If you walk along Foothill Blvd to the field station, you may be enjoying the masses of Common Fiddleneck (Amsinckia intermedia) and Distant Phacelia (Phacelia distans) blooming in the parkway, spurred on by the unusually rainy winter. Both Common Fiddleneck and Distant Phacelia are characteristic annuals of California Sage Scrub – a native plant community […]
Category Archive for 'Sightings'
Just in time for the Academy Awards, the Karnovsky Lab has just released this video of the vertebrate stars of the BFS captured by their wildlife cams: Enjoy! For more about the vertebrate monitoring program, check out the PRISSM website.
New additions to the BFS Plant list
Posted in News, Sightings, Web Updates on Jun 18th, 2015
We’ve recently updated the BFS Plant List. Here are the changes: NEW ADDITIONS: Eleven new plants have been added to the list – five natives, four non-natives, and two California native that appear to have been planted – it seems that someone has been seeding the parkway with wildflowers! They new additions are: • Sunflower […]
With threats of rain, fire, and West Nile virus all abated, we took advantage of the fine warm weather to resume cattail management at pHake Lake on November 8. Volunteers worked on the south shore of the lake – a favorite spot for classes and researchers to observe wildlife at the lake and collect lake […]
New additions to the BFS plant list
Posted in News, Sightings, Web Updates on Sep 1st, 2014
Twelve new plants have been added to the BFS plant list. Eight of them were spotted in the area that burned in the Foothill Fire (September 11, 2013); six of these eight had not been seen at the BFS previously (the other two had been seen but not previously identified). The other four additions come […]
Although Band-Tailed Pigeons (Patagioenas fasciata) are comman at the BFS, the familiar Rock Pigeon (Columba livia), which prefers a more urban environment, is only seen sporadically. So when one recently stopped to take a drink at the south shore of pHake Lake, I took the opportunity to photograph it for our photo database. It was […]
Insect update
Posted in News, Sightings, Web Updates on May 17th, 2013
We’ve recently added nine new insects to our BFS invertebrate list – one bug, three flies, two moths, one butterfly, and two bees. Here they are: Bug: A rough stinkbug – Brochymena sp. (Hemiptera:Pentatomidae) Rough stinkbugs, Brochymena sp. occur throughout North America. Rough Stink Bugs are often found on trees, where they are very well-camouflaged […]
Spring at the BFS means that our volunteers return to managing invasive annual weeds, and this past Saturday, the volunteers removed Italian Thistles (Carduus pycnocephalus) from the entry drive and the east side of the ‘Neck’. The thistles are still in their rosette stage, but they have grown large enough to spot easily. The area […]
Last year we spotted the very nasty Sahara Mustard (Brassica tournefortii) in the Foothill Blvd parkway at the BFS. We have been keeping our eyes out for any that might spring up this year, but we almost overlooked them. Instead of being large plants with a typical open bushy appearance, this year’s Sahara Mustard plants […]
Ho, ho, the mistletoe!
Posted in Sightings on Jan 24th, 2013
Ho, ho, the mistletoe hung where you can see… Songs about mistletoe wafting through stores during the holiday shopping season got me wondering about mistletoe at the BFS. This time of year, when the leaves are off the Western Sycamores, you can certainly see that many of the trees are hung with mistletoe. But aside […]