Been On Vacation

Sorry, folks.

I've been on vacation since Thursday. I was in Yosemite National Park.

This is a photo of Upper Yosemite Falls in Yosemite National Park. This fall was dry this year at the end of September, but it was going like gangbusters when I was there in June. The trail up to the top of the falls is pretty grueling.

It was pretty fun up there.

I believe this is a photo of Bridalveil Falls in Yosemite National Park. Last week at the end of September, all of the falls were dry.

I was up there in June and I went up the old road from Happy Isles to Yosemite Valley's water supply near where Illouette Creek meets the Merced River.

The famous Yosemite Valley in Yosemite National Park, one of the world's most famous natural wonders. If you are ever in California, you might want to stop by and visit this national park for a once in a lifetime experience. I lived here for a while in August 1977. I lived in a place called, "Ozone", which was more or less a 24 hour marijuana smoking party. This camp was wiped out in the floods in 1996.

On the way back to the water supply after crossing the Illouette Creek bridge and I saw a large cat.

At first I thought it was someone's house cat loose in the park, but it was way too big. Then I thought it was a mountain lion. Then I figured out it had to be a bobcat. bobcats can look pretty large from a distance.

This is what the bobcat looked like at first from a distance. You can see how they get confused with mountain lions.

It moved behind the building next to the water supply and I quickly ran up to the building and hid alongside of it. I peeked around the corner and the bobcat was on the other side. It was moving towards my side of the building, so I hid alongside and waited for it to come around. Finally, it meandered to my side of the building and after a few steps, it looked up and saw me frozen along the building.

It made a growling motion with its mouth that seemed almost half-fake, and then it turned around and started strolling away.

This is what it looked like close-up. It looked a lot smaller close-up than far away. There's nothing to be afraid of at all from bobcats, unlike mountain lions.

I watched it for the next five minutes as it traipsed along the forest floor. It had large lynx-type ears that twitched constantly. Its legs were very long.

It weighed about 30 pounds, or about twice as much as a house cat weighs. It was tawny colored, with large black spots all over it. It had a short, stubbed, fat tail. It moved slowly along the forest floor, sniffing the ground constantly.

Bobcats are really not dangerous at all, as a general rule, but a rabid one can attack you. Don't try to reach down and grab one or pet it, or you can be get clawed up badly.

I have been seeing quite a few bobcats in the past few years in the O'Neals - Coarsegold - Oakhurst area of Eastern Madera County, so I think their numbers are increasing. Their numbers were declining in California in the 1990's, probably due to overtrapping as the price per pelt went pretty high. I think the price must have gone back down because bobcats seem to be making a real comeback, at least in this area.

The California Department of Fish and Game has imposed a winter trapping season for the bobcat, so trapping is only legal for 3 1/2 months out of the year. This seems to be resulting in a population increase. Until 1972, it was legal to kill any number of bobcats in California for any reason, as it was considered to be an undesirable predator.

The behavior of this bobcat was not normal at all. A wild bobcat would not even have let me get near it in the first place, and even if it did, it would have run away so quickly it would have been hard to even get a good look at it. So the behavior of this Yosemite bobcat was excessively tame.

This is getting to be a bit of a problem with some of the park animals. The coyotes are getting very tame, and will walk right up to you. That's not normal for a coyote at all. A coyote should just run away as soon as it sees you. There has been a long-term problem with habituated bears in the Valley, some of which have to be killed if they get to be a nuisance.

There are now many raccoons hanging around the campgrounds and some mountain lions have started hanging around the campgrounds to prey on the raccoons. This is getting to be a bit of a problem too.

There are an estimated 700,000-1.5 million bobcats in the US. It is endangered in Ohio, Indiana and New Jersey and has suffered population declines elsewhere, but in general it is doing well. The US has petitioned to have the bobcat removed from the CITES list prohibiting trade in endangered species.

The Mexican Bobcat, a subspecies, is not doing real well, but the US has removed it from the endangered species list. The subspecies here in California is called the California Bobcat (Lynx rufus californicus).

For my European readers, a bobcat looks a lot like the European Wildcat or the Eurasian Lynx that you may be familiar with.

I have much more about bobcats and also a lot about badgers, in this older post.

