Summer cobwebs are catching dust now, their architect/owner’s duties complete. Here are recent neighborhood sightings which deserve to be shared. After a summer of nocturnal harmonies, calls of the Baja California tree frogs are making way for the crickets’ jingling bell calls. It was glorious when they were performing together. Great Horned owls’ calls areContinue reading “Autumn in the Canyon”
Category Archives: Butterflies
Winter in the Canyon
On a recent morning in the Santa Ynez Canyon, as I was looking toward Topanga State Park, two native trees stood out. A ribbon-like stand of California Sycamores in the creek bed contrasted with the lush greenery of the upland Coast Live Oaks. The sycamores, like some oaks of the savannah in the Midwest, keepContinue reading “Winter in the Canyon”
Western Monarch Butterflies
Solemn news this week from the Xerces Society: during the 2020 Thanksgiving western monarch count, only 1,914 butterflies were spotted in 250 observation sites. In 1997, when data collection began, 1.2 million western monarchs were counted in 150 locales in California and Baja California. Habitat destruction and lack of access to milkweed plants (the sole sourceContinue reading “Western Monarch Butterflies”
Mashabu 