Migrating Butterflies

Monarchs, painted ladies, and tortoise shell butterflies are three kinds of butterflies that migrate to and from the Monterey Bay area. Each has its own story.

Butterfly Life History, Reviewed

To understand the rest of what I have to tell you, you’ll have to recall some basics about butterflies. The flying creatures you see are just one of the life history stages of these insects. These flying ones are called ‘adults’ because they are the ones that are reproductive. They mate and the females attach eggs to just the right plant where their hatchlings will want to feed. The eggs sit a while before hatching. When they hatch, out comes what is called a larva, or caterpillar. The caterpillar feeds on certain kinds of plant leaves, gets bigger, and one day finds itself yearning to change. At that miraculous point, the caterpillar morphs into an entirely different-looking thing: a chrysalis. The chrysalis hangs apparently doing nothing, but actually it is using stored food to change into an adult. A chrysalis can move a little. Once the chrysalis has developed it morphs once again, this time emerging as an adult.

Co-Evolution

Plants and butterfly larvae co-evolve, plant genetic diversity creates new generations increasingly well-guarded against caterpillars that eat them. Plants evolve caterpillar toxins, better hairs to clog the mouths or throats of larvae, changed leaf shapes or colors so that they are less recognizable to ovipositing female butterflies, and modifications for food and homes for ants that guard against caterpillars. There are countless other evolutionary strategies to avoid what is called predation by caterpillars. On the other side of the playing field, butterfly species also evolve so that new generations are better adapted to those strategies.

Food Plants

Each of the butterflies I focus on in this essay have co-evolved with plants as outlined above. Monarchs eat milkweed, a highly toxic plant that a few other closely co-evolved species can eat. Painted ladies eat a wide variety of plants with many complex adaptations to herbivory – they are super-eaters! California tortoiseshell butterflies eat Ceanothus, a widespread shrub genus with its own chemistry to ward off herbivores.

Butterfly Maps

Monarch butterflies travel west to the Monterey Bay area in large numbers for the winter to avoid inland frost. Painted ladies travel north as their food dries up in the desert and new food is still edible further north. Tortoiseshell butterflies travel west from high elevations in the Sierra Nevada, also to over winter in our more temperate clime. Those are the simple overviews, but the details are much more complex.

Monarch Life History

In Spring through Fall, four generations of monarch butterflies enjoy life across much of the US before returning to their overwintering spots in Mexico or coastal California. That means there are four batches of fattening caterpillars munching away on milkweed, metamorphosing into chrysalises, and emerging again as those beautiful orange and black, big butterflies to move north. That last generation somehow knows that it must move south (or West to CA), where to avoid the frosts that would kill them if they didn’t leave their succulent patches of milkweed.

Many monarch butterflies have been traveling to high elevation northern Mexico where the climate has been just right for their winter respite. People have been harvesting wood from those forests, reducing habitat. Also, climate change is creating hotter, drier conditions, which might be negatively impacting the quality of that habitat. The only other place that monarch butterflies know to go is coastal California.

On California’s coast, there have been approximately 400 historic overwintering locations from Mendocino County to San Diego County. Only a small subset of these overwintering spots are on land managed by conservation organizations. Most people around here know to check out Natural Bridges State Beach, but there are other spots, as well. The UCSC Arboretum’s Eucalyptus Grove has been home to large numbers of overwintering monarch butterflies in the past. And, overwintering sites #3009 and #3010 are in groves of eucalyptus near Davenport on BLM’s Cotoni Coast Dairies property.

Painted Lady Life History

Painted lady butterflies have a slightly more complex life history and some populations travel much farther than monarch butterflies. The African population flies back and forth 9,000 miles! That’s twice the monarch butterfly migration length.

One late spring, I watched as thousands of painted ladies flew by me, moving south to north in the high elevations of Big Sur’s wildlands. They had originated in the deserts near California’s border with Mexico and were headed as far as they could fly, with an ability to fly most of the length of California in about a week. When one uses up their body fat, which they made as caterpillars, they stop, mate, and lay eggs. The next generation hatches, caterpillars eat as much as they can, then they metamorphose through to chrysalis and adults, which then fly, fly, fly, towards the Pacific Northwest. Come August, wherever an adult painted lady might be, they turn to fly south again. You can see painted lady butterflies all summer long here, but they are more numerous in the Spring when you, if you are lucky and it’s a good year for this species, you can spy hundreds moving north.

California Tortoiseshell Life History

8 years after the Lockheed Fire, California lilac was head-high and abundant in the footprint of that fire. As I led a University field trip in late June, the students were tittering and I couldn’t get their attention. They gleefully pointed out that the shrubs around me were twitching and dancing. I was astonished to see the frantically wiggling chrysalises of hundreds of California tortoiseshell butterflies shaking denuded Ceanothus shrubs all around us. Above the shrubs, clouds of newly emerged California tortoiseshell butterflies were sailing about. Soon, they would be taking flight to the mid-elevation Sierra Nevada to lay eggs on a different species of Ceanothus; they’d run out of tasty leaves here on the coast! After that generation similarly denuded those patches of Ceanothus and made that same wiggle-frenzy of excited chrysalises, those adults fly to the highest elevations in the Sierra Nevada to eat yet a different species of Ceanothus. Running out of Ceanothus and elevation, it is that generation that flies all the way back to Monterey Bay to lay eggs on our Ceanothus and start the cycle again.

Originally published by Bruce Bratton in his famous BrattonOnline.com blog

Regular Summer

There’s a certain relaxation that sets in when everything is going as ‘normal.’ Late at night, the fog rolls up the valley and we awaken to the silver tongue of fog lapping at the edge of the lowest points of the farm. Down there, redwoods drip and it smells piney and dank. The fog pulses in further and then back out in a morning battle against the heat, but always the fog lowers just below our elevation; but, we can feel the coolness even as the sun’s warmth prickles our skin and begs for long sleeves. At ten o’clock, a slight breeze picks up onshore with the cool ocean air. The days are sunny and in the 70s. It is dry and dust wells up when we walk, work, or drive, big or small clouds blowing predictably towards the southeast. Everything has become dusty. For many weeks, it has been a regular summer.

It has been a regular summer except very recently when high clouds streamed in from the (!) East. Other places in California have been experiencing Zeus’ playfulness, but we haven’t heard a single thunder clap, though a few large raindrops at one point, briefly. Those clouds make for spectacular sunsets.

