June 5, 2022 Corbin Canyon

I haven't visited Corbin Canyon much this year, partially because I've been trying to focus more on desert habitats, but also because I was so disappointed in how the area was decimated last year for "fire prevention" reasons by MRCA. It has taken a long time to recover from that extreme mowing down of every living plant within 100 yards of the trail. Between that action and the drought, the place has taken a beating.

However, I always like to check in to places I've visited in the past to see how they're faring. I'm pleased to report that the area looked very good. It's obvious that some vegetation "trimming" took place already this year. But, amazingly enough, it appears as though the people who manage the area actually listened to my concerns about how it was handled last year. I definitely don't want to take all the credit so I'm hoping that I was not the only one that complained.

While they did mow down a fair amount of the non native grasses and mustard this year, they actually trimmed around the native plants. For instance, the milkweed plant that was mowed down last year, was actually left intact this year--and it had a monarch caterpillar on it! New tarweed plants and elegant clarkia are all there. California aster plants are sprouting now that last year never even appeared except in areas not mowed. And the area that was trimmed was reduced substantially. Is it perfect? Probably not, but there were many, many birds around unlike last year when after the trimming I didn't hear a single bird for more than a month.

So what else can I report? I don't know if anyone else in the Los Angeles area has noticed but it sure seems like a good butterfly year. Though we only had two rainstorms of any significance, the wildflowers and butterflies seem pretty abundant this year. Maybe the spacing out of those storms contributed to this but I'm thankful for this. After all, we have no idea what will happen this coming rain year.

In addition, the purple sage plants that are very abundant in Corbin Canyon and looked totally dead after our dry, dry year seem to have revived and are thriving again and attracting many pollinators. Though some are definitely well past peak, there are still many that are in full bloom. The toyons have many flowers and the blue elders have many many berries. I saw band tail pigeons in the canyon for the first time since I started coming here. They were feasting on the berries.

And like everywhere else, the sapphire woollystar flowers are really prolific. It's a great year for Eriastrum flowers in general, though they've definitely already peaked.

In addition to the numerous native bees I saw (and yes, there were still an abundance of western honeybees) I found some interesting arthropods including this super orange bee fly (genus villa), a boldly patterned tiny bee fly (genus neacreotrichus), an ant mimic spider and a wasp that captured some sort of prey and took it into it's burrow.

And I'm always amazed at what I don't capture. As many insects as I was able to photograph, there were probably three times as many that I wasn't able to capture. Life is all around us just waiting for us to take notice. It brings me much joy to immerse myself in nature. I just wish more people would take the time to pay attention to the natural world around us. Perhaps if more people did, our planet would not be in such bad shape.

Julkaistu kesäkuu 8, 2022 06:41 AP. käyttäjältä naturephotosuze