Tuesday, May 19, 2009

IRC Round Canyon Hike

This morning I went on a hike with the Irvine Ranch Conservancy in Round Canyon, off of Portola. The hike was geared toward bird-watching, my specialty ;) Lois Taylor is a wonderful plant guide, and while the group was birding, I was quizzing Lois every few feet: "what's that one? Ohh, what's this?"
Wine Cups
 
Our plant list included Mustard or evening primrose, star thistle, tarweed, bedstraw, Parry's phacelia, morningglory or bindweed, stinking gourd, an aster which wasn't cud leaf, CA figwort, wine cups, splendid mariposa lily, cliff aster, miniature lupin, stream monkeyflower, telegraph weed, CA goldenbush, elderberry, coast live oak, western sycamore, laurel sumac, black mustard, bull thistle, coastal sagebrush.
Acmon Blue
Good birds included great looks at Bullock's oriole, ash-throated flycatcher, lazuli buntings, blue-gray gnatcatcher, and a beautiful singing, Bell's vireo. Also of note was a gopher snake, very cold, moving slow across the trail. Fun!
Whispering Bells
Parry's Phacelia

Aster I don't know, not cut-leaf

Cliff Aster

Hairstreak on Deerweed - maybe Grey?

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