On Ravens and Writing Desks

How is a Raven like a Writing Desk?

Before taking this Natural History course I would have answered, without any hesitation, that they have nothing in common at all save the "r" sound at the beginning of each word. I would have not been wrong. A Raven has seemingly nothing in common with a Writing Desk, and yet the are both parts of Natural History, this connection is how they are similar.
In the Museum of Jurassic Technology one of the first displays one comes across is a display labeled "Audio Mimicry"  which contains a brilliant green beetle mounted on a pole and a less brilliant green gemstone about the size of a dime mounted in much the same manner below it. Next to the glass display case that houses these two green curiosities are two red lights that alternate on and off as if to indicate which one is making the noise, and if one were to pick up the receiver just to the left of the alternating lights they would hear a buzzing that starts and stops every time the light changes with little to no differentiation between the buzzing sounds, despite the fact that one is a beetle and the other a gem stone.
After trying to puzzle out this display for several minutes I finally decided that this was one of those displays that asked the question, "How is a raven like a writing desk?" except instead of a raven and a desk it was a green beetle and a gemstone, the answer being they are both exhibited in a museum, any further pondering would have to be held for a later date.
As I wondered through the museum's collection of odds and ends it became increasingly obvious that this museum was not what I had grown up expecting a museum to be, it was more like the Hermitage Museum I had visited several summers prior in St. Petersberg, with odd bits and ends here and there; everything was there more for entertainment value than for actual knowledge, and everything was to be taken with a shaker of salt. The Museum of Jurassic Technology followed the logic that the function of a museum is to inspire curiosity just as its predecessor, the curiosity cabinet, did.

We then  juxtaposed the Museum of Jurassic Technology against the LA Museum of Natural History. The LA Museum is exactly what I had grown up to expect from a museum, with facts and data conveniently laid in front of you while not distracting from the displays themselves, and seamlessly integrated into it. The dioramas supplied a wealth of information without saying much at all, taking the saying, "A picture is worth a thousand words," to a new level. Writing around the displays was minimal letting the diorama itself do most of the work, and museum goers could with confidence state that all the facts displayed were as true to life as possible and had been meticulously checked over.
Before taking this course I would have taken this at face value: lion here, gazelle there, elephants and water buffaloes at the end of the hall. Our rude awakening at the beginning of the day at the MJC however made me a bit more skeptical leading me to examine the displays more in-depth than my usual cursory glance.
The lighting was artfully used to direct the viewers focus around the entirety of the display, and the more one looked the more one saw. A certain diorama of harbor seals contained more than what was on the placard: several seagulls swooped over head, a small seal pup had its head peeking out from behind its mother's bulk, unnoticeable unless one stepped closer, a small plover hanging out on a seaweed covered rock, and most surprisingly an abalone shell that, if I had not looked down, would have completely missed seeing altogether. Like in Yong's article I had to crane my neck to see this abalone shell, and I realized there was so much more in these dioramas than I had originally realized. The most interesting thing about the harbor seal diorama however was not in the physical display itself but in the background painting, most of the other diorama backgrounds consisted solely of landscapes, with perhaps a deer far far in the distance, but with the harbor seal there were several seals painted laying out on the beach among the rocks and a seagull flying just above the waves, this was out of character with all the other dioramas, and yet it fit right in. A perfect blend of art and science.
Yet I still wonder, how is a Raven like a Writing Desk?





Rackham, H., Jones, W. H. S., Eichholz, D. E. Pliny's Natural History.  Harvard UP, Cambridge. 1954.

Yong, Ed. "Natural History Museums Are Teeming With Undiscovered Species".  The Atlantic, February 08, 2016.

So what?

I revisited Rancho Sierra Vista to get a comparison to see how things changed in the months that I had not been there, on my first visit on the 27th of February the plants were just beginning to grow and blossom with new growth and flowering buds everywhere I looked, the meadow grass was no taller than two feet tall, reaching up to just above my knees. However upon my return I found that all the bright green spring growth had turned a deep summer green and many of the flowers had either begun to lose their petals and wilt, or had already turned into seed pods. The grass was up to my waist and was sporting several grass species that were previously indistinguishable from one another due to lack of identifying features, but due to their seed pods were easily distinguished.

Green field and a fire scarred bush

Lonely strand of cactus with a cul-de-sac backdrop.