Molino Creek Farm’s dry farmed tomatoes are getting ready!

The Ripening

Apples, tomatoes, winter squash, peppers, zucchini, pears, prune plums, hazelnuts…they are all ripening. As with the cherries recently, we must pace ourselves with the pear intake.

Looking down the long rows of lush, half-grown tomato ‘vines,’ we see the first ripening tomatoes blowing orange-red among the green boughs. One day soon, there will be so many ripe tomatoes that it will be difficult to keep up with the harvest. For now, we bide our time for the first batch of vine ripened, dry farmed tomatoes, a point where the farmers are as happy as the consumers. “Oh Boy!” people exclaim when they first see our tomatoes at the market. Sometimes, we have to limit the pounds purchased so that more of our loyal customers are pleased. It won’t be long now.

Gravenstein then Gala

We have only one large and one small Gravenstein apple tree, the first apples to get ripe each year. Sylvie reports ‘not quite ripe’ this morning, so we will wait another week to try again.

Next up, Gala apples. They aren’t half the size that they should be, but are the quickest growing apples on the block. They are catching up and will be ready to harvest the second half of September. We’ve had another round of thinning the fruit on those trees, thinning from the highest points of ladders. Propping, too!

Maw or Caw, who can tell? (Still Life with a Bird and Tree)

Wild Things

When the days are warm enough and the nights not too cool, we can listen for the night noises. There’s the rough repeated bark-yowl of a fox. There’s the odd sweet whistling call of a great horned owl along with the more normal hoots. There are also the calls of thousands of crickets. The black cricket rough sawing has been going for a while and was recently joined by the less raspy song of brown crickets; both are easy to spot at night along the farm’s many roads at night. The high twirring of the green tree cricket has joined the chorus only this past week; that’s the one you can tell the temperature from if you count the chirps right.

A walking around the farm reveals other wild visitors. Big piles of coyote poo is the most frequent scat. They rarely sing, but they sometimes do. Turkey tracks and feathers are another common sight, though the birds themselves aren’t frequently evident. Reports of a herd of deer seen frequently – no bucks but a few does and young.

And then there are the quail! Bumper crop of quail with many more being born. Clouds of quail, a profusion of quail, lots and lots of quail. I was wondering where the Cooper’s hawk was when it appeared for the first time in months this morning. Then again, the red-tailed hawks have moved on with their young one, a great relief to the wealth of bunnies also being born.

The large gopher snakes are a frequent sight. Mark Jones reports a 5 foot long fatty near the Hayfield gate. There’s one that lost the tip of its tail near the Yard water tanks. There are eerily large tracks in the dusty roadbeds. The temperature has been such that large snakes have to sun themselves to keep warm enough to hunt in the shade. I picked one up to move it off the road, and it was shivering.

Small family groups of band-tailed pigeons are feasting on elderberries, which have been ripening while still in blossom. Those large pigeons are clumsy out at the branch tips where the elderberries reside…clumsy and nervous. Those are generally pretty nervous birds, which makes sense since they narrowly escaped extinction due to overhunting not that many generations ago.

Maw and Caw are around, but not so sure about their kids, who may have flown the coop. These parents may have the literal empty nest syndrome. We don’t hear the screaming adolescents. Mostly, Maw and Caw are in proximity, poking at the ground and occasionally finding something- what? They might be eating mice…maybe Jerusalem crickets?

Our native elderberries in a hedgerow. Imagine big pigeons trying to balance and eat them

Fire Preparations

As we hear news of fires starting up around the state, we redouble our efforts for fuel management. CAL FIRE has been sending up an engine from Swanton to inspect how we are doing, encouraging us and guiding us in little ways to do a better job. Many thanks to their Captains for inspiring us to do better! They say we’re doing good jobs with the mowing, and mowing we continue to do. There never seems to be enough time for mowing….or weedeating…or hauling cut brush (or burning that cut stuff in the winter). This week, Mark Bartle jumped on his tractor and mowed some of our fallow fields, so suddenly we’re minus more acres of bad fuel: yay!

Perfect Days, Slowing Down

We keep busy, to be sure, but the hecticness of earlier is slowly slipping by. ‘When the crops close in so much that you can’t get a tractor by them to do weeding…’ things slow down. When the grass dries and dies in the field margins, slopes, and areas around our infrastructure…and we do the last mowing of the year….things slow down. When the apples fruits are thinned and the canopy is so shady that the weeds don’t grow (much)…things slow down. Before the harvest…things slow down.

Dry, Flammable, and Gorgeous

For now, on windy hot days, we turn our heads to gaze north, fearing the sight of plumes of smoke. The quality of light has returned to a deep golden-tinged spectrum, which is beautiful AND dangerous. The late summer is fire weather. Nothing so far, and nothing too likely, but that could all change in any given 24 hours. The patient waiting for the fall rains, months away, is what our deep subconscious is doing – for a return to safety from wildfire.

Meanwhile, the skies are clear and blue, the breeze gentle, the days warm and the nights cool. Open the windows in the evening to cool the house down, and the next day is like air conditioning…until the early evening when it is hotter in than out. Repeat this exercise each evening or cook in your own house if you don’t pay attention.

Birds sing and feed their young, bunnies procreate – little ones and big ones scampering about, the fog parades down coast and downslope. There is a record number of bunnies along the road suddenly. Everything shimmers with life.

Satsuma plum – starting to ripen….loaded (needs propping!)

Early Fruit

The earliest of fruit is starting to happen. Two Dog farmers report a dozen ripe tomatoes in their field: the earliest of Early Girls. The birds are eating, or have already eaten, whole trees of plums. Soon, we may overwhelm the birds with plums and get a few ourselves…or maybe we should net them! The cherries are almost all gone, a few left for the orchard tenders if they haven’t had enough already.

In the Hedgerow, resprouted from the Fire, the many native elderberries…donated by George Work years ago…are both flowering and fruiting. Elderberry flowers are the most beautiful cream color, the dark blue berries blushed pectin white.

