Up at 5:30 to get over to the Effie Yeaw Nature Preserve by 6:30. The smoke in the air was thick again and the sun came up over the American River fiery red, making the water look like lava. It was about 60º when I got to the preserve and made it up to about 95º by the late afternoon.

At the preserve, I saw a few deer, mostly does and a pair of twin fawns who kept their eye on me from a distance. The little boy fawn was slightly braver than his sister and walked up to within about 15 feet of me – still hiding behind some foliage. His sister followed him a few seconds later and I got photos and a video snippet of them together. So cute.

Early on in my walk, I came across a juvenile Turkey Vulture flying low to the ground between the trees with a much smaller hawk chasing him. He flew up onto a snag of a tree and posed for a little bit before flying off again. I followed the hawk and found it in another tree further up the road: a Red-Shouldered Hawk. I ended up seeing three of them today.

CLICK HERE for the album of photos.

It’s that time of the year again when the Fox Squirrels and Gray Squirrels are up in the Black Walnut trees stealing walnuts. They take them up into the branches and scrape the husks off of them with their teeth. As they do that, their teeth squeak and rasp against the hard shell under the husk, and you can hear that sound from several feet away. I heard about six squirrels but only got photos of two of them.

More galls are starting to show themselves – finally. I saw several newly formed spiny galls from the Live Oak Wasp, Callirhytis quercuspomiformis, and several very nicely formed Kernel Galls from the wasp Callirhytis serricornis. And I even found a few tiny Pumpkin Galls (Dryocosmus minusculus). These are all found on Live Oak Trees.

On my way out of the preserve, I saw several juvenile Western Bluebirds in the trees around the small pond. They’re such pretty little birds.

I walked for about three hours and then went home.