of the few parks which is accessible early in the morning. We started our hike at about 7 am with high hopes for spotting wildlife. There was the faint hope of seeing a Puma (Mountain Lion) since they have been seen here. We decided to take the trail leading to Las Trampas Ridge. Along the way we saw some of the usual birds. One interesting sight was a dead tree with 2 Acorn Woodpeckers and 2 Nuttal’s Woodpeckers foraging very close to one another.

Being amongst the early ones on the trail, we saw many animal tracks on the patches with loose soil. We were able to pick out Deer, Coyote, Fox, Bobcat, Raccoon and some bird tracks. We also saw Gray Fox scat, indicating a diet of seed and berries.

As it got warmer we started seeing Western Fence Lizards. Our hopes were to see the Coast Horned Lizard, especially since we saw sandy soil and many ant colonies. Instead we were rewarded with another lizard species, its scales glistening in the morning sun. We got great views of a Western Skink, a new species for me!

Western Skink

Once we crested the ridge, we got great views of Mt. Diablo, Highway 680 and Walnut Creek. The view westwards was still a bit hazy. We noticed a stock pond, a bit off the trail and proceeded to check it out. Some cows came by to drink water but the pond life seemed to tolerate their presence.

Pond at Las Trampas

There was bird activity near the water and we saw Lark Sparrow, Goldfinches, both Towhees and a Hermit Warbler. I managed to get two new species – a dragonfly – the Common Green Darner – and a damselfly – the Familiar Bluet.  There were also some Variegated Meadowhawks.

Variegated Meadowhawk

After scanning the edges of the pond for a while we started noticing the Pacific Tree Frogs that were well hidden. There were some almost grown up tadpoles. We were puzzled by air bubbles rising up every once in a while. Then we noticed something coming up to the surface and disappearing again. It was a real treat when we were able to make out that they were California Newts.

Pacific Treefrog

The rest was all downhill, literally and figuratively. The long walk back, in the heat, was rather uneventful. We did notice a lot more activity from the Western Fence Lizards along the edge of the wide trail (a dirt road) including an abundance of small, baby lizards which should have been a lot warier of potential predators. And the quest for the Horned Lizard continues …

One avian highlight was the Rufous-crowned Sparrow. We had several great sightings and heard 2 different vocalizations. Before this we had only gotten fleeting glimpses or distant looks. Other nice fillers were a pair of Ash-throated Flycatchers and four Bewick’s Wrens in one tree.

Bewick's Wren - Thryomanes bewickii

It turned out to be a good day for insects. We saw 6 species of butterflies – Common Buckeye, Anise Swallowtail, Variable Checkerspot, Acmon Blue, Mylitta Crescent and Cabbage White. My second “officially” recorded species of odonate (dragonfly) – Variegated Meadowhawk. To round out the variety of animal life we also saw a mother Black-tailed Deer and her young one. And a fat, flattened-out Western Fence Lizard really got our hearts racing.

We ended up empty-handed or rather empty-eyed. We could not locate the Horned Lizard. But the search will continue. You can see some great photographs of the Horned Lizard here on wildherps.com. Lime Ridge is located at the foot of the northern slopes of Mount Diablo. Much more information about our local wildlife and wild areas is found on sfbaywildlife.info.