This time around, the only mammal I saw was a Deer Mouse that inhabited my room at the Yosemite Lodge. Photo below.

Here is a photo of a Deer Mouse. There are also some other mouse species in Yosemite Valley, but I am pretty sure this was a Deer Mouse. The House Mouse, California Mouse, Pinyon Mouse and Brush Mouse also exist there, but they tend to look different and not be nearly as common. The Deer Mouse, so named because of its huge ears that look like a deer's ears, is typically the most common rodent in any area, outnumbering all other rodent species combined.

It is not commonly seen, but my cat caught a few of them in Oakhurst and I have seen owls catch them also in the same town. You can handle them, but you need to be careful. I captured the still-live ones my cat caught and took them inside to examine them. But I wore rubber gloves to do that. Afterward, I threw the rubber gloves into hot soapy water.

These things do have some viruses, such as Hantavirus. However, Hanta is found in the droppings of these animals, so you're unlikely to get it by handling them. But it's always a good idea to wear rubber gloves when handling any rodent. I have handled mice, voles and flying squirrels this way with no problems.

Adventures in Owling

Updated August 23:

For the last few weeks here in Coarsegold, California (elevation 2000' in the Sierra Nevada Mountains), I have been hearing strange "Screech! Screech!" noises at night, often very late at night. I'm hearing them right now, as a matter of fact. I'm an experienced bird watcher, and I assumed they were birds, so I grabbed a strong flashlight (you need a strong flashlight to look at any night birds) and went outside.

Most birds are simply not active at nighttime. Day-active birds will usually just go up into a tree and sleep there at night. I had a rare bird on my property in 1990 in Southern California and I had bird-watchers coming every day to come see it.

It was a Brown Thrasher, common in the Eastern US but very rare in the West. The bird stayed on my property for about three days. At nighttime, I went out looking for it and found it in a bunch of trees on the side of the house. We think that they just go up into a tree and probably sleep up there. I guess they need to sleep too, like everything else.

The only birds active at nighttime are generally owls. There are also some birds like nightjars and whippoorwills that become active at dusk. I'm not sure if they stay active at night or not. So if you hear a bird at night, it's an owl.

Well, I went outside and the strange screeches kept coming from a huge tree nearby. I shone my light up there and there were some good-sized owls up there. I couldn't figure out what kind they were because it was night and they weren't fitting into any known categories. One flew away and I noticed how huge it was in flight. I went back in and did some research on the Net.

At first I was thinking "Screech owl" because we do have Western Screech Owls here. But they are quite small and have a distinctive call. They make this call on hot summer nights, often very late at night, but it's not a screech, in spite of the name. It's more of a "bouncing ball" call. It's hard to describe unless you have heard it.

On the Net I learned that baby Great Horned Owls do make a "Screech!" call. That fit in with my perceptions about the birds' size. A horned owl is a very large bird. They are so large that they are known to prey on house cats. They are also very common in the foothills of the Sierra Nevada.

So these were baby Great Horned Owls. I guess they fledge here in July and August. What was interesting was there were around 5-10 of them in a small area, all calling to each other. The size also ruled out Screech Owls, because they are quite small.

You need to understand that "baby birds", once fledged, are about the size of adult birds and are often indistinguishable from them. Some smaller birds have juvenile plumage, but among larger birds, it's not common.

In Orange County in the late 1980's, I saw two crows of about the same size, one feeding the other one with its beak. This is how birds feed each other. I did some research and learned that that is a baby crow. Baby crows are about the same size as adults. Adults will feed them for a while after they fledge and leave the nest, but then they need to take off.

I also had some acorn woodpeckers living in a huge oak tree on my property in the mountains. They live in communal units of multiple adults and even raise the young communally. They may raise more than one clutch in a good year. I noticed that after the young were fledged, they stuck around for a while, and the adults continued to feed them. Then I guess they took off.

This myth, so beloved by American parents with adult kids still at home long past the time to leave, about adult birds "throwing the young out of the nest" as soon as they fledge, is just not true.

First of all, baby birds can't fly very well as soon as they fledge. Sometimes if you are lucky in Spring you can see baby birds scuttling along the ground trying to fly. I've seen this in House Sparrows in Fresno, California. I think they scuttle along the ground and half-fly for a few days or so, then they get it. They fly for a short distance, then they land. They must be extremely vulnerable to predation in this stage.