Tree Swallows

During the glorious bright, golden evening light and my walk-around the farm, I glanced at the big rounded canopy of the walnut tree next to our solar panel-driven well and saw something marvelous: a cloud of tree swallows foraging on something. Round and round they darted, encircling the entire edge of the walnut canopy. High squeaking, they chattered a conversational song of play or feasting or both. Some arched a little higher and then wheeled rapidly down, picking at the surface of the leaves, sucking up unseen insects. There were easily 50, perhaps many more. I stood for 15 minutes, but wasn’t there at the beginning- how long had it been going on? The flock soon moved off to some other place, but not before several individuals soared so close to me that I could see their tiny cheerful eyes glistening. They seemed to smile back at me. I suspect that they were after honeydew eating yellow jacket vespid wasps, which must have lost legions of their kin during that brief swallow feast.

The SMELL

This time of year, each year, the night air is heavy with scent. The winds calm and moisture, eased by the cooling night air, forms a shallow layer over the entire farm. Flashlight beams aimed upward reveal the 10’-20’ depth of scant haze. Throughout that dark and steamy air, a distinct scent wafts from the surrounding forests. Tanoak! Big, fat tassels of male flowers poke up from tanoak canopies giving the trees an almost silvery appearance. The tassels are grouped in many-fingered clusters at the branch ends. This is where the smell is coming from. Seminal smell. Almost too much! People feel obliged to ask, “How long will it last?” Who knows. Too long. But, it is a small price to pay for the acorns that will be produced: this promises a carpet of giant tasty nuts later this year. The smell is gone by morning, but you can get up early, close the windows, and seal the smell in your house if you really want to.

WE DON’T HAVE BUGS!

How often have I heard a Proud Coastal Californian exclaim, ‘We don’t have bugs!’ as they attempt to further glorify their admittedly lovely region. These folks must not go out much, or venture far from their urban abodes. There was a brief respite between the Spring Mosquitoes and what is currently headed to Flymaggedon. Face flies…legions of face flies…’eye, ear, nose and throat specialists’ are starting to appear. The first one explored my face this past week. Soon, they will be unbearable: no more sunbathing! Instead, the conversational wave will be the norm. You stand still, talking, and wave your hand back and forth in front of your face to be able to discuss anything while standing still outdoors.

Dangerous Animals

This past little while- two good reports. One: at the odd hour of 2 a.m., Bodhi got a good look at a small mountain lion by our downhill spring. Two: Sylvie just spotted an 8-buttoned rattler on the dirt road near the pavement – it was 2.5’ long…a fatty for our area! I tried looking for the black widow spiders at the mouths of gopher holes during one nighttime foray, but either I was too early in the night or too early in the summer for the population to have grown. Zero blackwidows! Schwew! There used to be hundreds, just last year, in every gopher hole along every road.

-also simultaneously published on the Molino Creek Farm website- check it out!

Abandon Hope

Pema Chodron suggests we put the statement “Abandon Hope” on our refrigerator doors as a reminder. She shares the teaching that hope and fear are two sides of the same coin and reflect feelings that we lack something essential. I sense that those of us who care about the Monterey Bay’s environment are unnecessarily burdened by a philosophy of resource limitation, of lacking what we need.

Presidential Hope

You may recall that “HOPE” was the meme used in Barack Obama’s presidential campaign. When Sarah Palin ridiculed that slogan with ‘How’s that hopey-changey thing working out for ya?’ it turned my stomach. More than a decade later, it is ironic that the political left wing uses similar ridicule for the ‘thoughts and prayers’ refrain used after mass shootings.

Obama once emphasized the ‘reality’ of his ‘Hope’ slogan by saying, “Over the past 2 and a half years, the hope poster starts fading. But I tell you what, you travel around the country and talk to the American people, that spirit’s still there.” According to the wisdom of Chodron, Obama was reinforcing the widespread notion of powerlessness. In dealing with environmental issues locally, I see clearly what Obama meant. The feeling of hope is a terrible affliction around the Monterey Bay.

Thoughts and Prayers

As each new environmental battle unfolds around us, as too few of my community does anything to help, I keep hearing the response: ‘Thoughts and Prayers!’ When UCSC moves forward with bulldozing Santa Cruz’ iconic East Meadow, folks who claim to care for the environment seem to be saying, ‘Thoughts and Prayers!’ As the Bureau of Land Management plows ahead with slipshod management of Santa Cruz County’s only part of the California Coastal Monument, people seem to be saying, ‘Thoughts and Prayers!’ As the Coastal Commission pushes maximum public access on every beach and coastal open space despite dwindling wildlife impacted by poorly managed recreation, the refrain ‘Thoughts and Prayers!’ seems to emanate from so many beatifically smiling, caring people who ‘Love Our Coast!’

Louder Paralysis

Action is louder than words, but what prevents action? The most common response I get from folks who are so full of hope but don’t do anything for our local environmental crises is that they don’t have time. To be sure, the bills need paying and we are all So Very Busy. “How are you doing?” someone asks. The reply so frequently is “Busy!” to the point of being funny (peculiar). When the conversation runs longer and one of the many environmental plights gets discussed, the conversation ends when the ‘hope’ word gets trotted out: “I hope it turns out well!”

Seeding Confusion

Greed lies at the root of all seven deadly sins, and that greed is working well with cultivating confusion across the world, resulting in environmental degradation. Let’s examine how each of the following statements has been used to sow confusion in our community. “UCSC needs to house more of its students!” “Cotoni Coast Dairies should be open to the public!” “Our beaches should be for everyone to enjoy!”

Thoughtful, pro-environmental Monterey Bay citizens want to better understand situations before taking action, even if that action is speaking out, talking to their friends or workmates, or voting for the right candidate. To them, they lack the time…they say that having enough understanding costs time, and they don’t have that time. Time is lacking! Maybe the only thing to do is to hope for the best!

There is Enough Time

We don’t have to know more to be engaged citizens and there is enough time to act now. It takes a fraction of a fraction of a second for your neurons to arrive at your personal most pressing question about environmental conservation in the Monterey Bay area. It takes a similarly miniscule amount of time to place that question on your mental checklist of cherished treasures. With those two in place, you will find the moment to ask that question until you arrive at a well-informed conclusion. Asking the questions, sharing your conclusions: you will not notice the time that it takes to do these. These are the easiest, essential actions that go beyond the empty, lacking things notion of ‘hope.’

