Watch Out for Ticks!

Posted March 7, 2016

Filed under Spring, Ticks

Yesterday, likely due to my work in cutting back poison oak on the trails, I found a tick on me. Freaked out by the possibility of contracting Lyme disease, I quickly found a pair of tweezers and pulled the tick out, trying carefully to grab it from the head rather than squeezing the body. It was difficult, as it was quite tiny. The bite spot is still red and sore. But the important piece of information is this: save the tick, so it can be tested for Lyme Disease.

But as this Press Democrat article points out (helpfully published the day I found the tick), the actual incidence of Lyme disease in Sonoma County is not high, despite the fact that we have had the most reported cases in California in recent years.

To prevent tick bites, the Sonoma County Department of Health Services recommends:

Walk in the center of trails.
Use repellents that contain 20 to 30 percent DEET on exposed skin and clothing for protection that lasts up to several hours. Treat clothing and gear (boots, socks, pants, tents, etc.) with products containing 0.5 percent permethrin.
Bathe or shower as soon as possible after coming indoors, preferably within two hours.
Conduct a full-body tick check; parents should check children under arms, in and around ears, inside belly button, behind knees, between legs, around waist, especially in hair.
Examine gear and pets, which can bring home ticks that will then attach to a person.
Tumble clothes in a dryer on high heat for up to an hour to kill remaining ticks.

Remember that ticks that carry Lyme disease can be very small — about the size of a poppy seed. The biggest danger comes when the tick bite goes undetected and the disease is allowed to fester without antibiotics to fight it. Long-term effects are possible in these cases.

Therefore, it’s wise to know what the symptoms of Lyme disease are so if you have any of these you can contact your doctor immediately (from the Mayo Clinic):

“These signs and symptoms may occur within a month after you’ve been infected:

Rash. From 3 to 30 days after an infected tick bite, an expanding red area might appear that sometimes clears in the center, forming a bull’s-eye pattern. The rash (erythema migrans) expands slowly over days and can spread to 12 inches (30 centimeters) across. It is typically not itchy or painful.Erythema migrans is one of the hallmarks of Lyme disease. Some people develop this rash at more than one place on their bodies.
Flu-like symptoms. Fever, chills, fatigue, body aches and a headache may accompany the rash.”

If these symptoms are not spotted or recognized, later signs may appear in the following weeks and months. See the Mayo Clinic web site for more information.

So stay safe out there, and be vigilant!

Photo by wahoowins, Creative Commons License CC BY-ND 2.0

Lizards are Back!

Posted February 15, 2016

Filed under Lizards, Reptiles, Wildlife

Today was the first day I noticed lizards on the trail this year, although it must be admitted that I hadn’t been on the trail for a couple days. But suddenly they are everywhere, along my entire hike from the 4th Street trailhead on the Montini Preserve all the way up to the top of the Overlook. Lizards provide a characteristic short, sharp rustling sound as they scurry and stop, scurry and stop, in the dry leaves. If the rustle is not of this variety, it may be a snake instead.

Lizards, like snakes, are reptiles and as such are cold-blooded. This means they rely upon their environment for body heat, which also requires them to hibernate for a period during the winter when ambient temperatures are cold. When they emerge from hibernation depends on the weather, and our recent heat wave in mid-February clearly has released them from hibernation.

So keep an eye peeled for this little creatures, who are often quite colorful, and also for their cousins, snakes. If the lizards are out, then rattlesnakes can’t be far behind.

The Role of Prey

Posted July 17, 2015

Filed under Wildlife

In a recent post, I wrote about the role of raptors and other predators. The animals that predators prey upon are also of very important for a healthy ecosystem. It’s also worth pointing out that predators can also be (and often are) prey themselves.

In that prior post, I referred to the now classic case of ecosystem failure caused through over-hunting predators on the Kaibab Plateau in Arizona. The deer, freed from predation by their natural predators, soon over-populated the area and over-grazed the land. Their impact led to an ecosystem that could support fewer of both prey and predators. So having a balance is important, and human intervention can often lead to tragic consequences.

Therefore, when I run into the remains of various animals on the trail, I am less dismayed at the fallen animal than I am grateful for their existence and what they contributed to a healthy ecosystem. We need prey. We need predators. We need predators to also, in most cases, be prey as well. It may be that we are the first predator and prey that has largely escaped one of these roles, except, it must be pointed out, from ourselves.

In the end, humans are the most deadly predator of them all.

Wild Turkeys Couldn’t Drag Me Away

Posted July 5, 2015

Filed under Birds, Turkeys, Wildlife

An adult wild turkey in the Red Quarry.

“Wild horses couldn’t drag me away” – Mick Jagger, Keith Richards

I think I’m beginning a rather disturbing habit of quoting song lyrics and lines from movies in these posts. Slap me if I get out of hand.

Wild turkeys are common sights on the Montini Preserve and the Sonoma Overlook Trail. Just the other day I spotted a flock of parents and young ones in the Red Quarry on the Montini Open Space Preserve. But I’ve also seen wild turkeys many times before, including during a rainstorm.

Although definitely not widespread in California (according the California Department of Fish and Wildlife, they occupy about 18 percent of the state), wild turkeys are fairly common in Sonoma County. I live in the hills of Boyes Hot Springs and we have seen them in the neighborhood not all that far from the Montini Preserve.

The turkeys we have in California can be considered non-native, although turkeys existed in California some thousands of years ago. So technically, as at least one person has argued, they can be considered to be “reintroduced” to the state. They can become a nuisance to humans at times if their populations increase enough, but so far I would have to say that they don’t seem to have reached such levels locally. At least from my experience the times that I have spotted them have been few enough to be surprising and delightful.

But even if such sightings were not happy occasions, wild turkeys would never be able to drag me away from the Montini Open Space and Sonoma Overlook Trail. Just sayin’.

The Role of Raptors and Other Predators

Posted June 2, 2015

Filed under Birds, Wildlife

A Red-Tailed Hawk.

raptor – “a bird (such as an eagle or hawk) that kills and eats other animals for food” – Merriam Webster

Raptors are of course a natural part of the Sonoma Overlook Trail and Montini Preserve. The Red-Tailed Hawk, perhaps our most common raptor (at least the most commonly sighted) can often be seen wheeling above the meadows or perched high in an Oak tree. It is a primary carnivore, meaning that it eats herbivores. Other raptors such as the Great Horned Owl, are secondary carnivores, which means it also eats some species of carnivores (such as the Red-Tailed Hawk).

All carnivores, through keeping the populations of herbivores in check, help to create a balanced ecosystem. This role was brought home most famously by what has been called “the lesson of the Kaibab.” This refers to the Kaibab Plateau at the Grand Canyon in Arizona, where President Theodore Roosevelt created the Grand Canyon National Game Preserve.

To protect the game species (largely deer), predators such as mountain lions and coyotes were killed in large numbers. The deer population therefore took off and became so large that they damaged the ability of the land to sustain them, and their population crashed to below where it had been in the first place. Thus was painfully learned the lesson of the role of predators in keeping an ecosystem in balance.

So the next time you see a hawk with a snake in its claws or a coyote carrying a gopher, know that this is all part of keeping things in balance.