Trail Guides in Training

Today, we broke up into several groups and each person did a 10 minute mini guided tour. This was used to see how we presented ourselves.

Since learning a lot about the plants contained in the park, I didn't have a problem finding things to say as I led the hike. In fact, time seemed to run by so fast. Although, my critique was that I kept "talking to the plants" rather than the people! So, now I'll try to remember to look people in the eye as I dispense factoids.

I tried out the "sport" settings on the camera and caught this tiny (but not pygmy) butterfly's wings in the open position.

Here's an underside close up of wing details while they're up.

We spotted a gopher while someone was giving a mini guided tour. This is the type of occurrence you depend upon to make the tour even more interesting. The sun was in its eyes, so it didn't seem to see our group walk up to it.

Trail Shots in MTRP

The mountain lilac bushes are beginning to bloom and appear on the mountain sides. It's a little hard to see here mixed in with a few boulders.

Shooting birds in the wild is very difficult. Once you get your camera in position, they fly off to the other side of the park. Here, clockwise from the left: Spotted Towhee, Red-winged Blackbird, Egret, Anna's Hummingbird and a Hawk eating lunch.

A few of the park's trails are flooded over because of the recent rains.

A view of pink El Capitan on the left and snow-capped Cuyamaca Mountain on the right.

San Diego East County Snow

With the recent wet weather in San Diego County, I went on a trip to check out the snow near Julian. A lot of people like to take their children to play in the snow while parked cars crowd the two lane highway.

It was an overcast day and all the pictures I took deserved a big fat "F" for choosing the wrong settings. I managed to squeak out at least one decent picture which had to be converted to B&W to avoid a weird blue hue.

MTRP Visitor's Center at Dusk

HDR picture of the Visitor's Center. I was hoping to catch some cloud action, but the sky cleared up after the rare rainy conditions. Better luck next time?

Midnight Moon

It took me some time to figure out how to take a shot of the moon. I finally rested on 1/1000 sec., F5.6 with ISO 200 by using full manual mode with the Rebel XTi. The 250 mm telephoto lens was borrowed from a friend.

HDR Pictures

I found this old plant material lying on the ground at MTRP near a Western Sycamore (Platanus racemosa) tree. I'm not sure if it's the catkin from the tree or something else, but I decided I wanted to take a detailed macro shot of it. Using Photomatix software, I created an HDR representation to capture even more detail.

Snakes

Rattlesnakes

In San Diego County, the 4 types of rattlesnakes you may encounter are:

1. Southern Pacific Rattlesnake, Crotalus viridis helleri
2. Red Diamond Rattlesnake, Crotalus ruber ruber
3. Southwest Speckled Rattlesnake, Crotalus mitchelli pyrrhus
4. Colorado Desert Sidewinder, Crotalus cerastes laterorepens

In the park, the ones you may encounter are 1-2 with a very rare appearance by 3.

Antivenom

The antivenom, CroFab, is what you would take as an antidote to the poisonous bite of one of these Crotalids. Perhaps in the future we'll come across a more effective treatment with this new approach using recombinant DNA technology rather than having to milk a snake of its venom.

Friendly Snakes

Today, we finished covering the topic of Snakes, with a getting-to-know-you, hands-on approach. Here is Ranger Heidi explaining general snake anatomy and habitat. It was a little difficult trying to pay attention to what she was discussing because all I could think was, "gee...do we have to play with the snake, too?"

Sure enough, the Gopher snake was handed over to me. After a short time of handling it, I became more relaxed and fascinated with the way the snake felt twisted around my arms and hands. Here's the guy next to me holding it for a close-up pic.

Again, it was difficult paying attention to our instructor as she told of a snake that bit her finger and would not let go. There was something said about dunking it under water for some time.

After I handed the snake over to the guy next to me, I could see he was fascinated with the color of the snake's scales. He didn't pay attention to where the head was going. It slithered in between the binders of his MTRP Guide Book.

We couldn't force the snake out, so we decided to leave it alone. I figured it would miss our body heat and eventually slither out from the book.

We also got our hands on a California Kingsnake (Sir Lancelot).

Thanks to Tecolote Canyon Natural Park for the snake loan!

Lake Murray Hike

Last Saturday morning found our group investigating the wildlife around Lake Murray. Mission Trails Regional Park encompasses not only land between Mission Gorge Rd. and State Route 52, but the land southeast surrounding Cowles Mountain and Lake Murray to the south of that. There are plans to incorporate more land located north of 52.

American Coots enjoying the calmness of the water give a sense of peace.

Coastal Deerweed Lotus scoparius is related to the pea plant. The family Fabaceae is also known as Leguminosae. In this close-up, one can see how the tiny flowers are very similar to the pea's flower.

These are domestic geese.