Keeping baby birds around after they fledge is a positive adaptation in evolutionary terms. Larger birds such as woodpeckers and surely crows are thought to be more evolved, so they seem to keep the young at home for a while after fledging. Tossing the babies out of the nest is evolutionarily stupid, since if they can't fly well, they will be very vulnerable to predation.

Trust me, they are vulnerable enough in the nesting phase! I had an Ash-Throated Flycatcher nesting on my Oakhurst property one year. My cats figured out the story after a while, and kept trying to climb up to the nest. I'm sure predators like raccoons are even worse. I even understand that snakes can climb trees and raid nests.

I've never seen so many owls as I've seen up here in the mountains.

Twice I saw Northern Saw-Whet Owls on the road in Oakhurst, once at dusk and once at 9:30 PM on a sleety night in winter - this one had a mouse in its talons! Saw-Whet Owls descend to the Oakhurst area in winter.

Another time, also in Oakhurst at dusk, I saw small birds "mobbing" something just before dusk. When you see that, it's generally a predatory bird like a hawk or an owl. It was dusk. I ran inside, got my binoculars, and went back. After a while, I saw that they were mobbing a Northern Pygmy-Owl .

It's a pretty cool little bird, with fake eyes in the back of it's head! Nice evolutionary trick to fool you into thinking it's looking at you when it's not. I think that this trick evolved to help this small owl avoid predators, because there I'm not sure there is an advantage for a predator to seem like it has eyes in the back of its head.

A couple of years ago, in Oakhurst near some apartments at dusk, I saw a huge bird swoop down on some bare ground in front of some apartments, grab something and take off back up to a Ponderosa Pine tree, where it was promptly mobbed by a bunch of small birds. I stopped and looked long enough to see that it was a Great Horned Owl with a mouse (probably a deer mouse) in its talons.

Mobbing is an interesting tactic. Small birds with fly in large numbers at a hawk or an owl. Often these hawks or owls are the same ones that kill and eat these same small birds. Accipter hawks such as Goshawks are mobbed, but I have never seen a Buteo such as a Red-tailed Hawk mobbed.

Buteos typically subsist solely on small mammals and reptiles and seldom if ever eat other birds. But accipters are bird hawks. They prey on other birds. I once saw a Goshawk being mobbed by small birds, fly out of some underbrush, and over to a post where it sat for a bit while the others continued to mob it.

The idea of mobbing is strength in numbers. Although they attack predators known to prey on them, if you have enough small birds, it will confuse and upset the predator enough to so it won't attack them. It's also an early warning system for any other small birds in the area that a predator is in the area. In addition, by mobbing, the small birds try to drive the predator away from them and off to somewhere else.

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Black Bear Seen in Ripperdan, California

Incredibly, a California Black Bear (Ursus americanus californiensis)was spotted on the floor of the San Joaquin Valley at Ripperdan on June 23 around 7:30-9:30 PM. That's very unusual. I looked on the Internet and could not find any other reports of bears roaming around on the Valley floor.

Even historically, it was not common. Back in the old days, Black Bears tended to reside in the foothills at the lowest. Sometimes they would come down from the foothills in times of scarce food to feed on carcasses of some of the vast herds of ungulates that roamed in the Valley.

At that time, the California Grizzly Bear was the most common bear in the Valley, and it roamed all up and down this great Valley. They were also very common in the foothills. With the coming of the White man, conflicts were inevitable between settlers and Grizzlies.

They were shot all up and down California for over 100 years. By the late 1800's, they had become quite rare. The last California Grizzlies were seen and shot in the Sierra foothills around Sequoia National Park in the early 1920's.

I drove down to the Ripperdan area where the bear was sighted. There are farms - mostly vineyards and orchards - as far as the eye can see. But the San Joaquin River is only about 1-2 miles away. I drove down to the river, but it was hard to get to it due to private property signs.

At Scaggs Bridge Park, you could access the river. There was still a fair amount of water in it for this far downstream. Keep in mind that agriculture sucks so much water out of this great river that it actually goes dry at a place called Gravelly Ford.

