Mokka mit Schlag

Directions to UCI Ecological Preserve

2008-12-02T14:32:57Z

I’ve gotten so used to finding pretty much everything with either Wikipedia or Google, that sometimes I’m a little shocked when there’s something I can’t find. On Friday I found myself trying to puzzle out the exact location of the UCI Ecological Preserve, allegedly one of the best sites to find Cactus Wrens in Orange County. It’s also a good picture of just what most of Irvine would look like if it hadn’t been irrigated and suburbanized beyond all recognition.

I was able to establish that the preserve was probably on the main campus, and not a remote site, but nothing I found anywhere said more than that; and I’ve been told that UCI has the second largest campus in the U.S. Only Stanford’s is larger. However after looking at Google Maps satellite pictures, I did manage to narrow it down to only a couple of possible undeveloped locations. And with a little on-site reconnaissance I found it. So here’s how you get there:

If you’re on foot, go out the south end of Aldrich park past the Parkview Classroom Building and along the west edge of Parking Lot 12. Cross East Peltason and enter on the northeast corner of the preserve. (Pedestrians only. No dogs, horses, or mountain bikes, please.) This time of year be ready for mud. All times be ready for cactus. I suggest boots and heavy jeans.

If you’re driving, you’d like to park in Parking Lot 12, but you can’t unless you’re faculty. Instead, turn onto Los Trancos Drive from East Peltason. Park at a small park where Vista Bonita Drive meets Los Trancos, and walk in. Here’s a map:

There you are!

Moth Monday: Just When I Think I’m Out, They Pull Me Back In

2008-12-01T15:38:23Z

I found this leaf mimic moth in my garage a couple of days ago (2008-11-29). On a tree, it would have been practically invisible, but on the white walls of my garage it stuck out like A Thinkpad in an Apple store.

Tentatively, it has been ID’d as 6981 - Prochoerodes forfocaria, though I’m not absolutely certain of that.

Moth Photographers Group
BugGuide
California records of
Prochoerodes forficaria
Notes on the Early Stages of Two California Geometrids by John Adams Comstock (PDF)

Buy Negative Today

2008-11-29T17:08:00Z

As usual today is Buy Nothing Day, in which we reject the notion that shopping is patriotic and endeavor to prove that we are people, not consumers. Usually on the day after Thanksgiving, I attempt (mostly successfully) to spend absolutely nothing, not even subway fare or fast food. But today what if we tried to go one step better? Suppose we actually became a net negative drain for the consumer society? How about today instead of shopping, we returned?

You know you’ve got at least one item sitting on the shelf that needs to go back to the store: the bathing suit that didn’t fit, the gift from Aunt Marge who still thinks your 12, the camera that just flat out doesn’t work. Take some of your free time to gather up the receipts and bring some of this useless flotsam back to its point of origin. Make the cash registers go backwards today.

Tofurkey

2008-11-26T17:01:10Z

My pescetarian spouse surprised me with a Tofurkey last night for an early Thanksgiving. Apparently these things actually exist. I thought it was just a bad sitcom joke. Shockingly , it wasn’t bad. Not a turkey by any means, but more edible than most tofu-based products. The texture was off, but the flavor was plausible: not as good as a real turkey but better than the prepackaged, extruded “turkey breast” a lot of restaurants try to pawn off as fresh turkey. I suspect an excessive amount of wheat gluten and strange chemicals.

Moth Monday: Another Mystery Moth from the Salt Marshes

2008-11-25T02:25:22Z

I’ve run out of identified moths, but I still have a couple of mystery moths left. This one I found in the evening at the Huntington Beach Wetlands and Wildlife Care Center on Pacific Coast Highway last Saturday, November 15:

Anyone recognize it?

I only have one more moth photo left, but there are still a few flying at this late date. maybe I’ll get a few more photos before winter really hits (if it ever does here in SoCal.)

Dragon Preferred Mobile Recorder Model?

2008-11-18T15:33:49Z

Does anyone happen to know exactly which model of the Philips Digital recorder is included with the Dragon Naturally Speaking 10 Preferred Mobile Edition? I can’t seem to find that detail anywhere obvious. Thanks.

I found one Pro version that’s bundled with a Philips 9500, but I’m not sure if they use the same recorder for the Preferred Mobile package or not. I suspect not since the 9500 is about $399 on its own.

Moth Monday: Yellowstriped Armyworm

2008-11-17T15:59:05Z

Today’s subject hasn’t actually graduated to full moth-hood yet, but I’m scraping the bottom of the barrel. This is the caterpillar of the Yellow-striped Armyworm Moth - Hodges#9669 (Spodoptera ornithogalli).

