An Academic Resource of the Claremont Colleges
Posted in News, Sightings, Web Updates on Nov 22nd, 2010
In the fall most of the BFS is brown and sere until the rains come, but a few species of plants bloom profusely at this seemingly inauspicious time. One of these is Pine-Bush, Ericameria pinifolia – the shrubs with bright yellow flowers dotting the landscape now. A few weeks ago Harsi Parker and I spotted […]
Posted in News on Nov 1st, 2010
The Fall issue of the Pomona College Magazine has a nice article on Prof. Jonathan Wright and the BFS Invert list. Here’s one quote from the article: Getting an accurate assessment of the coastal sage scrub biodiversity, Wright says, is essential to studying the impact of global warming, the impacts of introduced species and the […]
Posted in News, Sightings, Web Updates on Oct 7th, 2010
In an earlier post reporting addition of nearly 100 new taxa to the BFS Invertebrate List, I mentioned that we’d feature some of them in future posts. Well, that number is now well over 100, but here’s a run-down on one group of new additions — butterflies… So far in 2010 we’ve added nine new […]
Posted in News, Sightings, Web Updates on Oct 6th, 2010
We have another new addition to the BFS Bird List – the Spotted Sandpiper, Actitis macularia, which was spotted at pHake Lake on September 25. It’s perhaps a little surprising that they haven’t been spotted at the BFS before. They’re the most widespread breeding sandpiper in North America, and in this area they’re common in […]
Posted in News, Sightings, Web Updates on Sep 25th, 2010
We have a new addition to the BFS Bird List – the Rock Wren, Salpinctes obsoletus. Cathy McFadden and Paul Clarke spotted a Rock Wren in the main east-west road between the lake road and the Botanic Garden greenhouses, but when they tried to capture it on video, it flew into the brush north of […]
Posted in News on Jul 27th, 2010
Imagine if you… could take 100 strides in a single second! could run the length 2 football fields in just 1 second! ran your fastest at 120°F! Then if you scaled yourself down to the size of a pinhead you might be able to compete with the… …whose amazing performance is reported in a recent […]
Posted in News, Sightings, Web Updates on Jul 21st, 2010
We have four new additions to the BFS plant list. First is Climbing Milkweed, Sarcostemma cynanchoides ssp. hartwegii: Sue Schenk spotted this native twining perennial in the East Field. S. cynanchoides ssp. hartwegii is a host plant for the Queen Butterfly (Danaus gilippus). As you might guess from its habit, S. cynanchoides ssp. hartwegii can […]
Posted in News on Jul 21st, 2010
I hope everyone caught this year’s amazing bloom of Delphinum cardinale. We have three patches of D. cardinale at the BFS — one north of the toad pool, one in the lower part of the neck, and one in the meadow at the bottom of the wash, where these photos were taken: These plants were […]
Posted in News, Sightings, Web Updates on Jun 17th, 2010
Although I normally write a news post for any new additions to the BFS Biota Lists, your busy arthropod researchers – primarily Hartmut Wisch, Harsi Parker, and Jonathan Wright – have gotten ahead of me! Since March we have documented nearly 100 new taxa for the BFS Invertebrate List and added many new photos. Over […]
While on a photography expedition last Saturday, Jonathan Wright, Harsi Parker, and I spotted a Red Admiral, Vanessa atalanta, flitting by a Holly-leafed Cherry (Prunus ilicifolia) in full bloom on the south shore of pHake Lake. Just as I was getting the butterfly in focus, something lunged out of shrub at the butterfly — a […]