Salt Point, Bone-Dry

Nate had a hankern' for some mushroom action, so we headed up to Salt Point this weekend with Lauren and Kevin. It was a beautiful day, continuing this alarming trend of clear skies and warm temperatures. Green rolling hills all through the Sonoma farm lands, but parts of the coastal hills were still brown. Highlight of the drive up was a bobcat just off the road! We were all pretty psyched about that one.

The woods weirdly dry. Usually I head up there toward the end of Feb, and it's usually pretty moist, if not sopping wet. This time we were kind of despairing of finding any mushrooms, let alone edibles. Luckily, we did find some black trumpets to take home, along with a handful of yellow feet and hedgehogs.

It actually wasn't a bad day for flowers. I've been jonesin' to see some fetid adder's tongue this winter, but I figured since they were blooming down in San Mateo county that I had missed their bloom up in Sonoma, but luckily I happened upon some! Joy! Coralroot was flowering too, but no sign of calypsos yet. Saw my first Western trillium of the year, too (along with a totally sweet dance fly, with many thanks to ap2il for the ID).

Some hawks long the road as we drove back, but frankly I was so exhausted I wasn't exactly paying too much attention. Looking forward to going back later in the month. Fingers crossed for rain!

Posted on 03 February, 2009 09:16 by kueda