At the top of the hill my companion, Jackie, made a comment about how this park is likely to be gone 100 years from now. At the time I shot her comment down, Rancho Sierra is a protected park and green space with a Native American Culture Center in it, this green space will be protected. Looking out over the gentle rolling hills covered in waves of green grasses I could see homes and cul-de-sacs looming ominously in in the background with their cheery yellow plaster walls and terracotta roof tiles, I began to have doubts. For those children who have never had the chance to experience nature, those with what McKee calls "nature-deficit disorder", this green-space will have little to no value, but if this space disappears then how will the future generations ever learn the value of nature? Especially since they seem so fond of modern technology, but technology 100 years from now? We cannot even begin to imagine, as for the plants and animals that are present 100 years from now we may safely assume that they will closely resemble what was seen today, perhaps a few species would go extinct, or a few non-native invasive species will appear, but it should resemble what was seen during my visits, so long as the land is left alone and not bulldozed under and leveled to make space for new housing. This is a form of uniformitarianism.

A lucky shot

 

Because dandy lions

Picture of a bush from first visit

Same bush 2 months later

Ground bee nest, the bees are not visible in this shot.

A little further up the path, more nests.

This is to me one of the saddest things imaginable, especially since I grew up working in and around nature. But if there is anything I have learned about nature, it that it always finds a way. In 2005 a fire came and ravaged through the park burning down everything in its path. On my earlier visit to the park a fire scarred bush caught my attention, it stood in stark contrast to all the greenery around it.

One thing I found on the trip that I had not anticipated, but should have expected, especially with all the local flowers, were the bees. Now when a person normally thinks of bees they think of a hive with one queen up in a tree and stinging, the bees we came across were not those bees. Instead they lived in the ground, one queen for each hole in the ground with the boys buzzing around hoping to impress. I found through the Cornell University website that the bees we came across were gregarious nesters and only the females had stingers. Colletes inaequalis is a non-aggressive species of ground bee that will only sting when provoked.

Picture from Cornell University
 (I did not want to get too close to the bees)

On the same website I found that ground bees make up 70% of the 20,000 species of bees around the world. I was at first surprised by this, but once I thought about it this statistic made sense. It is likely that bees live in laces were there are little to no trees (for example the prairie) and yet there are many flowers present in these wide grasslands environments, therefore it makes sense that bees have adapted to make burrows under the ground (or is it the other way around and they have adapted to make nests in trees?). Looking at this from an evolutionary standpoint it may make the most sense that bees began underground and due to pressures from predators moved their hives up into the trees to get out of reach and to be closer to their food source.

The Feature Section: featuring Poison Oak comparison and Grasshopper & Caterpillar

Poison Oak first visit

Poision Oak 2 months later

Two very creepy crawlies

Discovering Diversity

Upon my visit to Wild Wood Park my senses were bombarded by a plethora of various living organisms. Not even  fifteen feet up the trail a lizard crossed my path. It was perhaps three inches in length and at firs glance the color of sand, upon close inspection however I realized it was covered in relatively regular white spots about the size of a pen head set upon an irregularly alternating background of black and light brown scales. The small lizard then took off before I could jot down any more details. I was however quick enough to snap a quick picture of the lizard before it disappeared.

A little down the path I spotted a plant that I am particularly familiar with; it was a mustard plant. I stooped down and wrote out a description of the plant. A bed of leaves almost flush to the ground with each leaf, while not jagged in the traditional sense of the word, is jagged, going from at wider bit before becoming thinner and immediately becoming thicker again until getting to the tip where the wide part tapered off to the end of the leaf. Sprouting from the center of the leaf bunch was a tall singular stem about 6 inches tall that ended in a half sphere of yellow flowers, each with three or four petals each.

The second mustard plant I came across was growing among a bush of wild prim roses. This one was marginally taller standing in at about seven inches tall. Leaves were the same growth pattern as with the the main stem and flower growth pattern and position.

The third plant I came across was different from the first two in that there were leaves growing on the long stem, unlike on the first two plants, which only had the flowers, in addition the leaves growing on the stem were of a different pattern, however the base leaves followed the same pattern. The stem was almost two feet tall. The flower growth was the same as on the first two plants though.

The next specimen I came across was the largest mustard plant I came across growing to be about three feet tall, this plant followed the same main growth pattern as the first two plants with similar base leaf pattern and yellow flowers at the tips of the main stem, however it had a lager branching structure with many more flower clusters than the smaller plants.

