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IN THE FIELD: Corte Madera Mountain

By Tom Oberbauer

Back in January of 1978, I hiked up onto Corte Madera Mountain with a friend, Tom Scott (now with UC Berkeley and UC Riverside), who had been studying Golden Eagles in San Diego County. Bald Eagles were wintering at Corte Madera Lake. After postponing the hike due to rain, that was a good rain season, we drove out to Corte Madera Lake, which was accessible because Tom Scott had a key, and we hiked up the north side of Corte Madera Mountain on a little used trail. The trail climbed through a woodland of mostly coast live oak (Quercus agrifolia), but also Coulter pine (Pinus coulteri), as well as Jeffrey pine (Pinus jeffreyi). It was foggy going up and the view was obscured.

IN THE FIELD: Corte Madera Mountain
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In The Field: The New Santa Fe Valley Trail

By Jürgen Schrenk

Recently, the new Santa Fe Valley Trail, connecting the San Dieguito River Park’s Del Dios Gorge Trail with the Lusardi Creek Preserve, was opened to the public. The beginning of the trail took us through fields of Menzies’ Goldenbush (Isocoma menziesii var. menziesii).

In The Field: The New Santa Fe Valley Trail
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The Desert a Month after Monsoonal Rains

By Jürgen Schrenk

After yet another week of waiting for the temps to go down watching our Monarch production and limiting our walks to local parks, I was worried that I might completely miss the monsoonal “spring” in the desert. So, I went on a quick drive along S-2

The Desert a Month after Monsoonal Rains
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CNPS-SD Helps With Rare Plant Surveys

By Justin Daniel, Vice President, Rare Plants Co-chair

With vaccinations allowing more contact outdoors and a workload a year behind, it's been a busy time a few of us to help some of our fantastic environmental conservancy organizations around San Diego County by assisting them in their rare plant surveys. The following are glimpses into some of the recent surveys. Come along for the ride and reach out to support our partners, too!

CNPS-SD Helps With Rare Plant Surveys
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The Mount Laguna Surprise

By Tom Oberbauer

…The next week, I drove up and hiked to the location I visited in December and sure enough, the display of Platystemon californica (above) was pretty amazing. Sheets of color extended across the slopes leading into the center of the meadow. I spent some time attempting to photograph and create video of the breeze gently shaking the small flowers. From this location, the view of the meadow ranges across its full length, extending more than three miles in the distance to the south. Laguna Lake also contained a good level of water reflecting the blue sky, apparently left over from the previous two good rainfall seasons. I attempted to capture the view of the flowers with the lake and end of the meadow in the distance. The breeze and the movement of the flowers in this manner always reminds me of when I was a child and my family visited Estes Park in Colorado and we observed alpine wildflowers…

The Mount Laguna Surprise

Great challenges, greater accomplishments

Great challenges, greater accomplishments

By Arne Johanson, Chairperson Habitat Restoration Committee, CNPS-San Diego

Last month I provided an overview of our efforts. This month I will focus on just one, the San Dieguito River. While nowhere near the finish line, we have certainly accomplished much to get to this point. First, we trained and licensed volunteers who then earned the trust of USFW and the several property owners through our efforts at other sites. With our partners we obtained all of the permits to work in the river. Then we only had to obtain right of entry for some 6-10 parcels before initiating work.

Sondra Boddy and Bob Smith’s California native garden – chapter one

By Sondra Boddy, CNPS-San Diego Garden Native Committee member

“Holy cow,” I thought, “there’s a bobcat in my backyard!” I watched as she emerged stealthily from the dense foliage, deftly clamped her jaws around an unwitting Mourning Dove, then trotted off into the wildlands with her limp prize. The thrill of seeing this elusive animal stalking prey on our property in broad daylight made the months of hard work all seem worth it.

Promoting biodiversity, re-creating wildlife habitat and re-connecting with nature were primary motivations for planting California natives on our 1+ acre property up in the hills west of Lake Hodges. To our delight, it was working. Admittedly, conserving water was a key driver for us as well. Faced with a $430 water bill in June 2013 after our first month in the house, we knew that the expansive lawn and overgrown non-native vegetation had to go.