Fauna
What lives here, and what only passes through.
Most of the animals here are known by evidence rather than by sight. A bear on a camera at the creek, a lion on the night trail, tracks in snow, a gall on an oak twig where a wasp hijacked a bud.
Animals of the land
Anna's hummingbird
It does not migrate. That single fact is why the winter-flowering shrubs on this land matter.
Turkey vulture
One of the very few birds that can smell. It finds carrion under a closed forest canopy, from the air.
Mule deer
The most numerous large animal on the land, and the reason the mountain lion comes through.
Mountain lion
The cameras catch it through the year. Once in five years, in daylight.
Black bear
The only bear left in California, on a flag that still shows the other one.
Western grey squirrel
It buries more acorns than it digs up again, which is one of the ways an oak woodland plants itself.
Western honey bee
Honey is made on this property. Worth being straight about the bee that makes it: it is not from here.
Shrew
Not a mouse and not a rodent: an insectivore with a heart past 700 beats a minute and a few hours of tolerance for an empty stomach.
Grey fox
The only dog in the Americas that climbs trees, and it does it to get away from the other dogs.
Twelve-spotted skimmer
Three black spots on each wing, and the white ones between them mean it is a male.
California whiptail
Out on open gravel at midday in August, which is when the other lizards here have gone under a rock.
Striped skunk
Tail up is a warning, not a shot. It carries enough for five or six and needs more than a week to make more.