News from the Bernard Field Station

Kerry Knudsen, Curator of Lichens at the University of California Riverside Herbarium, has discovered a new species of lichen at the BFS. The new lichen, Lecanora munzii, grows on dead wood of Chaparral and Coastal Sage Scrub plants, especially California Sagebrush (Artemisia californica). This inconspicuous brown lichen produces an unusual chemical – gyrophoric acid – that is being investigated for its potential to fight bacterial infections, promote wound healing, and treat Type II diabetes.

Lecanora munzii growing on dead wood at the BFS. Photo by Nancy Hamlett.

Close-up view of Lecanora munzii. Photo by James Lendemer, The New York Botanical Garden.

Because L. munzii grows on dead wood, it occurs only in old-growth Chaparral or Coastal Sage Scrub that has not burned frequently, but more frequent fires throughout southern California has made this type of habitat increasingly rare. L. munzii is, however, abundant in old-growth Sage Scrub at the BFS, especially in the ‘Neck’, and the BFS which has been designated as the ‘type locality’. L. munzii has so far been found in only five other sites – all in southern California.

Home of L. munzii — an area at the top of the ‘Neck’ with L. munzii growing on dead wood. Photo by Tad Beckman.

L. munzii is named in honor of the great California botanist Philip A. Munz of Rancho Santa Ana Botanic Garden, who was also Professor of Botany and Dean at Pomona College. Munz wrote A Flora of Southern California, which introduced Kerry to the beauty and value of taxonomic description
and inspired his love of California’s biodiversity.

Kerry Knudsen collecting a voucher specimen of L. munzii.

The description of the new species is published in the December 8th issue of Opuscula Philolichenum:

• K. Knudsen and J. C. Lendemer. 2009. Two new species of Lecanora with gyrophoric acid from North America. Opuscula Philolichenum 7: 21-28. http://sweetgum.nybg.org/webmedia.php?irn=282436 [pdf]

You can see more photos of Lecanora munzii on its BFS biota page.

We have a new addition to the BFS Bird List! On Saturday, November 14, and Monday, November 16, a Virginia Rail (Rallus limicola) was seen among the cattails on the south side of pHake Lake. This small, chicken-like shore bird frequents freshwater marshes, where it most often remains hidden in dense vegetation. In spite of its name, the Virginia Rail is common in California, although destruction of marshes has reduced its numbers. Virginia Rails migrate through this area at this time of year.

Thanks to Nell Baldwin of the Pomona Vertebrate Biology class for confirming the identification.

Update: Got a photo on December 19:

Virginia Rail foraging west of the boat ramp at pHake Lake.

An injured Great Blue Heron (Ardea herodias) has apparently taken refuge at the field station lake. Whether this is a past visitor (Cathy McFadden at Harvey Mudd College has sighted one somewhat recently) or a new arrival is unknown. I first noticed it last Friday, October 30th while conducting brush and cattail clearance around one of the lake’s islands. The bird spent the entire day perched on a clump of cattails on the west side of the lake, seemingly taking no heed of the 5 of us rowing back and forth on 3 boats near where it stood. This is unusual behavior for this species when seen at our lake.

On Saturday Nancy Hamlett (Harvey Mudd College) came to snap photos (posted below) and noticed one leg dangling low while the heron was in flight across the lake. Fortunately, flight has not been impaired, so no wing damage. It is able to fish along the small islands’ shorelines and then return to tall cattail clump, where it is safe from coyotes or other predators.

The bird has continued this pattern through today, Wednesday, November 4th. The BFS lake may be just what this heron needs to acclimate to its injury.

The first three photos, taken by Prof. Hamlett, show the heron on its perch and feeding from the island shoreline. The fourth shot was contributed by Yvonne Garcia. The remote cam happened to be on the shoreline in an attempt to capture Western Pond Turtles. Instead, the heron landed right in front of it and provides some close up video action of both feeding and taking flight. On the latter video, the injured leg joint is clearly seen.

Please respect this heron and its current condition.

I previously posted several photos of a California ground squirrel (Otospermophilus beecheyi) interacting with one of our ground-based remote cameras. The two photos below show a California thrasher (Toxostoma redivivum) exhibiting the same curiosity. Perhaps it is the shape of the camera or minor light reflection off the lens glass (actually plastic). The “Wildview” cameras are silent during operation and do not flash during the daylight hours.

The video shows two raccoons (Procyon lotor) on one of the islands of Phlake also interacting with the camera. The model is the Cuddeback “No Flash”, which takes a single still frame shot followed by a video capture. At night, the camera’s infrared “flash” is operational. The flash window is approximately 3 inches long by 1.5 inches high and consists of an array of red LED’s. When taking a video the array flashes rapidly, perhaps one flash per “frame” taken. While this is far less shocking than a typical photo flash, it is noticeable. The raccoons are clearly interested, maybe even a bit perturbed by it. Stick with the entire 45 seconds as the first raccoon approaches the camera, goes behind it, jostles it and comes back around, moving on to business. Another comes over the top and seems to be surprised by the flashing array. To us, the array flashes red, what the raccoons see may be just a pulsing white light. Raccoons have excellent night vision, but have no color capability (monochromatic).

You can view the video embeds in full screen by clicking on the icon on the bottom of the screen, second from the right.

Our hidden trail camera captures a Great Egret (Ardea alba) fishing off one of the islands in pHake Lake.

We have a new addition to the BFS Bird List! On Sunday, October 25, a Sage Thrasher (Orescoptes montanus) was seen hopping down the road on the eastern side of pHake Lake (photo below).