It became clear to me that the bear had been roaming up and down the San Joaquin River, using it as a corridor to move down from the foothills into the Valley. Down near Ripperdan, it moved out of the river area and into the agricultural fields, possibly to feed on crops.

Much of the river from Friant to Fresno is now part of a great thing called the San Joaquin River Parkway, and it looks like they have preserved enough land that bears are actually using it.

A visit to the parkway site showed no records of bears using the parkway.

On the other hand though, bobcats, deer, foxes, coyotes and mountain lions do. This excellent map of the parkway shows that much of the river is now being preserved.

Even with our increasing population growth, we are setting aside so much land for preserves that to some extent animals are able to use the preserves despite the ever-expanding population. This may be why we are seeing so many large mammals making comebacks and recolonizing old territories.

There are probably about 40,000 Black bears in California, and the population has been growing lately. They are not in any kind of danger at all.

I have seen these animals up close quite a few times, and I must tell you that they are actually in general timid creatures. On rare occasions, they can become aggressive, attack or even kill. But considering the number of human-bear interactions in the US every year and the number of bear attacks, the likelihood of this occurring is vanishingly small. But I still carry a big long stick when I hike in the woods.

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Mariposa County and Madera County Fires

The state of California is currently undergoing its worst fire crisis in history. There are 330 wildfires burning in the state. We are still early in the fire season.

At the moment, the temperature is 90 degrees in Coarsegold.

The Big Sur Fire is still a pretty big deal, especially on its northeast end. Awesome coverage of that fire is on the Firefighter Blog. Even better is SurFire2008.org.

All told, these 11 fires on the Sierra National Forest burned 3,825 acres in late June and early July. All of the fires are controlled and mop-up and rehabilitation is ongoing. As of 2 PM July 3, there have been 20 injuries, three moderate and 17 minor, from the Oliver fire, but not one structure has been burned.

Oliver Fire:The cost of this fire has grown to 12.2 million. It was contained on July 5. Right now, the focus is on damage assessment and repair.

I toured the area of the Oliver Fire on July 3. There is not much to see. A bit of smoke can be seen from the Chowchilla River Bridge on Highway 49. You can also see some dead trees if you look closely.

I went up Chowchilla Mountain Road past Ponderosa Basin. Where the road turns to dirt, I drove until it is no longer maintained. Past the end of road maintenance, you can see where the firefighters were starting backfires and cutting down some of the thick brush and small trees. There, you can see the fire on the opposing mountain to the north of the road. It's burning, but not much.

The fire does not appear to have ever gotten close to Chowchilla Mountain Road, at least the portion that I drove. Whereas Ponderosa Basin was well-cleared of vegetation, that part of Chowchilla Mountain Road was incredibly overgrown with live oak, manzanita, Ponderosa Pine and God knows what else.

I then drove down Aurora Court (map). This dirt road was really terrible and was barely even drivable in a regular car. I finally turned around after a mile or so. You could see the fire burning on Crow Peak (map) to the north. At one point, the fire seemed to have burned down to Aurora Court itself.

On the slope opposite, it was still thickly forested, but the trees were brown instead of green because they burned. Actually, a number of the large trees will survive the burn and grow back.

A great deal of underbrush, including berry bushes and oaks, especially Black Oaks, will grow in the aftermath. Around here, wildlife use this type of underbrush quite a bit, and Black Oaks seem to be declining due to excessively thick evergreens, as Black Oaks need some sunlight to grow until they get tall enough.

This was not a fire that denuded slopes. They often don't in the Sierra Nevada because the vegetation is so thick, there is a lot of precipitation and the fires do not tend to burn extremely hot.

At the moment, there were mostly inmate crews working on the fire. These are minimum security prisoners from California prisons who have five years or less on their sentences and in general they are not a problem. They are paid $1/hour to fight fires, which is much more than they usually make. They're all volunteers, and they love to do this work.

Further, after their sentences are over, many go on to work for the CDF fire crews. California's prisons are full and overflowing. It is important for former inmates returning to society to have employment available to them.

I know a lot of young men around Madera who are on probation or have adult felonies on their records. They are finding it almost impossible to find work. It's understandable to punish people for being convicted of crimes. I've been convicted of a couple of misdemeanors myself.

