Photo credit: Lee Karney/U.S. Fish and Wildlife ServiceI am loving my weekend walks with my husband. Today was a real highlight, since we explored a trail on Mt. Tam while our son was playing a soccer scrimmage in San Rafael. We hiked up to Phoenix Lake, around it, and up Fish Gulch almost to Lake Lagunitas. The Fish Gulch trail was quiet--so quiet that we saw a bobcat trotting up the trail ahead of us.
Picture Source: ddebold and Animal Photos!The steep walls of the canyon were thick with redwoods and ferns. On our way down a Stellar's Jay made sure we knew he was there by flying across the trail and squawking at us. As in many wooded places, we heard many more birds than we saw, such as a hawk and the far-off knocking of a woodpecker. We saw only one other human in this canyon, on a bike, going down the other side. I felt like we had a glimpse of what Mt. Tam was like before humans logged it and built houses and roads on it.
When we came home I looked in my wildflower field guide to identify three of the wildflowers we saw. Here they are:
Checker Lily
Red Larkspur
Indian WarriorWildflower photos © Br. Alfred Brousseau, Saint Mary's College, from CalPhotos
(I forgot my camera so I had to find photos I could use online. It seems like there are more and more photos available now that can be used without securing permission. I always like to check because I want to respect photographers' wishes about how their photos are used.)
3 comments:
Were the Indian Warriors growing under a Manzanita grove? I think they have a synergistic relationship with Manzanita. Betsy
Whoops! I meant to say symbiotic! But actually after looking it up the relationship sounds like it might be parasitic. The warriors attach to the root system of the manzanita. I'm not sure if the manzanita gets anything out of the relationship. Betsy
Wow, I wish I could remember if there were manzanita. I remember buckeye and bay since we commented on those trees. This was not in Fish Gulch where the redwoods were, however, but on a more open slope above Phoenix Lake.
Post a Comment