Working Together, We Are Successful

The list of accomplishments is long: Lighthouse Field, Gray Whale Ranch, Cotoni Coast Dairies, Upper UCSC Campus, the Glenwood Preserve, Arana Gulch, Monterey Bay National Marine Sanctuary, State Parks Ecologist positions, City Parks lands managers, pesticide bans…None of those would have taken place by hope alone. We have resources. Our community is strong and capable. There is no need for hope, but there is a need for action. Local history shows that when we take action, we can do great things. When we don’t take action, priceless environmental resources are lost. Already, there are no more breeding local badgers, burrowing owls, or roadrunners. Santa Cruz kangaroo rat, Santa Cruz tarplant, Ohlone tiger beetle, and Point Reyes Horkelia, are slipping towards extinction (on our watch!).

Start by Asking

Recently, I urged readers to write an email to California Bureau of Land Management’s Director Karen Mouritsen and to cc me for my records. Guess how many notes I got? Let’s see…population of Monterey Bay what- 100,000 (+)? Readership via BrattonOnline, my website, Facebook, and shares…maybe 2,000?

I got four notes! Four. 4. (Loud sigh)

Its not too late, folks. Your very brief to create email would still be timely- see the link above.

But, as usual, I heard praise from many people about my writing. I am compassionate about the root of people’s “hope” – that it seems we lack time, understanding, or focus.

I want to cultivate curiosity and see where that leads. What does this political cartoon make you wonder about? Why not ask? I know enough not to hope; I know that, together, we are making a difference. Thanks Friends of the North Coast!

-this post originally published by Bruce Bratton at his weekly blog BrattonOnline.com – I updated it slightly to account for the FOUR letters I got from my recent call for environmental assistance. (sigh again)

Balmy Days, Cool Ocean Breezes

The days have been perfectly warm with a light breeze off the ocean – we have not been smited by the heat so famously noted in inland California and 5. The cool upwelling ocean has been our nearby friend.

Some odd clouds have been streaming overhead, making for glorious sunsets. One sunset this past week was (briefly) completely Pure Lucious Purple.

Cherries Cherries and more Cherries.

In the past two weeks, we’ve harvested 75 pounds off of the 18 trees. There are another 60 pounds at least ripe right now; those we’ll pick for Two Dog Farm to take to the Alemany Farmer’s Market in San Francisco on this Saturday. The heat is making them get ripe in a hurry! Family, friends, and Community Orchardists are thick in cherry fruit, the very best anyone has experienced. Yum.

In the depths of the night, occasionally we get fog. Rarely now, we wake up to a brief patch of fog, but its not too drippy.

Yip Yip Horray!

Also in the deep dark night: coyote chorus. High squeaky notes of coyote song ring out across the farm. At least three animals are celebrating and almost every night, late-late at night.

Giant gopher snakes are out sunning themselves on the road, frequently.

The second, or third, batch of new bunnies has arrived. There are also big batches of new quail everywhere- not still fluffy, but young enough to be Very entertaining to watch in their barely coordinated flights, weaving willy-nilly much to their parents’ chagrin. After such a flush, it must take hours to regather the covey. Another successful reproductive situation: The Deer! A mother deer is trailing a single fawn around the property.

Here’s a confirmation that Maw and Caw have been quite successful again with two adolescent yelling and demanding offspring. They are good parents, watching carefully after the kids.

In a tall tree near the Brush Field, a pair of red tailed hawks have fledged a talkative young one. This is the first pair and the first offspring I’ve seen since my arrival in 2008. We could use more hawk action with the burgeoning bunnies, gophers, and mice.

Hay There

The grass has dried. All of the grass has dried. So, it is time to make the Last Mowing, dust and all. There are three ways to get rid of the hay this late in the season: 1) pile the hay in the field and let it moulder; hope to apply at the onset of rains before it becomes too heavy to move…2) compost it, layered with dirt and weeds, kept moist…3) put it on the dirt roads for dust control. After the CZU fire burned up the freshly applied understory hay, we won’t be fooled again. Wait for more mulch application! Otherwise, we grind up the hay and leave it be in the roadsides and fields where it won’t be harvested. The mice will like it there. I saw a bunny eating such ‘stored’ hay recently.

-this post also shared via Molino Creek Farm’s webpage, see this link.

The US Bureau of Land Management- Species Conservationists?

The California division of the Bureau of Land Management suggests that it is concerned about rare species, but what evidence is there for those of us considering their management of Cotoni Coast Dairies? It is crucial that public land managers take care of rare wildlife and plants – doesn’t it seem like public lands are the right place for species conservation? Let’s consider what we’ve seen…

Background

The BLM has some great policies to guide its management of rare species. It has a guidance manual, Manual 6840 “Special Status Species Management,” that says that BLM will manage not only for species on the USA’s list of threatened and endangered species, but also for species that are candidates for listing as well as those which State wildlife agencies consider priorities for conservation. The manual directs each BLM State office to keep a list of State Sensitive Species (both wildlife and plants) and to update those lists every 5 years in collaboration with State wildlife agencies.

BLM California has published the following lists of sensitive plants and wildlife.

California BLM’s Sensitive Species: Problems

Although BLM’s policies are good, somehow their implementation at Cotoni Coast Dairies, designated as one of 5 onshore units of California’s Coastal National Monument, has been faulty. For instance, plant species listed by the State as rare (Rank 1B) are automatically considered sensitive according to BLM policy, but the BLM California sensitive plant list is missing three of the California rare plant Rank 1B species that have been documented at Cotoni Coast Dairies: Choris’ popcornflower, Santa Cruz manzanita, and Monterey pine. In addition, although BLM’s State Sensitive Plant List has Point Reyes Horkelia, it is not noted as occurring under the management of the Central Coast Field Office, which oversees Cotoni Coast Dairies. Moreover, the last time BLM’s sensitive wildlife list was updated was 2009; it is missing many species recognized by California Department of Fish and Wildlife as rare, including some that occur at Cotoni Coast Dairies. Here are the Cotoni Coast Dairies’ wildlife species that would have been included on BLM’s sensitive wildlife list if the BLM California State Director Karen Mouritsen were following her mandated actions under Manual 6840:

*Common name*	*Latin name*	*Rarity Status*

Grasshopper sparrow	Ammodramus savannarum	CA Species of Special Concern (nesting)
Northern harrier	Circus cyaneus	CA Species of Special Concern (nesting)
Olive-sided flycatcher	Contopus cooperi	CA Species of Special Concern (nesting)
American badger	Taxidea taxus	CA Species of Special Concern
San Francisco dusky-footed woodrat	Neotoma fuscipes annectens	CA Species of Special Concern

BLM Central Coast Field Office: Problems

The staff at BLM’s Central Coast Field Office have described themselves as being ‘conservationists.’ If this is so, then they are prevented from carrying out their self-professed ideology by someone higher up in BLM, perhaps at the State BLM level under Director Mouritsen’s oversight. In 2021, Michael Powers is listed as the author of the “Biological Monitoring Plan, Cotoni-Coast Dairies unit of the California Coastal National Monument, Updated December 2021.” It is odd that there is a monitoring plan in absence of the science plan mandated by the 6220 Manual, which provides policy for managing units of National Monuments under BLM’s stewardship. This oddness continues when one more closely peruses Mr. Powers’ monitoring plan.