Whether people need to be punished beyond their sentences is a good subject for debate. If we don't let them work, they just turn to sloth, beggary, crime and a sociopathic mindset.

Next I drove over to Jerseydale. You cannot see any of the fire burning in that area, although it is very beautiful.


Silver Knob Fire: This fire is 100% contained. The fire burned 570 acres.


Westfall Fire: This fire is 100% contained. The final tally on this fire was 105 acres burned. I toured the area of this fire from the road that turns off Highway 41 to the west just before Miami Mountain Road. Along the road to the north, you can see evidence of this fire.

It did not burn very hot, and mostly just burned along the ground and scorched some trees. Most if not all of the trees will survive. Even most of the manzanita bushes that burned were not killed, so this was not a hot fire at all. I drove for 2-3 miles west to where the road becomes almost undriveable in a passenger car, and then turned around. There are some really spectacular views to the south on this road.


The Star Fire near Star Lakes burned 400 acres and was contained on July 4.

The Chiquito Fire burned 54 acres and is 100% contained.


The Poison Fire burned 1 acre and is contained.


The Gagg Fire burned 1 acre is out.


The remaining four fires have been contained.


The Oliver Fire or the Oliver Creek Fire (formerly the Aurora Fire) burned on Chowchilla Mountain. The Oliver Fire burned north of Ponderosa Basin at about 3,300-6,500 feet in mixed brush and Ponderosa Pine forest in Mariposa County.

Chowchilla Mountain had not burned in 20 years and there have been very few fires there in the past 50 years. This has caused a huge amount of fuel to build up.

Here is a link to a pretty cool online scanner called the Central California Fire Feed that supposedly has very up-to-date fire information on it. It will play in an I Tunes Player. I wasn't able to get anything useful out of it.

A photo of the Oliver Fire burning around 7 PM June 23. Photo credit John Walker/Fresno Bee. That is the home of Joe and Yuki Carbaugh, and can easily be seen from the Highway 49 bridge. That home is on Harris Cutoff Road, which is one Hell of a crappy dirt road (I just drove it yesterday evening).

The Westfall Fire was located near Westfall Ranger Station on Highway 41 at about 5,000 feet in the mixed conifer forest. That's on the Madera-Mariposa County line.

The Silver Knob Fire burned near the Silver Knob (a 5,300 foot mountain west of Sugar Pine, northeast of Nipinawasee and just off Miami Mountain Road). It burned near a community called Cedarbrook.

Spectacular view of one of the fires apparently burning in heavy timber somewhere in Mariposa County.

Oakhurst Fires

          Acres  Acres+  %increase

12AM   6-23  105    ---     ---

1PM    6-23  240    135     128%

2PM    6-24  1490   1250    438%

845PM  6-24  1890   400     79%

7PM    6-25  2545   655     35%

9PM    6-26  2942   397     16%

9AM    6-27  2992   50      2%

7PM    6-28  3270   278     9%

845AM  6-30  3775   505     15%

---    7-5   3775   0       0%





Westfall Fire (100% contained)

        Acres  Acres+  %increase

12AM 6-23  30     --      --

1PM  6-23  40     10      33%

9AM  6-25  50     10      25%

7PM  6-25  105    55      110%



Oliver Fire (100% contained)

         Acres Acres+  %increase

12AM   6-23 75    ---     ---

1PM    6-23 200   125     166%

2PM    6-24 1000  800     400%

8PM    6-24 1400  400     40%

7PM    6-25 2000  600     43%

7:30PM 6-26 2200  200     10%

7PM    6-28 2306  106     5%

8:45AM 6-30 2789  483     21%

---    7-5  2789  0       0%



Silver Knob Fire (100% contained)

       Acres  Acres+  %increase

5:30PM 6-23 300    ---     ---

2PM    6-24 400    100     33%

9AM    6-25 480    80      20%

9PM    6-26 480    0       0%

9AM    6-27 570    90      19%



Star Fire (100% contained)

         Acres  Acres+  %increase

2PM    6-24 30     ---     ---

9AM    6-25 45     15      50%

9PM    6-26 200    155     440%

9AM    6-27 160    -40     -20%

6PM    6-28 330    170     106%

9AM    6-30 350    20      6%

---    7-4  350    0       0%





Chiquito Fire (100% contained)

      Acres  Acres+  %increase

9AM 6-25 10     ---     ---

9AM 6-26 52     42      320%

9AM 6-29 54     2       4%

The fires were sparked by dry lighting storms that struck all over the northern half of the state on Saturday amidst record-breaking high temperatures.

