I've been meaning to post this for weeks, and kept forgetting even when I left reminders with other posts. From 2010, my first Pacific Forktail. What really interested me, however, was the Azolla. Also known as "Fairy Moss," Azolla is the second most found algae on ponds in North America. It literally blooms (kinda like the "red tide") and can cover a pond like "The Swamp" in two weeks. It is found with Duckweed, but is a hardier algae.
The total length of the Pacific Forktail is about 23 mm, and that will give you and idea of one Fairy Moss ... uh ... I dunno, petal? Something of interest is that it's a relative of the Plains Forktail and can be found in Saskatchewan: next summer keep your eyes peeled in Val Marie for a 1.5 inch bronze stick with a blue butt and buggy eyes that moves.
Tags: Pacific Forktail Damselfly Odonata Insects Dragonflies and Damselflies Azolla Fairy Moss Mt. Diablo - Walnut Creek, CA Canon SX 10 Copyright Ethan Winning
© All Rights Reserved
Turns out that even lichen bloom during wet periods in climate. These two boulders were under a huge old oak in the shade. I've seen them for years, but haven't noticed them. Then, yesterday, I added a little light...
© All Rights Reserved
I hadn't realized how fascinated I was with lichen until I remember this shot of Wolf Lichen on a Redwood tree in Sequoia National Park. I remembered thinking that "moss" doesn't grow this far south in California, but then again, I only remember moss in the southeast. I looked it up, and it took quite a while to discover that it was lichen and, from then, that lichen cover six percent of the world's surface, that it can live hundreds of thousands of years, that it's been involved in a symbiotic relationship before true fauna developed, and it goes on from there to some of the most intricate patterns of species in the world and that it lives on on all continents, even providing caribou with food in the harshest of winters. And so, just before I posted this, I took out my 1964 book on Lichen only to find out that it's 100 years out of date and will be until the one I ordered gets here next week.
© All Rights Reserved
Ten years ago, before the severe drought and the drying of the dozen plus ponds in the Diablo foothills, all ponds were populated (even over-populated) by bullfrogs, some weighing in as much as three pounds. None of these were natives. All started in some kid's fishbowl, aquarium, or terrarium and, after they got too big, would be flushed and end up in our wildlife areas.
This is one of the smaller ones, but I never pass up a shot of a bullfrog in "pristines" duck weed. In this way (only), I'm just like the Great Blue Heron which will feed on three-pound - or more - bullfrogs, gophers, and California Ground Squirrels.
I was at the ponds last week during our first decent rains in the decade, and there was no favorite buffets for the herons. It may well be that we've finally gotten "rid" of the non indigenous bullfrogs, a discussion which has been going on for at least 15 years.
© All Rights Reserved
Yesterday I was addressing the trials and tribulations of "the last hill." Well, it wasn't all death and destruction: there were the rock wrens, poppies, views of Diablo, sparrows, and THIS. Now, I'm not about to try to get any of you to appreciate lichen, but let me try to get you to appreciate lichen.
Lichen is a simple slow-growing "plant" that typically forms a low crustlike, leaflike, or branching growth on rocks, walls, and trees. If it's so "simple," then how has it managed to grow from high alpine conditions to sea level and live to be 8,600 years old?
Lichens are abundant growing on bark, leaves, mosses, on other lichens, and hanging from branches "living on thin air" (epiphytes) in rain forests and in temperate woodland. They grow on rock, walls, gravestones, roofs, exposed soil surfaces, and in the soil as part of a biological soil crust. Different kinds of lichens have adapted to survive in some of the most extreme environments on Earth: arctic tundra, hot dry deserts, rocky coasts, and toxic slag heaps. They can even live inside solid rock, growing between the grains.
If it's not plant of fungi, what is it? Hard to explain, but ... lichen consist of tiny algae or cyanobacteria (the photobiont) living inside the tissue of a fungus (the mycobiont). The relationship is, for the most part, mutually beneficial with the algae photosynthesizing and providing carbohydrates to the fungus and the fungus protecting the algae.
So the next time you sit on a rock, look for lichen, among the world's oldest living things. And it would seem that I'm lucky enough to live near formations with at least 30 of the 20,000 species. It's WILD life that is neither plant nor animal (nor fungus). It's often the only food that can keep caribou, musk oxen, and other arctic animals alive during harsh winters. Some peoples eat lichen, and some feed it to pets when food is scarce. Just remember that a few species are poisonous. So just before "that last hill," take a look at this marvel, but don't taste it.
© All Rights Reserved