Photos: Oak Woodland (Sedgwick Reserve)

Here is a slideshow with photos from our third field trip to the Oak Woodlands at Sedgwick Reserve.

Sedgwick Reserve notes

Things I wrote down in my notebook:

• Sedgwick Reserve was the ranch of "Duke" Sedgwick, Edie Sedgwick's father.
• Valley Oaks can live to hundreds of years old, but humans have cut many of them down because people like to live in valleys too.
  
• Mistletoe is a hemiparasite with sticky seeds that are probably transported by birds.
• Serpentine is a slightly toxic green rock; certain plants grow on it that don't tend to live elsewhere.
  
• Most grasses here are non-native, except for some bunchgrass. The native grasses only really still rule the places with poor soil.
  
• This habitat is mostly very old trees and annual undergrowth.
  
• The organic lavender farm on the way to the reserve belongs to a former gossip columnist.
  
• The cows on the nearby ranches and ranchettes look like Oreos.
  
• This giant tree probably belongs to a related group of acorn woodpeckers that returns to it every year.
  

Sedgwick Reserve

To learn about grassland and oak woodland communities we visited Sedgwick Reserve – one of the gems in the University of California’s Natural Reserve System. The NRS is truly remarkable. Established as a network of protected sites that would broadly represent California's rich ecological diversity, the system now includes a total of 36 reserves that encompass approximately 130,000 acres of protected natural land available for university-level instruction, research, and public outreach. It is the largest university-operated system of natural reserves in the world. The people who initially conceived of this system, and work to maintain it are visionaries and heroes in my opinion!

Back to Sedgwick… this is one of, if not THE largest of the reserves in the NRS and is right in our “backyard”. This nearly 6000 acre former ranch is located at the base of Figueroa Mountain in the Santa Ynez Valley in the center of our county. The reserve is diverse in its environmental conditions (large elevational gradient, distinctive geologic formations, two distinct watersheds) and vegetation types, which include coast live oak forest, blue oak woodland, valley oak savannah, buckbrush chaparral, coastal sage scrub, grassland, willow riparian forest, and agricultural lands. The natural communities we focused on were grassland and oak woodland.
Your book, “An Island Called California”, has two very nice and relevant chapters – “California’s Kansas”, and “Woodpeckers in Oak Trees”.

Two more reading suggestions (I love these books and refer to them often in my own work):
Oaks of California, by Bruce Pavlik, Pamela Muick, Sharon Johnson, and Marjorie Popper

The Life of an Oak, by Glenn Keator

Two of the epiphytes we saw, especially on valley oaks (Quercus lobata), function quite differently in relation to the tree they’re found on. The first was mistletoe (Phoradendron villosum), the hemiparasite that derives all its water and mineral nutrients from the host tree. The second was lace lichen (Ramalina menziesii), which most likely does no harm to the tree itself, and in fact provides its host/the oak with wind-borne nutrients that are captured, run off the lichen when it rains, and are deposited in the soil below the tree canopy.

Check out these nice descriptions of lace lichen and oak mistletoe on the UC Hastings Reserve website. (Hastings is yet another gem in the NRS system!)

Thanks to Josh and Britta for the nice photos from our trip.

Map to our field trip site:

Photos: Harbor Seal Rookery (Carpinteria Bluffs)

Here is a slideshow with photos from our second field trip to the Harbor Seal Rookery at the Carpinteria Bluffs.

Carpinteria Bluffs

Our field trip in week 2 was to the Carpinteria Bluffs – a 52 acre coastal property with great views of the Santa Ynez mountains, the ocean and the Channel Islands.

Local residents, with help from the Santa Barbara Land Trust, worked to purchase this property and maintain it as open and undeveloped space. The history of this preservation effort is described in this site for the SB Land Trust, and this one for the Citizens for the Carpinteria Bluffs. We are all fortunate to have access to this now-public site thanks to their determination, vision, and hard work!

Though much of the vegetation we saw was non-native, there is active restoration of native coastal scrub species at the site (we saw California sagebrush, coyote bush, California bush sunflower, purple needle grass, and others). The dominant grass we saw was the pretty, but invasive, veldt grass, introduced from S. Africa. We enjoyed the shade walking along the long row of tall eucalyptus trees. Here, and previously, we discussed the introduction of eucalyptus from Australia and Tasmania to California in the mid 1800’s.