Section V of the monitoring plan is titled “Special Status Species,” but the section fails to mention the majority of wildlife and plants on California BLM’s sensitive species lists. The only species listed in this section are the California red-legged frog, steelhead trout, and coho salmon – these noted as ‘Federally Listed’ at the top of that section. The section of the monitoring plan fails to list the monarch butterfly, which was published by the US Fish and Wildlife Service as a candidate for listing as endangered a year before the monitoring plan, in 2020. According to BLM policy in the 6840 manual, federally published candidate species are to be considered sensitive species with such monitoring plans.

BLM Natural Resource Impacts

Some would suggest that plans are just plans and lists are just lists, but how do these things really matter? Someone in one of the California BLM offices ordered candidate species monarch butterfly habitat to be destroyed at Cotoni Coast Dairies (one day, we’ll know who!). Destroying that habitat makes it more difficult to restore healthy populations of monarch butterflies on Planet Earth. The increasing rarity of monarch butterflies that BLM has created places more burden on other landowners, both public and private to help monarchs not become extinct.

More broadly, someone evidently told BLM’s Mr. Powers not to consider the entirety of California State BLM-listed sensitive species in the monitoring and, presumably, management of Cotoni Coast Dairies. Since BLM State or local officials have not asked for help with budget, there must be some other issue, but political issues don’t seem logical. BLM’s policy states the following reason for analyzing, monitoring, and planning for the conservation of sensitive species: “to promote their conservation and reduce the likelihood and need for future listing under the ESA.” The majority of Americans on either side of the political divide support wildlife conservation. It is in everyone’s interest for species not to qualify for listing under the Endangered Species Act.

Without concerted collaborative effort, it is likely that at least one of the sensitive plants or animals at Cotoni Coast Dairies will face listing under the Endangered Species Act (ESA) in the next 30 years. The Point Reyes Horkelia is probably the most likely species, but the Monarch butterfly is also quite likely. The BLM has no plans to monitor those species, so the agency won’t know if its management of Cotoni Coast Dairies is helping or hurting those species.

What You Can Do

Would you please help? Please write State Director Mouritsen and ask her to protect sensitive species at Cotoni Coast Dairies as well as throughout California. You might mention that she should:

Order the Central Coast Field Office to consider BLM California’s sensitive plants and wildlife at Cotoni Coast Dairies as required by BLM’s 6840 Special Status Species Manual.
Publish an updated State BLM sensitive wildlife list in collaboration with the California Department of Fish and Wildlife, as mandated by the BLM’s 6840 Special Status Species Manual.
Publish an updated State BLM sensitive plant list to include the State ranked 1B plant species documented at Cotoni Coast Dairies, as mandated by the 6840 Manual.
Respect those who care about natural resource protection as much as she respects those clamoring for access for mountain bikes at Cotoni Coast Dairies.
Publish a Science Plan for Cotoni Coast Dairies as required by BLM’s 6220 National Monuments, National Conservation Areas, and Similar Designations (Public) Manual

That could be a short email note….it would be fast to write! It could even be a cut-and-paste of the those bullets. What we need is numbers of notes to show the Director that there are lots of people who care. Here’s her email address: kmourits@blm.gov It would be great if you could cc me, so I have a record of the communications: coastalprairie@aol.com

-this article originally published in Bruce Bratton’s impactful weekly blog BrattonOnline.com

Fattening Apples, Impending Heat

The tension of summer is upon us. We relish the beautiful days, like today, with an ocean breeze and high temperatures in the upper 70s to low 80s. The nights are cool enough to be our air conditioning. We awake to cool houses that slowly warm as the day progresses until the (welcome) onset of cooler evenings. The crickets are loud, the birds silent in the midday warmth, and cicadas fill the heat of the day with their one note, incessant, high metallic-whining song.

The magnificent pulse of pleasantly warm days and cool nights used to be normal, for decades it was normal. Recently, there is a prickle of worry that the HEAT will arrive: days of above 90s when the night never cool. We’ve had 4 of those in the last 3 years, 1 right before the 2020 fire and one just after. Those are tough. We might get one of those this weekend. The Weather Service can’t say. While they predict 110F inland, ”readings along the coast are a bit more tricky.” Sigh. All we can do is get the irrigated ground as wet as possible to buffer our poor crops against what might be wilting, damaging heat.

Molino Community Orchardists produce this beauty…a gala apple tree perfectly thinned

Pomelogically Speaking

Meanwhile, in the cool shade of apples trees…We gaze across a lush and happy orchard filled with quarter-sized fruit peaking out from beneath the protective cover of deep green leaves. The many hands of orchard collective workers have thinned almost the entire orchard to well-spaced fruit that is gaining girth expeditiously. By taking off most of the fruit and leaving a few, we relieve the mother trees of too much work. You can almost hear them sigh and relax.

The apple trees are growing so well that their bark is splitting, the first furrows appear on our aging tree trunks. So, this is how trees show their wrinkles. We are only a month away from the first apples ripening: The Gravensteins. We will have just two of those types of apple trees bearing this time around, but there are many more small ones getting bigger – 3 more years and the crop will begin to burgeon. After that, the Gala apples will be on hand in 2 months, and that’s the beginning of the big apple party. Apple trees do not like warm roots, but this spring saw the canopies grow so much that there is good shade across most of the orchard floor. The edge trees suffer more, but we’ll dispense thick mulch over their tender roots soon enough.

Plum Nothing!

