I got up around 6:00 am and headed off to the Effie Yeaw Nature Preserve for my walk. We kind of in between seasons right now: not quite spring anymore, not quite summer yet. So, there’s not a whole lot of stuff to see until the galls start showing themselves more, and the baby deer are born… Still, I was able to get photos of quite a few things.

CLICK HERE for the full album of photos.

There was a stage and lots of half-put-away tables out in front of the nature center. There had been an art auction the evening before, and things were still in a jumble out there. It looks, too, like work was started re-doing the tule huts in their replica of a Maidu Village. I also noticed some new signs around the nature center warning people of rattlesnakes (which like to hide under the low eaves of the building and in the rock formations around it in its gardens. Better late than never I suppose…

There were bachelor groups of gobblers out on the grounds, and they apparently took issue with my new hat. It has a very wide brown brim – and maybe it looks like a fanned turkey-tail to them. Several of the males cautiously approached me, and when I gobbled at them, they gobbled back. Hah! At least none of them tried to run me off.

There were no Monarch Butterfly caterpillars on any of the Showy Milkweed blooming, but there were lots of yellow Oleander Aphids and Bordered Plant Bugs around. Those are the ones with the babies that look like dark iridescent balls wit a red mark on the back. I wonder why nature chose such a showy baby for such an unassuming adult…?

Not a lot of deer around right now. I think the females are off having babies, and the males are sequestered away in their own bachelor groups somewhere else along the river. I did see a couple of does out browsing by themselves, but no others.

Lots of coyote scat, though, and a multitude of Harvester Ants gathering seeds and hauling them back to their nests.

At one point during my walk, I saw a Red-Shouldered Hawk –- a male, based on its dark coloring — come flying through the trees straight at me. It flew over my head and landed in a tree to my left. I was able to get a few photos of it before it took off again.

I also found another European Starling nesting cavity with fledglings poking their heads out of the hole, making rasping sounds at their parents. I saw one of the adult birds bring the kids some mulberries.

I walked for about 3 hours and then headed back home.