One of the special aspects of this site is the harbor seal rookery east of the Casitas pier and visible from the bluffs. Though it’s not uncommon to see a lone harbor seal in the nearshore waters or even groups of them hauled out on local secluded beaches, this is one of only a few sites along the southern California coast where the seals come to give birth to their pups.

The beach is closed 750 feet on either side of the rookery from December through May, so that disturbance is minimizing during the season when pups are born and weaned. From the excellent viewing location on the bluff above the rookery we were able to see a few small harbor seal pups in addition to the many adult and juvenile seals lounging on the beach and rocks. When you come back on your own, if you want to see the pups when they’re first born, come a little earlier in the year, like February or March. As was the case when we were there, generally a member of Seal Watch is there, and he or she will be happy to answer questions or fill you in on the latest activities happening at the site.

Here are a few links to sites with information about harbor seals, Phoca vitulina. (The lovely photo is from wikipedia – photo credit Marcel Burkhard)

from Venoco (the oil co. next door...)

from the Marine Mammal Center

By the way, do you know the poem Rudyard Kipling wrote about seals? Perhaps next time you come to this site, you’ll want to bring it with you…

Seal Lullaby

By Rudyard Kipling

Oh! hush thee, my baby, the night is behind us
And black are the waters that sparkled so green.
The moon, O'er the combers, looks downward to find us
At rest in the hollows that rustle between.
Where billow meets billow, there soft by the pillow.
Oh, weary wee flipperling, curl at thy ease!
The storm shall not wake thee, no shark shall overtake theeAsleep in the storm of slow-swinging seas.

map to our field trip site

Photos: Chaparral (Santa Ynez Mountains)

Here is a slideshow with photos from our first field trip to the Chaparral Community at the Santa Ynez Mountains.

Chaparral

Our first field trip took us to the natural community that dominates our region – the chaparral. This dense shrubland is mainly comprised of evergreen thick-leaved shrubs. The word chaparral originates from the Spanish “chaparro”, meaning place of scrub oak, which in Spain forms a similarly dense form of vegetation. Chaparral is generally found on steep slopes. This combination of dense vegetation and steep slopes means that most mature chaparral stands are tough to get through, which is why we took advantage of the fire road to get a look at this community.

In addition to soils that are relatively nutrient poor, the main challenges facing the plant species in chaparral are summer drought stress and persistence with fire.

We saw species that have thick or tough evergreen leaves that help the plant resist drying out. These included the often dominant shrub, chamise (or greasewood) – Adenostoma fasiculatum with its bundles of tough needle-like leaves. We also saw two species of flowering California lilac, Ceanothus megacarpus, and C. spinosus, as well as two species of manzanita – big berry manzanita, Arctostaphylos glauca and Eastwood manzanita, A. glandulosa.

Perhaps more than any other plant community, fire is a key factor structuring the evolution and ecology of plant species found there. We talked about some of the “strategies” various plant species have that allow them to sustain populations in the face of a powerful, seemingly totally destructive force.

We were able to witness some of fire’s force last summer (2007) when more than 240,000 acres of the Santa Barbara backcountry burned in the Zaca Fire. This fire, started by accidental ignition, took nearly two months to put out. It was the county’s largest and the state’s second largest wildfire, at least in recorded history. Ray Ford did a fantastic job covering the Zaca Fire for Santa Barbara, writing for the SB Independent. Here is one of his articles, but you can search the independent.com site for more.

There are some great resources for additional information about the flora and fauna in this fascinating community. I previously mentioned the book by Quinn and Keeley, Introduction to California Chaparral. Another very nice book, which includes discussion of the conflicts faced at this human-wildland interface is Fire, Chaparral, and Survival in Southern California by Richard Halsey.

Richard is the director of the California Chaparral Institute, a research and educational organization focusing on the ecology of California’s shrubland ecosystems and the dynamics of wildland fire in natural and human communities.

Check out Josh’s beautiful photos from our trip.

Map to our field trip site in the Santa Ynez Mountains:

A few good books

Of course the point of this class is to get you away from your books, away from the lecture hall, and into the splendid natural habitats around us. At the same time, a good book is extremely valuable for learning more about the places, plants, and animals you will be visiting. In addition to the book recommended for this class, Elna Baker’s “An Island Called California”, an excellent source of information about the wide variety of natural communities in our state is “A Natural History of California”, by Allan Schoenherr.

There are also nice field guides and natural history guides for specific communities, such as the recently published, “Introduction to California Chaparral” by Ronald Quinn and Sterling Keeley.