Soon, there will be plums but none right now. The challenge with plums is netting them. We need to create an easy-to-deploy single tree netting system, so we can get plums this year. There is a promising fruit set.

Maw and Caw Update

Taking my morning stroll this morning, I heard a raven scream from down near the netted cherry grove. ‘Oh NO!’ I thought…’What’s wrong?!’ Perched on the cherry net structure were 4 ravens, not just our farm pair, Maw and Caw. Did they have twins this year? Was that single scream an obnoxious raven yell, so typical of their adolescent young? More study is needed.

Other Wildlife Observations

Foxes and coyotes calling, fledged barn swallows, frequent Lazuli song. It sounds like someone is strangling a cat, but its just a gray fox calling. It was very startling, though. It’s the first sign I’ve had in a long time that the foxes are still around. Uh-oh for the fruit, though.

Sylvie woke one night to the pitched song of coyotes.

One of the 4 fledged barn swallows from my porch hung upside down like a bat for an hour yesterday. What’s up with that. I worried that it was sick, but then saw it idly preening itself while hanging upside down. Odd bird! It seems to the smallest and is quite a rebel. The other three fly one way, it tilts its head at them going that way, chips, and flies a different way.

The laughing calls of lazuli bunting are very common on the farm. They well compliment the high giggling peeps of the many lesser goldfinches that are feasting on Madia seed happily.

Farming

Dusty clouds billow in the wake of mowing tractors, weed-tilling tractors. Bent forms slowly hoe their way down the rows in the morning heat. Shimmering waves of warmth bend the images of quickly growing crops, not yet covering the ground, but soon! This is the time of cash outlay, the gamble that the harvest will bring the returns to pay back all the labor going into the crops right now. Killing gophers, weeding, watering…repeating…over and over, the harvest weeks away.

Black walnut – we have a lot of them on the farm!

Walnuts

We have a lot of black walnuts growing on our farm, never harvested. Still, they are beautiful trees!

-this post also placed at the Molino Creek Farm web space.

Oaks, Terrestrial Coral Reef Analogues

This past weekend, I had occasion to gaze for hours on end up into oak trees, reminding me of an analogy I’ve thought about where oak trees are like terrestrial coral reefs. When snorkeling around an atoll with patches of coral, I glide over vast sea grass beds, which hide flounder, conch, rays, and serve as habitat for many more species. Ahead, I see a tall, dark shadow looming and slowly coming into view is a coral patch. As I draw near, many species of colorful fish dart in and out of crevices and caves formed by the coral. Far from those tropical waters, I hike through extensive grasslands startling grasshopper and savannah sparrows, snakes, and a resting fawn. As I draw closer to the oak forest that rings the grasslands, I see new species of colorful birds and many butterflies popping out and flying back into the protection of the oak canopies.

The long-lived evergreen oaks of the central coast serve super-important roles supporting wildlife, and their canopy structure lends for spellbinding entertainment.

Towering live oak near Santa Cruz, California – epiphytic mosses and lichens regularly abound

Our California Sister

I want to tell you about an oak-related butterfly that often catches my attention. California sister, Adelpha californica. If you spend much time around one of our live oaks right now, chances are good that you’ll see one of these strikingly beautiful butterflies. They can be very, very energetic fliers with bursts of energy followed by short glides, and lots of sudden turns. They behave more like predacious dragonflies than nectar-loving butterflies. Flying in and out of each hole in an oak canopy, they sometimes dart down the top of each branch, methodically seeming to examine every bit of structure. Why?

I have many hypotheses about this high energy ‘patrolling’ of oaks by California sister butterflies. Are they guarding their eggs or larval babies? It takes more than 60 days for an egg to reach its adult stage, growing from tiny to larger caterpillars along the way. During the caterpillar stage, they are vulnerable to predation or harassment by many things, though apparently neither the young or the adult butterflies are tasty due to concentration of toxic oak-leaf compounds. So, perhaps they are looking for just the right place, and just the right time, to glue one of their eggs to the oak. Back and forth the colorful butterflies go, flitting in and out of shade, deeper into the canopy or out from it in the full sun. Maybe they are thermoregulating through this behavior. I also wonder if they might not be clearing spider webs from their territory, to make it safer for their young to learn to fly after they emerge from chrysalis with their tender young wings and clumsy first flights.

Do the California sister butterflies fly around the trees where they grew up, or do they move around more? Are there generation after generation of the same families in the same trees? Do they guard the flower patches near their trees, to maximize their access to nectar? So many questions…

Other Oak Denizens

While watching the California sister antics, I saw a bright yellow swallowtail butterfly cruise rapidly by. Was it a coincidence that it didn’t slow down or was it wary of the danger of trespassing into California sister territory?

In the heat of the day, a high buzzing noise fills the air around the oak groves; during the morning and evening, there are clicks. Both of those sounds are cicadas. The buzzing noise are male adult cicadas. In the soil beneath the oak leaf duff, unwinged young cicadas are sucking on roots for a living. One day, they emerge as winged adults, shedding a hideous exoskeleton that you can sometimes find laying around. Female cicadas lay eggs in holes they cut into an oak tree’s pencil-thin twig bark.

Occasionally, some say especially at the onset of droughts, oak moths flitter around the canopies of oaks by the hundreds. They look like large, animated confetti. Their larvae drop so much poop in those episodic years that it sounds like it’s raining. They don’t kill the oaks, generally- perhaps they help defoliate the trees to keep them from using too much water…or perhaps they help cycle nutrients with all of their rich poop.

Still More Oak Friends

More than once, I saw dragonflies perching on the outermost tips of oak branches. So many bugs jet in and out of the oak canopy that there are plenty of chances for those dragonflies to grab one up and make a meal of it.

I recently encountered an oak tree that buzzed. Looking into the canopy, I noticed that yellow jacket wasps were animating the entire tree with buzzing movement. The wasps were eating an outbreak of oak pests, or just lapping up sweet insect exudates, from scale or aphids, I couldn’t tell – they were too high up.

Some of the oak associate insects make odd looking structures called “galls.” There are lots of different things that do that, and that previous link is a great place to explore the amazing variation of species. I add a photo of one I found this past weekend here, next to a canyon live oak acorn cup.

Birds in the Mix

Oak trees also provide for many birds. Acorns are important food to California scrub jays, which have been shown to store 7,000 acorns in the soil and subsequently forgetting about some that germinate and grow. Acorn woodpeckers store their acorns in holes in tree trunks. Lots of other birds eat acorns.

