I was out the door by 6:30 to go to the Cosumnes River Preserve.  I was hoping to be able to get photos of dragonflies on their wetland areas… but the whole wetland area was completely dry. There was only a little bit of water in the slough along the road.  That was disappointing.

But I still wanted to walk, so I walked along the boardwalk and behind the slough, taking photos of the different galls I was able to find.  Among the galls, I found on the oak trees examples of Red Cone galls, Spiny Turbans, Spangles. Saucers, Yellow Wigs, Gouty Twig galls, Oak Apples, Rosette galls, and Clubs.  There were also lots of Flat-Topped Honeydew galls, and some of them were exuding so much honeydew that the branches and leaves of the tree were dripping with the stuff.  It made handling things really sticky… I also found some galls on the Ash and Willow trees.

I only saw about 4 birds while I was out there, which is also unusual, and got photos of a Great Egret, a Killdeer and a Black Phoebe.  So, it wasn’t the best day for a variety of photos, but the morning weather was nice, and I was able to walk for about 3 hours so I got some exercise.