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part 0: getting ready -- in which I wibble a lot about write in the rain paper, which I didn't end up buying.
part 1: in which I am distracted by an amazing plant
part 2: methods. or, bioblitzing is hard
When I found out about the Blogger Bioblitz, I was immediately excited about the idea of going back to "my culvert," the storm drain at Woodrow Avenue and West Cliff Drive where I go to measure water quality on the (usually night) of the first measurable rainstorm each year. I've noticed some pretty interesting things there over the last couple of years. One thing is the road bridge that runs over the culvert: it's cracked in a jillion places and it looks like the first time a vehicle heavier than an SUV goes over it, it will fall into the sea.
The culvert is the end of a stream which cuts through the marine terrace that is West Side Santa Cruz. I think the headwaters are somewhere up behyond the Pogonip, but that the water runs underground for a lot of its journey, partly in culverts and partly in natural underground streams, of which we have a lot. We monitor it because it is a storm drain, which means it gets the rain runoff for the neighborhood, which is mostly medium-density residential and some "light" industry and commercial.
I think the land on the banks of the stream is managed by Santa Cruz Parks and Recreation. I think the iceplant that covers the banks must have been planted some years back. They don't seem to plant that stuff much anymore. It's one of those plants that nearly blankets the land, barely allowing anything to grow up through it. They used to plant iceplant all over the sides of the freeways, and now they seem to plant mostly native shrubs, with a few embarrassed plantings of oleander and grevillea here and there.
Like an old climax forest, though, the iceplant does let other plants grow in from time to time and place to place. Some plants are just so tough they find their way to sun and rain right through the branches of the iceplant. In other places, the iceplant has little clearings, dead zones through which other plants can grow. It sort of looks like the dead iceplant is at least relatively toxic, though, because it looks like the plants are growing on the edges of those clearings more than in the middles of them.
I am not sure that there are any indigenous plants in that streambed. Probably the willow. Maybe one or both of the asteraceae (one of which I think is genus Lactuca -- lettuce). Possibly the plantain and/or the geranium. The cypress, probably not. It's from near here, but not here (the natural range is limited to the Monterey area, just as the natural range of the Santa Cruz cypress is limited to the mountains). Maybe the watercress: but a tour through Jepson doesn't give me any way to casually determine exactly which watercress this is.
By the way, I've been told by someone who ought to know that watercress doesn't pick up much in the way of toxins from growing in these places. So I eat it sometimes. But not from the middle of the storm drain: from the rocks at the cliff, instead.
I expected to see more animals than I did. Some spiders, maybe, ants, bees. I did see one bee on the way out, but I was done listing things by then and I did not list it. I wondered if I would encounter any tree frogs, and I did hear at least two conversing.
More later.
part 1: in which I am distracted by an amazing plant
part 2: methods. or, bioblitzing is hard
When I found out about the Blogger Bioblitz, I was immediately excited about the idea of going back to "my culvert," the storm drain at Woodrow Avenue and West Cliff Drive where I go to measure water quality on the (usually night) of the first measurable rainstorm each year. I've noticed some pretty interesting things there over the last couple of years. One thing is the road bridge that runs over the culvert: it's cracked in a jillion places and it looks like the first time a vehicle heavier than an SUV goes over it, it will fall into the sea.
The culvert is the end of a stream which cuts through the marine terrace that is West Side Santa Cruz. I think the headwaters are somewhere up behyond the Pogonip, but that the water runs underground for a lot of its journey, partly in culverts and partly in natural underground streams, of which we have a lot. We monitor it because it is a storm drain, which means it gets the rain runoff for the neighborhood, which is mostly medium-density residential and some "light" industry and commercial.
I think the land on the banks of the stream is managed by Santa Cruz Parks and Recreation. I think the iceplant that covers the banks must have been planted some years back. They don't seem to plant that stuff much anymore. It's one of those plants that nearly blankets the land, barely allowing anything to grow up through it. They used to plant iceplant all over the sides of the freeways, and now they seem to plant mostly native shrubs, with a few embarrassed plantings of oleander and grevillea here and there.
Like an old climax forest, though, the iceplant does let other plants grow in from time to time and place to place. Some plants are just so tough they find their way to sun and rain right through the branches of the iceplant. In other places, the iceplant has little clearings, dead zones through which other plants can grow. It sort of looks like the dead iceplant is at least relatively toxic, though, because it looks like the plants are growing on the edges of those clearings more than in the middles of them.
I am not sure that there are any indigenous plants in that streambed. Probably the willow. Maybe one or both of the asteraceae (one of which I think is genus Lactuca -- lettuce). Possibly the plantain and/or the geranium. The cypress, probably not. It's from near here, but not here (the natural range is limited to the Monterey area, just as the natural range of the Santa Cruz cypress is limited to the mountains). Maybe the watercress: but a tour through Jepson doesn't give me any way to casually determine exactly which watercress this is.
By the way, I've been told by someone who ought to know that watercress doesn't pick up much in the way of toxins from growing in these places. So I eat it sometimes. But not from the middle of the storm drain: from the rocks at the cliff, instead.
I expected to see more animals than I did. Some spiders, maybe, ants, bees. I did see one bee on the way out, but I was done listing things by then and I did not list it. I wondered if I would encounter any tree frogs, and I did hear at least two conversing.
More later.
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