Significantly further down the trail I came across a strand of mustard plants. These plants showed a range of variation, all of the mustard plants however shared the traits of having thick leaf growth at the base of the plant with a central stem that branched out and ended in a cluster of yellow flowers. Some had triangular shaped leaves growing up the main stem, however the majority had stems devoid of stems. 

I also came across a variety of other wild life on the trip, including an especially fortunate sighting of a Greater Roadrunner, who followed me along the tail for almost 100 yards. Like Muir I was immersed in a wild landscape filled with wonders.

I also was able to get photos of yucca plants in various stages of growth, and even a yucca plat in bloom.

Blooming Yucca

Yuccas abut to go into bloom

Yucca Post Bloom

Standard Yucca Plant

Yucca flower

Natural History is . . .

Rancho Sierra Vista

• Poison Oak
• Morning Glory
• California Poppy
• Bolus
• Wild Cucumber(ID by Petra)
• Coast Live Oak
• Western Scrub-Jay (ID allaboutbirds.com)
• Sycamore (ID by Petra)

Poison Oak

One of the first things we encountered on our adventure was a creek bed overgrown with various flora, one such species that I was sure to point out to my companions was a small bush of Poison Oak tucked innocuously in among several Coast Live Oak tree stumps. We noticed that the Oak trees appeared to be in bloom, with small tufts of long brownish tassels hanging from the branches with flowers so tiny they hardly looked like flowers at all. 

The large quantity of flowers on the trees most likely increase the chance of fertilization and then acorn production, leading to a higher chance of a sapling growing after the acorns have been distributed.

Coast Live Oak with
new, old, and dead leaves

One of the next things we encountered on our journey was a large grassy field, filled with grasses, flowers, bugs, and birdsong. A particularly persistent Blue Jay was constantly doing rounds of the meadow, making sure to keep a sharp eye on us, and catching the abundant insects who were buzzing just above the long grass.

Western Scrub-Jay

Small purple, pink, and white flowers

Small brown beeetle

In addition to the Jay the meadow contained small purple, pink, and white flowers and crawling on the long grass were various beetles, the most abundant being ladybugs and brown beetles the size of my finger nails.

There were small pockets of California Poppies close to the trail, the vast majority without flowers, further up the trail however the Poppy in full bloom could be observed in abundance. The broad flat branching leaves grow close to the ground and outward, this allows the poppy to gather as much sunlight as possible while preventing any nearby competition from getting enough sun to grow enough to endanger the Poppy plant's sunning habits.

California Poppy
(Normal top, in bloom bottom)

Under a Coast Live Oak We found a small bolus, about the size of a golf ball, sitting in the leaf litter that Dr. Karsten has explained to us is a wasps nest of sorts. The Cast Live Oak and the wasp have evolved next to each other to form this symbiotic relationship, with the tree creating a bolus to keep the small parasitic grubs away from the main body of the tree, and the grubs eating the spongy foam that the bolus is made of until it is ready to metamorphose into a wasp and join the rest of the hive. Another bolus was found on the tree, except this one was much larger (about the size of a small bowl) and still attached to the tree, although by the holes present it is obvious that the young wasps had left.

Various Boluses 

The Morning Glory's Hostile Takeover

Morning Glories
(vine top, in bloom bottom)

A shared trait between the Morning Glory vines and the Wild Cucumber is the tight corkscrewing tendrils. These tendrils wrap tightly to whatever structure is closest to them at the time of growth and are incredibly difficult to remove from whatever the vine has attached to. This tight corkscrewing tendril appears to be used to help the vine get optimum sun. The vine is able to "climb" up whatever higher structure is nearby, be it a fence or a bush, the tendrils make sure the vine is not knocked down when the first gust of wind blows by. By "climbing", the vine can get higher than the surrounding plants and drown them in the shade. This includes any unfortunate bush they happen to be attached to which results in the death of the host due to lack of sunlight.

Previously Unidentified Vine from Charmlee

Wild Cucumber
(ID : Petra)

In addition to identifying the Wild cucumber Petra kindly pointed out a large Sycamore tree that was growing alongside the trail. If she had not pointed it out I most likely would have walked right by without a second glance and would have never noticed the interesting looking seed puffballs that a Sycamore has. Looking at how the balls were arranged reminded me of a hydrocarbon chain, I wonder if there is a certain stability associated with that particular arrangement?