The most colorful oak bird is the Townsend’s warbler, which (unlike many other of its warbler relatives) overwinters along the coast in California. It is a real treat to see this yellow-streaked bird darting around an oak canopy in the otherwise drab winter.

As oaks get older, they drop limbs, leaving behind cavities that provide nesting locations for other colorful birds, such as the Western blue bird. Such nesting cavities are a limiting factor for the survival of many bird species.

A rare stand of a special live oak – Shreve oak, Quercus parvula shreveii, near Davenport, California

Help the Oaks

Besides the many species of life that oaks support, oak trees make great shade, are drought tolerant, and grow nice firewood. The entertainment value of having an oak close to your home is well worth it. You can grow an oak tree almost no matter what kind of soil you have near your house. So, why not plant one? Or not…if you are lucky enough to live near oak trees, you can bet that a scrub jay will plant one for you and all you need do is help the sprouted young plant along.

If you pick a nursery oak tree, make sure that it is less than a year old and that the roots aren’t swirling around inside the pot: messed up roots are terribly detrimental. If one of those early roots goes around in a circle inside the pot, the mature root will follow its path, a disadvantage to long-term tree health.

You’ll want to water a new oak regularly through the first summer, but not thereafter. Try to avoid summer water if at all possible past the first year.

Oaks grow faster than you think! Get ready to plant one this fall by scoping out the right spot…

-this post originally published by Bruce Bratton at BrattonOnline.com

Never Cry Wolf? A Situation of Subservience

Whenever I wonder why more people aren’t protesting, I think of debt. We owe, we owe, so off to work we go. The income gap widens with constant reminders of homelessness and sick friends/relatives reminding us of the fragility of our lives and the expenses of medical care. Workplaces warn us that we represent The Corporation, even when we speak out as citizens. It is news and some laugh when a Jan 6^th protester gets fired because of their illegal actions, but the same holds true for lesser, legal protests on the other side of the political spectrum. Most people find they can no longer afford to protest. The wolf is in the house…and no one is saying anything!

Submit, Move

Even if you aren’t protesting, if you are a federal employee, your work is subject to political whims.

I was working with some brilliant grants officers with the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) just before the last president was elected from the Republican side of the aisle. These employees had good experience navigating the complex Washington DC bureaucracy to help disperse and manage federal funding for the most competitive proposals. Republicans ordered that their USDA office move from DC to Kansas City, and all of those grants officers left, retiring early or finding other jobs. They couldn’t leave their communities, their homes, or their histories behind.

Similarly, but with Democrats at the helm, someone, for some reason, ordered our regional Bureau of Land Management office to move from Hollister to Marina. This put the main office many more miles distant from most of the land their staff managed and, if a BLM employee wanted to stay with the agency, now they had to move or commute a long distance to work.

You can speculate about why those administrations moved the agency offices. We are lucky to have a US Government Accountability Office report showing that the rationale for the USDA move was ludicrous, and so was clearly politically motivated. We don’t have any such study about the Central Coast BLM office, but I’m guessing that it was similarly politically motivated…but why?

Shut Up or Move!

Politically motivated office moving isn’t the only way a public employee might be ordered to pack their bags for a new location or leave. State and Federal public employees working for organizations like State and Federal Parks, the Bureau of Land Management, and State and Federal Wildlife agencies are very shy about saying anything substantive at all about their work. Saying the wrong thing to the wrong person can get you transferred to an unpleasant area doing unpleasant work.

You have to understand that in order to disentangle anything one of those employees says on record.

Puzzling Quotes

I want to present a couple of puzzling quotes from the media from some State and Federal employees working on issues crucial to conservation in California. Two things to keep in mind: 1) democracy depends on an informed citizenry, and a free press is key to that; 2) reporters sometimes get quotes wrong or use them out of context.

State Wildlife Agency Speaks

The first quote is verbatim from a recording from KCBS 740 a.m. from 6/2/2023; you can listen to it here. The story was on the remarkable documentation of one of the state’s most endangered wildlife species, a wolverine. The reporter, Holly Quan, asked how the State is monitoring the wolverine population, and this is the reply from California Department of Fish and Wildlife’s (CDFW’s) David Gammons:

“That’s the $10 million question right there. It’s a pretty difficult thing to do. Estimating the number of any wild animal is a difficult thing to do whether it’s a mule deer where there is a lot of them or something like a wolverine that’s a very rare species.”

The wolverine is protected under California’s Endangered Species Act. CDFW’s mission is to “manage California’s diverse fish, wildlife, and plant resources, and the habitats upon which they depend, for their ecological values and their use and enjoyment by the public.” CDFW has a long history of underfunded monitoring programs and too few well-trained wildlife biologists to adequately manage the State’s increasingly dwindling wildlife. Mr. Gammons not only did not answer the reporter’s question, but also failed to help the public to understand how woefully inadequate the funding is for his agency to do its job. Shame on Ms. Quan for not following up to get a better answer from him.

Federal BLM Talking

Here’s another puzzling paraphrase and quote. This is from a Lookout Santa Cruz article published on 5/30/2023 by Christopher Neely. Mr. Neely asked Zachary Ormsby, BLM’s Central Coast Field Manager, about how he plans to move forward with controversial management dilemmas, including poor access planning and, given expected high visitor numbers, a lack of a science-based approach for wildlife conservation at Cotoni Coast Dairies.

Neely paraphrases the beginning of Ormsby’s answer here:

“The federal government will consider public comment and sentiment on the plan and alternatives, but BLM has the power to unilaterally decide the path forward, Ormsby says. Ormsby says a parking lot is not guaranteed or required before BLM opens the land to the broader public.”

And this is a direct quote:

“My perspective is that we’ll come up with a plan and list of options that will allow this community to move forward with confidence and comfort without filing any more appeals,” Ormsby said. “The common element among all the groups is that we love this land. The only thing we’re trying to reconcile is that we all love it collectively.”

Huh? What Did BLM say??

The paraphrased part seems like a quote from BLM’s legal counsel, basically “We can do anything we want.” The second part is more puzzling. It says a lot that he starts with ‘my perspective,’ which gives him an out for potentially not representing BLM. That last bit about ‘love’ is impossible to disentangle- enjoy trying!

