An Oriole Takes a Bath

When we were on vacation in New York in May, we drove out to the easternmost tip of Long Island, to Montauk Point.  We were hoping to get a picture of a Montauk Monster for this blog, but alas, none were to be seen. We took a long, meandering drive through the burgeoning vineyard country out in western Suffolk County, in farm land that has managed to hold on against the tide of suburban sprawl.

Out at The End, as Montauk is known, we got these pictures of Baltimore orioles (Icterus galbula), one taking a bath in a mud puddle, the other watching from an awkward perch on a thicket of dead vines.

The orioles are impressive birds with their bright orange coloring and a pretty song that reminds me of a meadow lark  or red-winged blackbird.  There are no orioles in California so they are a special treat for us.

Locals say they are not common on most of Long Island, but they are commonly seen in apple and other fruit orchards in upstate New York.  They eat bugs, not fruit, so they are welcomed by the farmers.

Perhaps this pair was on a migratory trip down south and just stopping by a favorite tourist destination.

The Spotted Towhees Eggs Hatched

They've hatched!

I went down the path in our backyard  yesterday to pick up the trail camera so we could move it to a new location.  As I approached the brush with the spotted towhee nest we wrote about two weeks ago, I couldn't resist taking a quick peek to see if the eggs were still there, or if they had hatched.  I pulled back the brush just enough to see 4 little birds with mouths wider than their heads, as still as statues and starring back up at me.

I let the brush settle back in place and quickly scurried off to retrieve the trail camera.  I was ecstatic. We had not scared off the mother bird as we had feared a couple of weeks ago.  She had returned to the nest and continued to incubate the eggs.  Not only did she finish incubating, but these little guys look very well fed, and perhaps almost ready to fledge.  Another generation of critters for our neighborhood.

This is how the nest looked 18 days earlier.

Since they look so healthy, and since it appears the mother cannot be scared off that easily,  I decided to take another photo for this blog. I got my camera ready, and as I went back up the path, I stopped for a moment, pulled back the brush again and took a couple of quick pictures. The best ones are  here.

We can't wait to see the babies take flight and, hopefully, make their way up to our bird feeder. To be continued....

The Soap Plant, Mother Nature's Bodega

Soap Plant Flowers

Among the many native flora populating our yard and the neighboring open space parks, one caught our eye soon after we moved here, with its broad floppy leaves that grow in bunches and thick bulb with a mass of fine fibrous roots. There are a dozen of these 'soap plants' or 'soap lilies' (Chlorogalum pomeridianum) in our yard, and we even transplanted one into our flower garden. They are indigenous to the Bay Area and apparently have a variety of uses, according to the many citations on the internet. Native Americans in the region--probably the Miwok and other tribes--used them for soap, thus their common name, but also for food and so many other uses, it seems they are an entire general store in one species.

Soap Plant Leaves

One thing I don't understand is how something that works well as soap, could also be edible.  These two properties seem diametrically opposite.  Most good cleaning products are very poisonous and taste awful.  And conversely, I can't think of a single food that doesn't just make things dirty in the preparation and eating of it. Anybody who has washed dishes, or has kids knows this very well.

Soap plant root fibers.  These look like they would make a good brush

The other uses attributed to this plant on 'Wayne's Word Online Textbook of Natural History' are so numerous as to be questionable: brushes for sweeping flour, poultices for sores, cure for rheumatic cramps, glue for arrow feathers, goo for waterproofing baskets, ink for tattoos, and a poison used to kill fish so they can be scooped up for food.  He does list references, so someone could followup and see if these are all true or just someone's imaginings. Or, better yet, we could harvest a few of these plants and test out these uses.  Maybe I will see if it makes a good soap the next time I take a shower.

Mosquito Eaters, aka Crane flies

Crane fly on the patio door

Every spring we get a minor invasion of these critters.  They look like giant mosquitoes.  I remember the first time I saw one, I was just a kid and I was terrified.  I thought it was going to suck every last drop of blood out of me, but the older kids just laughed and said, "It's not a mosquito. It's a mosquito eater! They're good".

Crane fly close up

It wasn't until years later that I learned they're really called crane flies and they don't eat mosquitoes. They do not bite and they do not suck blood. They are harmless.  In fact, they don't eat much at all as adults.  The larvae, which do eat plants, especially lawns, are considered a pest.  There are a gazillion different species, some as small as gnats, and a tropical species that has a leg span of 4 inches (100 mm).  This one was hanging out on our patio door.  I took photos of it from inside and out.  Its body is less than an inch long.