Sage Thrasher at the BFS

The Sage Thrasher is the smallest thrasher. It has a brownish-gray back, prominent dark streaking on white underparts, thin white wingbars, white tips on the corners of the tail, and a short (for a thrasher) straight bill. It often adopts an upright posture as seen the photo, and will frequently run instead of fly if disturbed. The Sage Thrasher is mostly found in the western US (but mostly east of California) in Artemisia-dominated valleys and plains. It is a rare migrant in the LA Basin. The nearest sighting to the BFS reported in eBird is from October 17, 2008, at the Santa Fe Dam Recreation Area.

You can see more photos of the Sage Thrasher in our photos database.

The BFS plant list has been updated.

The update includes taxonomic changes, additions and deletions of taxa, new photos and links to specimens at the Rancho Santa Ana and UC Riverside herbaria.

As with all flora and fauna lists, expect additional modifications in the future. Some families need to be revisited and expanded or refined. Among those would be some usual suspects (Poaceae, Asteraceae, Brassicaceae, Boraginaceae) as well as Juncaceae, Cyperaceae and Onagraceae.

Many new photos have been databased but are not yet linked to the list. You can access these by clicking “Photos” on the home page. This will take you to a searchable database of photos for both flora and fauna at BFS. The regular species lists are reached by clicking “Biota” on the home page.

The BFS website now has an embedded feed from this blog, so new posts will now automatically appear on the BFS Home Page (www.bfs.claremont.edu).

Another fire week is upon us and it didn’t take long for breakouts near Fillmore and another in Norco.  The NOAA has now extended the time frame for triple digit temps and single digit humidities from Tuesday-Thursday to Tuesday-Sunday.  Surely more fires will be set in the next few days, hopefully not anywhere near BFS.   Yes, set.  A 13 year old male from El Monte was arrested for arson in the Azusa/Highway 39 fire from a few weeks ago.  It burned 5 square miles and was followed within a days by the historic and giant Station fire which has burned 215 square miles — mind blowing.  It too was arson and no one has been arrested.

I took photographs from BFS for several days of the Station Fire, and even from this distance they showed the immensity of the event.  In none of the photos below is there a single “cloud”, it is all fire weather and smoke.

Update 27 September: The Station Fire is now at Day 33, and it’s still not quite out (98% contained). I’ve added a couple of additional photos to Stephen’s. –NVH

Dawn, Day 5, August 30 – smoke from the Station Fire over the East Field. Photo by Nancy Hamlett.

Day 5, August 30 – Pyrocumulus cloud from the Station Fire seen from the BFS

Evening, Day 5, August 30 – Station Fire

Day 6, August 31 – Station Fire from BFS

Afternoon, Day 7, September 1 – Station Fire, over BFS

Sunset, Day 7, September 1 – Station Fire from BFS

Sunset, Day 7, September 1 – Station Fire, from BFS

Day 25, September 19 – a water-dropping heli-tanker flies over the BFS on the way to the Station Fire. Photo by Nancy Hamlett.

On Saturday, September 19, additional water-dropping helicopters were called in to put out hot spots in advance of “Furnace Week”. This particular helicopter, #720, is a Sikorsky Skycrane stationed in San Bernardino. The helicopters, which are equipped with heat-sensing infrared technology, are invaluable for sensing and putting out hot spots in rugged, inaccessible terrain.

I have previously posted various photographs by an inexpensive “trail cam” made by Wildview (one “bubba cam” and one “Xtreme 2″).   The Xtreme model replaced the earlier bubba cam.  The price of $80 remains the same, but one can disable the flash on the newer model.   These cameras operate on infrared heat sensing to activate a series of 3 photos taken 2 seconds apart.   While they certainly do a job at a low cost, the sensitivity is somewhat low, there is no video capability and the extremely bright flash would tend to scare off subjects at night.   Placing the camera on ground level overcame the low sensitivity as the mass of an animal was much greater from the low angle.

After several hours of internet searches and review reading, I purchased a Cuddeback N0Flash model for about $325.  This one takes digital videos of between 10 and 60 seconds, color in the day and infrared lighting at night (hence, the “NoFlash” designation).  It takes a single digital still upon tripping and then the video.  The infrared “flash” does not frighten wildlife and really aids in capturing action.  The camera is much more sensitive as well and photos have significantly better resolution, though this is far from a high-grade digital SLR type camera.  Lighting determines whether the recording has true color and/or too much contrast.

Using a combination of several inexpensive “bubba cams” and one higher quality video-capable unit has worked nicely as a documentary tool for wildlife activity at BFS.

It comes as no surprise to people familiar with BFS that the place supports quite a few coyotes.  What the cameras have revealed is just how prevalent they are throughout the field station and at all times of day and night.   It is not all that common to see them during daylight hours, especially mid-day, yet the cameras have clearly recorded them moving about at the human lunch hour.  The Cuddeback has made some fascinating videos (see the blog post linking vid captures uploaded onto YouTube) showing groups of coyotes moving and playing together at night on the eastern sections of BFS.   The cameras have also grabbed shots of a bobcat and her two cubs, rabbits, squirrels, thrashers and raccoons.  Reports of fox sightings by students last year have yet to be confirmed with photographic evidence, however.

Don’t be surprised if you run across these cameras placed along trails or roadways and kindly leave them untouched.  Oh, by the way, they also snap photos of people, a few of whom weren’t supposed to be here!

Wildview bubba cam shot by BFS lake

Coyote at Abilene Way (NW BFS) "Bubba Cam"

Coyote along western BFS border (Xtreme 2)

Bobcat with cubs, south-central BFS (bubba cam)

BFS landscape near RSA (Cuddeback NoFlash)

Coyote at dawn, eastern neck BFS (Cuddeback No Flash)

Coyote along western border fence at BFS (Cuddeback)

As can be seen,  the Cuddeback does taken a sharper image.   I will be posting additional photos in the near future.