Cotoni Coast Dairies is protected as a part of a National Monument as well as being part of the National Conservation Lands network. Both designations come with a regulatory framework that provides strong protections for the primary purpose of these lands: conservation. The land in question lacks the requisite science plan, which should work in tandem with a management plan, allowing management to adapt approaches to protect wildlife from the impacts of public visitation. There are no (ZERO) staff assigned to the property. There is ample evidence that the current, overstretched staff cannot adequately manage the property, even without public use.

As with the prior CDFW example, BLM’s Mr. Ormsby lost an opportunity to stress the importance of more staffing and more funding to adequately protect the property. Instead, he intoned that it would be just fine to allow the public to access the property without those resources. His dodginess isn’t unique: it would seem that there are unwritten dodginess policies coming from at least as high as the BLM California’s state director, Trump-era appointee Karen Mouritsen. All planning documents for Cotoni Coast Dairies have been reviewed at her level and none reference key conservation policies providing National Monument or National Conservation Lands protections or other policy protections for sensitive wildlife and plants. That is considerable politics, amazing with its official subservience to even prior administrations. That’s how far this culture of fear reaches.

The Dilemma of Submission

History reflects poorly on those saying anything like “I was just doing my job.” State and Federal conservation personnel have access to great power, but they walk a tight rope with the political nature of their jobs. If either Mr. Gammons or Mr. Ormsby suggest that their agencies aren’t able to execute their mandates, there might be reprisal. On the other hand, I’m sure that both of these individuals have good intentions and want to be on the side of wildlife conservation. What can they do?

There are outside organizations that can help, but are they doing enough? I’m very impressed with the work of the nonprofit organization Forest Service Employees for Environmental Ethics. BLM has a similar organization, but one that seems a lot less functional, the Public Lands Foundation for American Heritage. CDFW’s Mr. Gammons unfortunately has nowhere similar to turn, but there are two nonprofits left that are pointed primarily to wildlife conservation in California.

Other Avenues

Defenders of Wildlife and The Wildlife Society are two organizations that might help speak out for the heartfelt concerns of public wildlife conservation employees like Mr. Gammons and Mr. Ormsby. I’m sure that many public employees who support conservation are members of these organizations. You might consider supporting them, too! If you have to choose, I suggest you support Defenders of Wildlife. At least the local chapter of the Wildlife Society has proven much more dysfunctional in my experience, refusing to advocate for what is a mandated, routine update of California BLM’s sensitive wildlife list, whereas Defenders of Wildlife has an excellent track record of tangible wildlife conservation outcomes in California.

-this column originally appeared in Bruce Bratton’s BrattonOnline.com weekly blog

Bluebird Chicks

Baby bird begging is almost as beguiling as human baby crying. Heads turn to see what the fuss is about. Perched near the nest, the mother holds her wings out just a bit, anxiously glancing around. I haven’t seen any fledglings, but the earliest squeakers must be close to getting out of their nests. At least two bluebird nest boxes have clutches going. There are other species of baby bird noises from nearby shrubs, from holes in cabin walls, from tree hole cavities, from anywhere there might be enough cover. The lush productive spring promises well-fed big baby birds. Next door, the jays have already been at their nasty deeds, tearing apart barn swallow nests to eat eggs for breakfast.

Orange crowned warblers! I’ve been using the Merlin bird call recognition software on my iPhone, and it has been teaching me better bird identification. I didn’t know warbler calls before using this tool, but now I can recognize orange crowned warblers, which are suddenly (for me) everywhere I hike through the forest. Some focused time recently netted several warblers, all nearby: Wilsons, orange-crowned, black throated gray, MacGilvery’s, and yellow. Most of these were close by, from the sound of them, but nearly invisible. They seemed to like darting around just under the canopy of the acres and acres of 4 foot tall, post fire California lilac. Imagine, a sea of glossy green-leaved shrubs with flashes of yellow birds and a constant sweet warbler song.

Navel orange flowers produce an amazing scent on Molino Creek Farm’s fabulous Citrus Hill

Sweetness in Scent

Song can be sweet, but so can scent. Molino Creek Farm’s citrus orchard has never had so many blossoms. It is peak citrus blossom time, especially with oranges and their particularly alluring scent. It is dizzying many yards downwind. Closer up, the pure white of their simple flowers is beautiful to look at. This flowering is brief. Soon there will be tiny dark green fruit that will get larger by the week and then slowly turn colorful. The harvest is mostly 9 months away, but still we glean the last few limes, lemons, and tangerines. As the flowers fade and the fruit forms, a new flush of leaves will create thick, sheltering canopies of glossy dark green. We put yoghurt containers of feather meal into the drip lines of the citrus orchard more than a month ago, and it seems to be helping with the generous leafing.

Farm Work

Molino Creek Farm and Two Dog have been planting many plants, and now attention turns to hoes. The last rains spur more weed germination in the dry farmed fields. In the irrigated rows, a massive weed flush threatens to overwhelm the crops. The hoeing race is on!

Molino Creek Farm’s famous dry farmed tomatoes are starting a new season in freshly tilled soil

We are irrigating again: a routine that will last until November. Up early to check the water tank level, turn on irrigation valves, hike around the orchard to see if any irrigation is amiss, fix a leak or two and go home. Lunch time (or later!)- repeat in reverse: turn off the irrigation valves, log the water use, check the storage tanks, and head home again. Big cyclical walks around the farm keep creating material for this writing project.

Half the first round of hay raking is done. Mulch for the orchard gets clipped by a sickle bar mower, then sundried (hah!), then raked, then pitchforked onto the mulch cart, hauled to The Trees, and spread around the rootzone thicker than anyone wants to place it. Really? This thick?! This is the third spring since the fire burned up all the mulch. This will be the last year that weeds come up so thick around the trees. The mulch is thick enough now to subdue seedling weeds. There are also mulch benefits of water retention, slow-release fertilizer, root cooling insulation, and wildlife (vole, lizard, snake) habitat. Long live mulch! Mulch is the key to life!! Under the mulch, worms wiggle and scoot, creating a carpet of 2” deep “castings.”

On our carefully stewarded hillsides, a menagerie of native grasses and wildflowers: Elymus glaucus (blue wild rye), lupines and other things…

-this post also placed at Molino Creek Farm’s website.