woo-hoo! Yosemite waters (falls) are HUGE right now

SO high, indeed, that this minute I was listening to NPR's California Report talk about it. Interviewing visitors who are laughing, standing drenched by Lower Yosemite Fall, another interviewee said it's the best he's seen in 30 years.

And I know they were on flood watch a few days ago, there, due to my Yose Source.

And, as it happens, I have a date to go to Yosemite Valley Sunday!!

Sweet! That's a fabulous homecoming. Will DEF. bring Nikon, no worries there. =)

Today is last day on assignment (away) so am getting psyched to get home. AND get back to regular blogging.

So, the Mumday post from a few days ago? A few comments (just 'cause it was "Mumday" then, doesn't mean I can't talk about it now...)

These were all taken at:

A lovely retreat with estuarine wetlands, marsh birds chittering away, swallows swooping and diving.

1. Strange brain. The first shot on that post, the pretty, fuzzy grass, I didn't officially know what it was. But just now I looked it up so I could tell you all and typed in Google "rabbit foot grass" not really sure why.

Well, that's it. First try. !! Rabbitfoot grass, Polypogon monspeleniensis, is a non-native that prefers wet soils (wetlands, seeps, springs) disturbed areas. Anyhow, it's a lovely (albeit non-native) plant but I didn't even know I knew what it was. I'm thinking maybe it was at my study site back in master's degree days?

Odd.

2. Shoreline plants and soil. How is THAT for a sexy soil profile? That's what I was excited about in this picture. Been thinking a lot about various types of wet lands (and associated soil) as they correlate (in some areas) with presence of California red-legged from (one of the projects I'm working on) and WOW was that top layer of soil BLACK!

3. The red plant backed by the Carquinez Straits is a non-native and I wondered if you all knew what it was.... ? Anyone??  =) If you heart wetlands, it's a good plant to learn and extirpate.

4. The very pretty Salicornia (guessing the spp.) virginica (a.k.a. pickleweed).

5. Next is the hearty oak, keeping the shoreline intact at the water's edge. Very prickly leaves, I don't know which species this is, but it has TINY acorns like Quercus dumosa. Anyone know what this guy is?

6. Well, there are the moments where "rabbitfoot grass" springs to mind, and there are these moments when I CANNOT remember what this beautiful flower is.

Drat. Anyone? I'll be psyched to be home with my books. =)

8. This is the remains of a ship intentionally run aground. Can't remember it's name, but it was (I think?) a schooner that sailed the world and set some sort of sailing speed record. The ship's one and only captain decided to run it aground right there and retire. It's interesting 'cause it has soil on it and grass (terrestrial plants) which I did not expect.

9. The tule and cattails are lovely to watch swaying in the Delta breeze, and I loved this lighting.

I was staring at the tule and cattails thinking about how I'd just learned about them this week in order to determine if they'd be a useful clue to how persistent standing water was at any particular site. The goal was to gather clues to help us decide whether or not a particular piece of land is potential aquatic breeding or aquatic non-breeding or upland habitat for California red-legged frogs (CRLF).

Here's some great shots of happy CRLF in ponds in a landscape very much like that which we checked out this week.

Our crew came back elated, the place was SO beautiful, filled with so many species of birds they didn't even have time to generate a list, they saw more CRLF than they'd ever seen, and discovered other exciting landscape features.

Also, between them (2) they also found over forty ticks on their person. Yikes!

k. gotta go.

=) biobabbler