A rather somber reflection on wildflower Season

Hello all,
I'm happy to have this new blog~ I will share some nature discoveries, and will look forward to other folks' observations and comments. This will include poems, short essays, reflections and whatever else the planet inspires us to create!

It is wildflower season in northern California! We are surrounded by kaleidoscope grasslands.
Yesterday my friend Norm and I hiked around Tennesee Valley in Marin County; today Kate and I visited Sibley Volcanic Regional Preserve in Oakland. Both abounded with silver lupines, sky lupines and California poppies; patches of purple and orange danced with the grass. Norm and I also saw a great blue heron standing on a hillside among the popples; we renamed it a "Gray Botanical Bird". California buttercups and goldfields splashed both emerald parks with yellow. Wild cucumber vines flowed through Sibley; Kate and I renamed their patches of tiny ivory flowers "Center of the Galaxy Flowers". It's late in wildflower season for blue eyed grass (which is actually a lily), but hoardes of it crowded the fields. I'm guessing this weekend is the peak of this year's wildflower season; I'll be amazed and very happy if the nova of blossoms expands!

Now for the somber part of this entry. It was hot in Sibley today. The forecast said it would reach 80 degrees farenheit; Kate and I both guessed it was at least 85. It is early for this kind of heat in northern California; this is particularly troubling when you consider the relatively low rainfall we've had for the past few years. The grasslands in Contra Costa County, where I work at least three days each week are starting to turn brown - it is definetly early for that.
This is why I am guessing we are at the peak of wildflower season in the inland areas. Tennesee Valley is closer to the ocean, and the Pacific keeps it relatively cool and often foggy. This region will thrive with flowers longer than the dryer areas, but I will want to keep track of the season's duration there as well.

The winter of 2008 - 9 was dry and often warm; I will look up the exact figures another time.
One thing that disturbed Kate and me was the condition of the quarry pond in Sibley Preserve. We often visit this spot in winter. We usually find two wintertime ponds there. Pacific tree frogs gather around one to mate and deposit eggs in the water; California newts throng to the other. We visited the quarry in early February and noticed that the frog's pond had not formed yet. The newt's pond was relatively small. Neither had received enough rain to grow to its normal size.

Pacific tree frogs dominated the pond where the newts usually mate, croaking loudly in the early afternoon. These little amphibians usually get quiet when people approach them, but they
just croaked on as people came close. Were they being exceptionally loud because of the reduced amount of territory that money? I don't know, but their calls were deafening. We searched in vain for newts in the pond. I am not clear if they were stationing themselves farther from the shore than the frogs or if they were finding a major lack of space for mating and egg laying. We feared for them.

It rained heavily in March and we returned one clear day to check on our amphibians. The frogs' pond was now in place, and the newts' pond had expanded to almost its normal size.
There were now plenty of newts and their egg masses and we couldn't find a single frog on their turf. Things seemed to have returned to normal, for the moment.

We have had little rain in the past few weeks. This is not unusual, we are close to the end of the season. Today we stood on the ridge above the newts' quarry pond and noticed that it seemed small for this time of year. We hope that newts larvae were able to emerge from their eggs before the territory dried out, and that many of them have enough aquatic space to find food and survive.

I want to be clear that everything I'm saying here is based on pure speculation and personal observations. I haven't conducted any scientific studies or seen any East Bay Regional Parks data on this year's rainfall in Sibley and on the newts' situation. I also haven't seen any predictions about the duration of this year's wildflowers. But I will offer a hypothesis that weather patterns are changing.

Is this situation due to human induced climate change? Everyone who follows this issue knows that while the data does support the idea that while this phenomena is real, it is impossible to say conclusively that any one situation results from it. Still, I did feel some fear as I walked among the wildflowers today. We need to keep this planet thriving.

That is it for now. You can bet I will share many more observations and thoughts on a range of topics. And I promise I won't always be so somber; expect celebration and joy.