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Recap of Wings Over the
Basin 2005
The 4th annual Wings Over the Basin
commenced on Friday afternoon, July 8, 2005, as campers began to arrive
for the weekend. Once again we were fortunate to have special permission
to camp in the picnic loop along Gazos Creek Road, a short walk from
headquarters.
After making introductions and setting up
camp, we wandered over to the campfire center to roast marshmallows,
listen to the "5 M's" entertain us with their merry monarch
music, and watch the children dance like butterflies. The campfire
program started at 8:30 PM with Paul Johnson gathering up the young
"butterflies" from the audience for his Butterfly Dreaming
presentation; he and the children started out as eggs, then turned into
caterpillars, then chrysalis, and finally a butterfly. During his slide
presentation talked about what butterflies eat, and how they find one
another. It was captivating!
Several of us heard Marbled
Murrelets calling out while laying in our tents on Saturday morning;
they were active from 5:20 to 6:10 AM. We gathered at the Opal Creek
picnic area at 7:00 AM to arrange carpools to China Grade Road. Leader
Jim Edgar had an unexpected challenge: dense fog and quiet birds. While
it was sunny and clear in the basin, the fog had not yet lifted in the
chaparral 3-1/2 miles up the hill. Chestnut-backed Chickadees flitted
about, Band-tailed Pigeons flew over several times, a Wrentit sang out,
a Northern Flicker flew from tree to tree, some of us saw a Purple Finch
singing, and we all heard the loud cry of a neighboring Peacock. While
we were sitting at a comfy sandstone vantage point, the fog lifted.
Ahhhh, what beautiful views of the distant Pacific Ocean!
Quite a group assembled at 12:30 for Paul
Johnson's Butterfly Hike to Slippery Rock. We immediately saw California
Sister butterflies: dark with a white "V" and bright orange
patches near their corners. Paul talked about butterfly behavior along
the hike, though en route we stopped to see other distractions: an
albino redwood branch, scenic Sempervirens Falls, a Sharp-tailed Snake
that had unfortunately been run over, Pygmy Nuthatches (birds) flitting
about a short Douglas Fir, and several dragonfies (Pacific Spiketail,
Flame Skimmer, some sort of blue Darner). We had good views of Acmon
Blue butterflies (blue with orange trim) and a Skipper sitting on Coyote
Mint. The highlight was watching several Golden Hairstreak butterflies
flitting about and chasing a California Sister above the Canyon Oak
trees as we crossed Highway 236 -- what excitement!
We made it back to camp around 5 PM, just
in time to get ready for the much-awaited potluck. With lots of helpers
pitting and juicing, and Jerry's fancy new grill, I made
Margarita-filled Grilled Avocados for appetizers. The potluck buffet was
bountiful, with scrumptious salads, decadent desserts, and more. Hardly
a crumb was left.
Saturday nights campfire gave us an
opportunity to meet Maria Mudd Ruth, author of "Rare Bird: Pursuing
the Mystery of the Marbled Murrelet", and to have our books signed.
Maria had a wonderful Marbled Murrelet video playing on her laptop. The
campfire presentation was about Marbled Murrelets, with talks from Steve
& Stephanie Singer and Maria Mudd Ruth. Steve and Stephanie were
involved with the discovery of the first Marbled Murrelet nest found in
North America, here at Big Basin, in 1974, so watching the slides and
hearing their talk was special.
At 5 AM Sunday morning there were 26
people standing in the headquarters parking lot looking towards the dark
sky. David Suddjian and Maria Mudd Ruth talked about the Marbled
Murrelet as we listened for its "kir" cries. We heard several
Marbled Murrelets (quite exciting!), but it was even more thrilling to
see 3 Marbled Murrelets circle over a little later. The dawn chorus is
always a joy to listen to, and we heard Band-tailed Pigeons, American
Robins, Acorn Woodpeckers, Common Ravens and (surprise!) a
Red-shouldered Hawk. The Marbled Murrelets flew fast and high, with
wings beating rapidly. There were about 15 detections, with (I'm
guessing) 9 or 10 visuals. Everyone got to see a Marbled Murrelet
flying!
After the survey, David Suddjian led the
group over to the Father of the Forest tree on the Redwood Loop. This is
the tree where history was made in 1991 when the first witnessed account
of a Marbled Murrelet chick leaving a tree occurred. David described how
over several weeks a group pinpointed the tree, and then the branch, and
then how they watched the chick through a scope from afar (to get the
right angle to the nest). Wow.
Jan Hintermeister and I led a Redwood
Forest bird walk along Opal Creek to Bloom's Creek. We heard Wilson's
Warbler, Pacific Slope Flycatcher, Band-tailed Pigeon, Brown Creeper,
Winter Wren, Hermit Thrush, Wrentit, and the highlight of the walk was
seeing an American Dipper just below where the 2 creeks meet. Jan set up
the scope he was lugging around, so we had great views through his
scope. What a neat bird!
The Woodpecker Talk began at 10:30 AM in
the Sempervirens Room, with Ruth Troetschler showing incredible slides
that she took of Acorn Woodpeckers. This is an interesting bird with its
communal nesting habits, and after the talk we walked down to a granary
tree -- a Douglas Fir with thousands of holes. Nearby we saw a sap tree
(Tan Bark Oak) where Acorn Woodpeckers drill smaller, irregularly spaced
holes to feed on sap. We heard the Acorn Woodpeckers above and saw them
flying from tree to tree.
As we packed up our camp on Sunday after
lunch we were surrounded by 4 young Acorn Woodpeckers and their parents,
plus a lone Downy Woodpecker, Stellers Jays galore, and Common Ravens
flew over with heavy, loud, ominous-sounding wing flaps.
All in all, it was a beautiful weekend
for Wings Over the Basin, with terrific people coming together to
explore the butterflies and birds in the redwood forest. A special
thanks goes out to all of the leaders, to our sponsors: Wild Bird Center
of Los Gatos and Wild Birds Unlimited of Fremont, to the Mountain Parks
Foundation, to California State Parks, and to Estrella and Jerry Bibbey
for organizing this weekend, and to Estrella's mother Patti for putting
together the wingsoverthebasin website, and to Julie Sidel and the Big
Basin Redwoods State Park staff. This is a weekend put together by
volunteers for the enjoyment of all, and I certainly enjoyed it!
Karen DeMello, docent
Big Basin Redwoods State Park |
Photos by Estrella Bibbey© |