Campus Drive between Bridge and University, Irvine, 2008-09-14

Butterflies and Moths of North America

#450: Thayer’s Gull at Bolsa Chica

2008-11-17T00:45:46Z

Saturday Jon Dunn led about a dozen volunteers from the Huntington Beach Wetlands Conservancy on a field ID trip to Bolsa Chica. Dunn’s a noted expert on California birds in general and gulls in particular, so we found some birds I never would have picked out without him like this first-year Thayer’s Gull:

Notice the skinny, all-black bill, pink legs, dark tail, and dark eye on a coffee-colored, scaly gull that’s the same size as the California Gull in the background. Not so obvious in this poor digiscoped photo (I just held up my camera to the scope eyepiece and prayed) is the white striping along the primaries.

Dunn also picked out another county first for me, three Greater Scaup from a flock of Lesser Scaup, which I would not have felt confident doing. I would havve (and did) notice the Snow Geese on my own (even if I did initially miscall them as Pelicans–after all, large white birds with big black patches on their wings are much more likely to be pelicans around here than geese) but I probably wouldn’t have noticed that two of them were in fact Ross’s Geese. However I did find our first Glaucous-winged Gull, and although I didn’t call it, I at least recognized it as something out of the ordinary.

In three and half hours barely moving from the spit, we found over 50 species including seven gull species:

Heermann’s Gull
Ring-billed Gull
Western Gull
California Gull
Herring Gull
Thayer’s Gull
Glaucous-winged Gull
Snow Goose
Ross’s Goose
Canada Goose
Gadwall
American Wigeon
Mallard
Cinnamon Teal
Northern Pintail
Green-winged Teal
Canvasback
Greater Scaup
Lesser Scaup
Bufflehead
Red-breasted Merganser
Ruddy Duck
Pied-billed Grebe
Horned Grebe
Eared Grebe
Western Grebe
American White Pelican
Brown Pelican
Double-crested Cormorant
American Bittern
Great Blue Heron
Great Egret
Snowy Egret
Reddish Egret
Osprey
Northern Harrier
American Coot
Black-bellied Plover
American Avocet
Greater Yellowlegs
Willet
Lesser Yellowlegs
Long-billed Curlew
Marbled Godwit
Ruddy Turnstone
Red Knot
Western Sandpiper
Least Sandpiper
Dunlin
Short-billed Dowitcher
Long-billed Dowitcher
Caspian Tern
Forster’s Tern
Royal Tern
Rock Pigeon
Mourning Dove
Savannah Sparrow (Belding’s)

Moth Monday: Chytonix divesta

2008-11-10T02:59:06Z

I found a few more moths in my back albums, but if I don’t find some more soon January will be pretty bleak:

Chytonix divesta, Hodges#9559
Shoreline Park, Mountain View, 2008-06-25

This is an owlet moth.

#449 Sage Thrasher

2008-11-09T20:56:11Z

There’s a big difference between “What else could it be?” and “That’s what it is!” When Kelsey Gonzalez spotted a roughly mockingbird-sized grayish bird with a streaked breast and a downward curved bill between Ponds 2 and 3 at San Joaquin this morning, I was really tempted to call it a Sage Thrasher. After all, nothing else even came close. American Pipit, seen earlier in the day, was probably the second best, but the bill was completely wrong for that. In fact, everything else even remotely possible with that streaked a breast had a straight bill, and the bill was the most distinctive feature. Still, Sage Thrasher would be a very unusual bird for that location, and one thing stood in the way: according to the field guide, the iris should be yellow, and this bird’s wasn’t. It wasn’t completely dark, but it was what I called a hazel brown.

Thank God for the Web! When I got home, I used Google image search to look for Sage Thrasher photos, and sure enough: even if the field guides don’t mention it, lots of Sage Thrashers have a noticeably hazel brown irises! That clinched it for me: it was a Sage Thrasher, life bird #449 and my 250th bird in California.

Even before the Sage Thrasher, it was a really good morning. I got there early, about 7:00 A.M., and left late. Overall I tallied 60 species including five new BGBY species:

Canada Goose
Gadwall
American Wigeon
Mallard
Cinnamon Teal
Northern Shoveler
Green-winged Teal
Redhead
Ring-necked Duck
Lesser Scaup
Bufflehead
Ruddy Duck
Pied-billed Grebe
Eared Grebe
Western Grebe
American White Pelican
Brown Pelican
Double-crested Cormorant
Great Blue Heron
Great Egret
Snowy Egret
Black-crowned Night-Heron
Turkey Vulture
Osprey
White-tailed Kite
Cooper’s Hawk
Red-shouldered Hawk
Red-tailed Hawk
American Kestrel
Peregrine Falcon
American Coot
Black-necked Stilt
American Avocet
Spotted Sandpiper
Least Sandpiper
Long-billed Dowitcher
Ring-billed Gull
Western Gull
Herring Gull
Mourning Dove
Anna’s Hummingbird
Nuttall’s Woodpecker
Black Phoebe
Say’s Phoebe
American Crow
Common Raven
Tree Swallow
Bushtit
Marsh Wren
Blue-gray Gnatcatcher
Sage Thrasher
American Pipit
Yellow-rumped Warbler
Common Yellowthroat
Spotted Towhee
Song Sparrow
White-crowned Sparrow
Red-winged Blackbird
Great-tailed Grackle
House Finch