catchang 的日誌
This journal post is to keep track of articles and podcasts I've participated in.
Jumpstart Nature Podcast #5
"The New Naturalists" by Mary Ellen Hannibal, Fall 2019 Bay Nature
"If the Green Stuff in the California Trees Is Not Spanish Moss, What Is It?" by Cat Chang, Ask the Naturalist, Winter 2018 Bay Nature
It’s been a minute since I looked back through a year on iNat and thought about the journey through the seasons and all the public lands accessed.
Highlights of the year:
-Joining the iNaturalist Board. I’m excited to help create sustainability for iNat as the organization moves into independence with an amazing group of people. Please join our community of monthly supporters; building diverse means of support is critical.
-Passing my 40,000th observation this spring. I decided to honor it with an excursion to the Griswold Hills in search of Desert Candle, Caulanthus inflatus with a crew of people I am honored to call friends. These are all friends I’ve become close to through the time we spend out in the field. @robberfly, @leslie_flint, @burtosa
-Seeing endemic Lepidoptera including the only two endemic butterflies in Hawai’i. This Omiodes moth is stunning; I found it by running a moth light at the hotel we stayed at in Kealakakua. The Kamehameha Butterfly, Vanessa tameamea is incredibly florescent in flight as it rockets through the canopy of the forest. I was lucky to be able to catch it for the few moments it was stopped on its host. The Hawaiian Blue, Udara blackburni isn’t blue but a beautiful shade of green outlined in yellows and rusts.
https://www.inaturalist.org/identifications?user_id=catchang&for=others
Also helpful for keeping track of notifications
https://www.inaturalist.org/observations?ident_user_id=catchang&order_by=updated_at&place_id=any&subview=table
I don’t need to say this- but 2020 was a year for the history books. I did my best to follow Shelter-in-Place guidelines for my county. At first I tried staying close to home- but being in Oakland open spaces with hundreds of other inner Bay Area people on a trail felt less safe than driving to the next county over. I posited my actions were reducing pressure on our local parks where much of Oakland’s populace has little privilege to get further out. Perhaps my internal justification is self serving— but access to natural open spaces can be very difficult for many city dwellers.
This year’s highlights were modest:
-Local Butterfly Counts:
My favorite was the Berkeley count. Meeting up with @robberfly, @tiwane, Danielle, @kueda reminded me why it’s a privilege to be out in a beautiful day counting urban butterflies. I forget how many species we had, but we saw a number of Euchloe ausonides, Large Marbles (and a Lycaena gorgon, Gorgon Copper!).
I helped with the SF, Mt. Diablo, Benicia and Pt. Reyes counts this year as well.
-Quercus palmeri:
Been wanting to see this species and tracked one almost in my backyard. Well- it was in the inner Bay Area and in my county! Still want to see the acorn cap for this. It makes a little hat that flares out amazingly. I am amazed by the potential bio-diversity in our urban areas.
-Staying safe and surviving:
I have missed all the people who I usually hike with. But here's to getting through this together.
(Click on photo if you want to be able to read the text.)
The iNat team graciously created a Year in Review tool. It got me thinking about the 5 years that I’ve been using iNat to understand what’s around me. I started in 2016 as a way to learn my fungi and along the way, that interest shifted to lichens and then to moths. Here is my comparison of use. You can see how my interest in moths has grown (and how 2020 really was an outlier since travel was suppressed.) @robberfly was a huge part of helping me learn this area of biology. Thanks, buddy- I’m sure in 2021 or 2022 we will be able to get out and about more easily.
Larval Case Architecture and Implications of Host-Plant Associations for North American Coleophora (Lepidoptera; Coleophoridae) by Sibyl Bucheli, Jean-Franc ̧ois Landry, and John Wenzel
https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/b3bd/1e169460323dfe13074f803190c6fab89833.pdf
Selected Tidal Marsh Plant Species of the San Francisco Estuary
A Field Identification Guide
http://www.spartina.org/project_documents/field_guide_tide_plants.pdf
United States Department of Agriculture
Agricultural Research Service
Agriculture Handbook Number 573
An Illustrated Guide
to Plant Abnonnalities Caused by Eriophyid Mites in North America
By Hartford H. Keifer, Edward W. Baker, Tokuwo Kono, Mercedes Delfinado, and William E. Styer
1982
Yes, they exist and they have a life cycle moment hitching rides in fish gills.
https://www.xerces.org/wp-content/uploads/2009/06/pnw_mussel_guide_2nd_edition.pdf
a great key to syrphid flies: http://cjai.biologicalsurvey.ca/mylmst_23/mylmst_23.pdf
Ferdinandea is a very distinctive genus and easy to identify. There are only 3 species in North America. Here is a key to species: http://biodiversitylibrary.org/page/39701381
Yes! A super key and guide to fruit flies of California. This has keys, species notes/locations, plant hosts and WING PATTERN guide (at the very back.) A moment here to reflect on the enormous amount of easily found research brought to the internet by the UC system.