The local creek here where I stay sometimes, Oak Creek, went dry on the third week of June. That's about 5 weeks early. It usually goes dry at the beginning of August.

Another view of a typical Oak Creek prefab. A whole lot of these homes are up for sale now, but it seems like nobody is buying. You have to pay $500/month to a homeowners' association, so in a way, it's like you're still renting.


This is what the homes in Oak Creek look like. This pic appears to have been taken in the rain. It rains about 20 inches a year here. This is where I stay when I come to the area.


Oak Creek Village as they were building it. There is quite a bit of wildlife around here. I have seen a bobcat near Oak Creek itself and others have seen a mountain lion around here. There are killdeer and California kingsnakes. Recently, I saw what appeared to be a sharp-shinned hawk attack and kill an acorn woodpecker right near where I was staying. The other woodpeckers mobbed the hawk as it carried away the member of their colony.

Even Coarsegold Creek is dry in much of its course in Coarsegold at the moment. That's awfully strange for the start of summer. Usually it goes dry in late summer to early fall.

Coarsegold Creek. Not sure where this was taken, but it was probably taken somewhere nearby. The terrain here, at 2,200 feet, is pretty much Interior Like Oak Woodland at least on the shady side of the hills. On the dry side, it is more of an open oak savanna.

<View of the smoke from the three large fires burning in the area. Even a relatively small fire can put out quite a bit of smoke if it burning trees and brush.

We're totally used to fires out here in California. I tell my friends in other parts of the country or world about them and they get all freaked out. If your own house isn't going to burn down or you're not going to get burned up yourself, it's no worries. Actually, they're kind of exciting.

One thing that is interesting is that fires create their own weather. For instance, there will be no wind at all, and then you drive over by the fire and there's a bit of a breeze whipping around. The fire is actually creating that wind by itself. Another thing is you really should not get too close to these fires.

I was watching one in Hacienda Heights, California, in 1989. The fire was burning really fast down this chaparral-covered hillside. Then these animals started running out of the brush, one by one! It was a trip to watch them. They'd run out of the brush and then there would be a crowd of people and they would not know what to do.

First a deer came careening out, and then another one. Then a woodrat came running out. That's a furry wild rat that lives in the brush - it's nothing like a dirty city rat at all. It builds huge nests out of brush and everything you could possibly think of, and that's where it lives. That's where the word pack rat comes from, because these rats will grab just about anything weird and stick in their stick houses.

Then a little deer mouse came running out. That's a wild mouse with huge ears that lives in the woods - it's nothing like the pests in your house at all. I've captured them when my cat caught them. Just put on a pair of surgical gloves and pick it up by the tail and put it on your hand. Then you can examine it or measure it or whatever.

If it was really messed up, I just gave it back to the cat, otherwise, I let it go. Then wash your hands afterwards and throw the gloves in hot soapy water, because can carry weird diseases.

Anyway, then this owl starts circling around in the middle of the day! That's the first time I've ever seen a Great Horned Owl in broad daylight, but I guess they figure a lot of rodents are going to come running out of the brush.

Then the fire starting getting closer. Well, at that point, look up in the air. You will see these damned embers flying around, often great big ones. They will start landing all around you and catching stuff on fire. I guess if they land on you, they burn you. These things actually fly like 100 yards or so ahead of the fire and some are big as banana peels.

At that point, you really need to get the Hell out and you're probably going to get a forced evac anyway.

This time of the year, you can look out at the Central Valley any day and see fires burning from somewhere in Central and Southern California. The smoke from a fire looks different from smog, so you can tell where the fires are. It's not scary or anything; it's just normal.

I do have a feeling that this is going to be a long, hot summer though in terms of fires. No way is it supposed to be this bad at the start of summer. Are you kidding? Jesus, I wonder what September will be like?