A New-To-Me Willow Gall, 06-19-23

I went over to the William B. Pond Park on the American River, which is across the river from the American River Bend Park. It was about 52ºF and windy when I got there, so that cut down one the number of bird sightings and whether or not I would see dragonflies flitting around.

Most of the birds I saw were either transporting nesting material, or feeding fledglings on the ground. I could hear Red-Shouldered Hawks calling to one another from the tree tops, caught some glimpses of Ash-Throated Flycatchers, and saw some Tree Swallows flying around, but I couldn’t get photos of them.

By the sound of them, there were quite a few Northern Mockingbirds around, but I only saw one that was carrying some food and/or nesting material with it.

The Yellow-Billed Magpies were, likewise, quite noisy, but much of the noise was coming from young birds demanding food from their parents.

A lot of the usual plants were all around. The White Clover was going a bit crazy on the more manicured lawns, and the Spanish Clover was starting to flower out along the trails.

The river was flowing high and fast, and in one area had undercut the shallow roots of a eucalyptus tree and toppled it. That tree was in a spot where the tall eucalyptus trees were actually holding each other up. Without the support of their fallen comrade, I wouldn’t be surprised if the other trees fell soon as well. Scary. In other parts of the river, trees were being swamped by the water.

On the leaves of the eucalyptus trees, I found a slew of honeydew covered lerps spun by the Red Gum Lerp Psyllids.

This image shows not only the lerps, but also some psyllid eggs, drop of honeydew, and the dark shed exuvia of adult psyllids.

Other insects found on my walk were very limited. There was a small Jalisco Petrophila Moth and a Black Dancer Caddisfly.

I’m fascinated by caddisflies, but wasn’t able to see many in their larval form this year because the river was so high and washed out most of the areas where I look for the critters. Caddisfly larvae cover themselves with rocks and gravel, and I had been able to see some of them in the slow-moving shallows of the American River before. Here are some photos I took in 2021:

Backtracking on the trail toward the bridge that spans the river, I found an Arroyo Willow with galls on it, including the Willow Apple Sawfly galls, and the new-to-me Willow Tube galls made in response to a species of Iteomyia midge. They look kind of the Willow Apples, but on one side of the leaf, the galls taper into a point. I’d never seen those around the river before, so that was an exciting find for me.

Once again, I was seeing a LOT of Oak Apple galls on the Valley Oaks.

There wasn’t much else to see or photograph this morning, so I was only out for about 2½ hours. The exercise was good for me, though. This was hike #36 of my #52hikechallenge for the year.