Bottom of Crane fly, through the glass door

I read that other people call these 'daddy long legs,' but not us. The bug we call a 'daddy long legs' around here is a true spider, and they commonly get in the house and build a cobweb in the corners of ceiling.  I'll do a post on them one day.


I am not sure the exact species of this crane fly, and it is not easy track it down as there are over 400 species of crane flies living in California, according to a local mosquito control disctrict. They are in the family Tipulidae. 


It appears to be a male, based on the rounded end of it's tail.  Females have a more pointy tail to deposit eggs in the soil. This may be a  Nephrotoma alterna, or a Tipula oropezoides, or Tipula jacobus.

The Antlers are Growing

Reminds me of my drivers license photo

After we got back from our trip to New York, we moved the trail camera (formerly called the game camera) to a tree in back of our property and aimed it at a trail that deer have been using.  There are several spots of matted-down grass along this trail where we think the deer have been taking naps.

It is a lot of fun to look through the photos because the camera has been catching several deer each day. It's a well trafficked path! The better photos from the last couple of weeks are posted here  for your viewing pleasure. The nighttime pics are strange and beautiful, especially when the camera's infrared light reflects in the eyes of an approaching deer, which is visible only as two glowing globes.

Surveying his domain

Notice the antlers on the buck. He is one of two we have seen in the neighborhood recently.  The other buck has a smaller rack.  The velvet is still on the horns, so they are still growing.  Compare these antlers to the those in these older posts (Early April, Mid March) to see how much bigger they are now.

Sometime this summer we hope to get pictures of the velvet coming off, and we will post them if we do.

A doe looks over her shoulder

Doe, a deer, a female deer...

A clutch of Spotted Towhee Eggs

Spotted Towhee nest with a clutch of 4 eggs

A couple of days ago we were walking down the steep trail to the back of our property to change the SD card in the trail camera (formerly known as the game camera).  As we approached the end of the trail, I saw a spotted towhee (Pipilo maculatus) fly out from under a thicket of grass, ferns and monkey flower plants not more than 2 feet from where I had stepped.  We thought it was strange that the bird had stayed in the brush until I got that close, and wondered if she had a nest there.  We looked around a bit and sure enough, there was a nest on the ground cradling 4 dappled eggs.  We quickly left the scene and went on to the trail camera, marveling at our find.

The nest was under this thicket, invisible to all who pass by

Then we noticed our two cats had followed down the trail!  Evidently they did not notice the bird or the nest, and stayed at our side as we lazed in the sun well away from the nest.  Rather than taking the trail back  with the cats following us right past the nest, we herded the cats up a different route to give the nesting bird some peace.

We decided to try to photograph the nest for this blog, so the next day we went back down the trail.  We watched carefully to see if the towhee would fly from the nest as we approached, but we never saw her leave.  We did find the nest again and I took 2 quick photos and quickly left the scene.  Since we didn't see the mama towhee, we are worried we may have scared her off for good the first day we stopped at the nest.

According to the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, the incubation period for towhee eggs is 12-13 days and the nesting period is 10-12 days, so we will take another look at the nest 25 days after we first discovered it, and see if the eggs have hatched and the little birds have flown.

Camels in the Backyard

Yes, camels!  Not in our backyard, but I guess this is somebody's backyard.  I was returning last year from a visit at the newest University of California at Merced, California, driving down a country road just a few miles from the campus, when I looked to my right and saw these camels.  They were standing in a muddy pasture and looking as out of place as a duck in the desert.  Or an igloo in Ecuador.  Or a camel in California!

I had my camera, so I stopped and took these pictures.  One of the camels became very interested in me and came over to the fence that separated us.   Or maybe he is just a ham and wanted me to get some good closeups of his handsome(?) face?

These are the Bactrian camels (Camelus bactrianus) which once roamed wild in Mongolia and the Gobi desert but now are completely domesticated.  There were some feral camels, both Bactrian and Dromedary (with one hump) loose in the American southwest.  They had been imported for use as military vehicles, but the project was terminated in the mid 1800s, and some of the animals escaped or were let loose.  The rest were shipped to a now abandoned Army garrison at Benicia, CA and auctioned to the public.  The feral camels were last seen in 1972 and are presumed to have died out.  A large and thriving population of feral camels live in the Australian outback, and are considered, like rabbits, to be an invasive species there.  

Another local angle: Fossil evidence indicates that camels evolved here in North America, then split into two groups.  One group went south and evolved into llamas, alpacas and vicunas in South America.  The other group went into Asia and evolved into Bactrian and Dromedary camels.  Evidently none stayed here.  Maybe they had a beef with the bison.