The fuzzy leaves of a Sycamore
and its fluffy seed-balls

Throughout the entirety of our adventure we were surrounded my multiple facets of life, however it is probably the one spot of death that I found most fascinating, for atop the burned out branches of a bush were the climbing vines of the Morning Glory and beneath it lay several dark slate gray lizards all puffed up doing push-ups and chasing one another over and under the blackened twigs in what I assume is a dominance display to fight for the best patch of dirt under the burnt out bush.

The only spot of Death

Fierce Lizard Doing Push-ups

In The Beginning . . .

Walking down into a drying creek bed, all I had expected to find was a few types of grass and reeds flattened and long since dried, perhaps some aluminum cans faded beyond recognition and other assorted bits of industrial waste products like bubblegum wrappers and Starbucks cups, instead I discovered something that brought me back to my early childhood.
 It was a crayfish husk; sun bleached and dried out, barely even an inch long, with dirt encrusted on the underside of the carapace, missing several legs on the side that had been exposed to the elements, it was beautiful.
What color remained had faded into soft rose petal pink highlights on a maize background, it was so startling to discover this little skeleton of a creature I had grown up with in such a small size that I just sat in the leaf fall, among a patch of flowers I had gone down to look at in the first place, looking at it, spinning it to see if indeed this tiny thing was the creature I remembered from my childhood, and I remembered that to a child things seem so much bigger.
Here in my hand I held this teeny tiny crayfish that measured barely an inch in length, when as a child I could remember catching crayfish no smaller than 2.5 inches long, with the largest one seeming to be as big as my parents hands (and me being a horse person, this puts the crayfish at about four inches long). In my many escapades in the creek behind my house, I do not believe I had ever come across a crayfish so tiny, although to be fair a crayfish so small would have no trouble hiding under the niche of a rock or in one of the moss beds that dotted the creek upon feeling the disturbance a large group of children aged 2 to 5 and their parents made while romping through the shallow waters of the creek.
 I meticulously sketched the crayfish husk in my notebook, and made note of its location so that I could ask my professors about it later, as I had not expected to come across crayfish in the creek that cut right through the college campus. Upon my return to the meeting place I had shown the husk to my professors, Dr. Rasmussen had me examine the crayfish more closely than I probably ever had before. I took note of the three legs and set of claws, making it resemble a lobster, or even a scorpion for that matter.
I will have to return to check on the creek when it has some more water in it to see if I can find some living crayfish, and perhaps check to see if they are all equally small, or if there are any comparable in size to the ones of my childhood. I should also look into returning to the old creek bed behind my house to see how the crayfish population there has done over the years.

During a field trip to the Charmlee Wilderness Park I came across a kind of hummingbird sage looking bush, however the leaves were shiny and a darker forest green instead of the almost mint leaf look hummingbird sage has. The leaves had a very similar growth pattern to hummingbird sage, so I was confused until I came across hummingbird sage that I could positively ID as hummingbird sage. I will have to look into what type of plant it was that I came across.

To the left is the unidentified plant

Hummingbird Sage

I am glad that the weather was clear enough that I was able to glimpse the ocean during a break in the clouds at least once while exploring the ranch house ruins. We ware also give a great panoramic view of the meadow, however not even fifteen minutes later the storm clouds and rain had reduced visibility to less than fifty feet in either direction.

View from Ranch House lookout

I had also noticed along the trail that there were some burn scars and charred branches below the undergrowth. This indicated a massive fire had ripped through the area, however there was enough older green growth to indicate the fire had occurred several years prior. I was able to identify several  young coyote bushes that had no burn scars, meaning they had sprouted after the fire. Being familiar with Coyote Bush and its growth patterns I approximately aged the two little bushes between two and three years old, after investigating the history of the area I found the Camarillo Spring Fire of 2013 had ripped through the area, meaning my estimation of three years was correct.

After taking notes on the fire damage I was pleasantly surprised to run across a strand of yucca plants, some of which had seed pods from a recent bloom, the rest were just the base of the plant. The strand, to the best of my knowledge, runs from the old farmhouse ruins and all along Russell Trail, however by that time the rain had really began to come down and the call was given to head back to our respective vehicles so I was only able to go halfway up the trail before having to turn around due to the extreme weather conditions.