Sonoma Developmental Center natural history's Boletim

Gentlepeople,

I am hoping, in the near future, to have the opportunity to analyze and write up (for publication) our biodiversity data for the Sonoma Developmental Center. Two local environmental groups are in conversation with each other about funding this effort.

I would like to therefore ask all project members (and other IDers) to please, if your schedule allows, to identify as many of the SDC observations as the evidence permits. We currently have almost 4000 observations that have not made Research Grade, and presumably some small number that have made RG but are not correct. Here is a link to identify those: https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/identify?project_id=sonoma-developmental-center-natural-history

The goal is to allow land managers and those making decisions about development to make use of the biodiversity data we have gathered. iNaturalist data, in and of themselves, are often not considered official enough to be used in these kind of situations, but a peer reviewed publication would be. I'd be very happy to have your aid and collaboration on this effort.

Gratefully,
Dan

Gentlepeople,

Please join me for some fieldwork this weekend at the SDC if you are able. We have permission to do biological surveys (using iNaturalist) on the otherwise closed property. I will need to let the SDC Police know how many of us there will be, and we will maintain physical distancing or wear masks.

I plan to get there early ~6:00 on Saturday (parking at the SEC) engage in bird photography, hike to some vernal pools to check what's flowering, then catch inverts using beating sheet and sweep net to document some of the smaller critters. There are so many species of under-sampled insects around here that I was able to find a couple of things not known (on iNaturalist) from Sonoma County in my tiny hard-worn yard this weekend. Having others along to help with all of this, plus focus on whatever taxa interest you, would be greatly appreciated! If some of you are willing to split up, I think that would be wise, and would certainly help to cover more ground. I will give everyone helping out a letter to show to the SDC Police -stating that you are there as a Sonoma Ecology Center research volunteer- in case you are stopped. The forecast high is 70, so it should be lovely for field work.

You are more than welcome to come later than I do. I will likely stay until at least 12:30PM, and you can stay later if you wish. I will keep my phone on, my number is 207-440-0062. Please do let me know if you can make it.

Best wishes,
Dan

Gentle Naturalists,

This Sunday, Feb 23rd, I would appreciate your help with continued sampling of the southeast segment of the SDC property. We will meet at 10AM the same place as last time, in front of Trestle Glen Vinyards on Trestle Glen Dr near Toyon.

As usual, we will be observing most everything, but I've decided my personal targets for this trip are brine shrimp and tardigrades.

Please let me know if you can join us.

Best wishes,
Dan

Gentlepeople,

We will be sampling on the east end of the SDC this coming Saturday, January 25th starting at 10AM.

We will meet on Trestle Glen Dr near Toyon at 10 that morning. We'll then head to 38.351219, -122.509278, the ephemeral pools we began sampling last June. I will have my phone (207) 440-0062 and should have reception at least some of the time.

Please let me know if you can join us. I could really use your help. Thank you.

Best wishes,
Dan

Gentle Naturalists,

There has been a sizable break in our efforts at the SDC due to my health, but I'm getting back to it and hope some of you will be able to help me.

This year, rather than sampling everywhere, my goal is to target some areas that are potentially of key importance for upcoming land use decisions around the SDC. For that reason, I've requested permission to bring a group of naturalists onto the (otherwise closed to the public) east end of the SDC property on the following weekends.

Jan 25-26
Feb 22-23
March 21-22
April 18-19
May 16-17

I'm hopeful that permission will come through in time for the weekend of Jan 25-26. Please let me know if you would be able to join me for some sampling there at any point that weekend, and the other weekends on the list. Thank you!

Best wishes,
Dan

Fellow naturalists,

The Sonoma Ecology Center is working on getting some local news stories about the biodiversity at SDC, particularly our work and initial findings there. As part of that, they'd like to have some of our best SDC photos to share with journalists, "a manageable assortment of 20 or so. Journalists tend to like photos that are well composed and visually arresting but also “tell the story." Horizontal images with people in them are preferred, though rare species also are of interest."

If you have any SDC photos that you think should be included, please send them to me (or tell me which observation they are attached to!). I'd like to give them a list by June 7th. Thank you!

Best wishes,
Dan

Gentlepeople,

Richard Dale from SEC has arranged for us to have permission to access the otherwise closed east end of the SDC this coming Friday-Sunday. While the fate of much of the SDC lands are already agreed in principle, much of this eastern end could be developed, or not, and with different uses. What we find may therefore make a real difference to the fate of this land, which is critical for connectivity between Sonoma Mountain and the Mayacamas, and includes some lovely oak woodland, wetlands, and riparian areas. This part of the property has been closed to the public because of un-remediated foundations of burned buildings. We have permission to bring up to six adults and two minors onto that closed east end for those three days as long as we stay away from the remains of buildings.

I will spend as much of those three days there as I can get away with, and could desperately use help. We are lucky enough to have many of Sonoma County's most talented and prolific naturalists interested in this project, and I'm confident we will be able to find some hundreds of taxa in the east end this weekend. Please let me know if you can join me out there for any part of the weekend. Even if you can't make it to the field, help IDing will be gratefully received. Thank you!

Best wishes,
Dan

Caitlin put me in touch with Mark Newhouser, an experienced birder who knows our study site well.
He provided the following list of birds to look for and where we might find them:

Target Birds

1. Ca Spotted Owl - grandmother redwood, western most tree line of upper orchard (Camp via trail), Coon trap trail
2. Golden Eagle - in flight anywhere, in particular over upper meadows and tree line
3. Northern Harrier - in flight over chapparel, upper Mill creek trail (east from camp via)
4. Vaux's Swift - colony roosting and possible nesting in chimney at Acacia house #2 at base of Orchard Road on Maple and Shady streets (see photo) Also observed in flight over Sonoma Creek near SEC from Marion Rose White bridge
5. Yellow Warbler - riparian areas/ Sonoma Creek
6. Tricolored Blackbird - could be accidental occurrence with population of RW blackbirds that congregate in trees and meadow adjacent to the junior farm buildings and horse corral off of Sunrise road.
7. Savannah Sparrow and Grasshopper Sparrow - possible in meadows near Junior Farm.
8. Lark sparrow - sited on one count many years ago along the loop around the farm (sighted on east side of Dairy Road, the road that runs N/S on the eastern most leg of the loop.
9. White throated sparrow - sited on last three CBC on ground next to privet hedgerow at intersection of Harney and Toyon.

Keep in mind that some of these are probably absent, and others will be hard to find, but we can probably find some of them if we look well.

Similarly, here is the list of herps we want to give special attention to:

Target Herps

1. Western Pond Turtle
2. California Red-legged frog,
3. Foothill Yellow-legged Frog
4. Red-bellied Newt
5. California Giant Salamander (which we've already found, but more observations would be good)

And here is Krissa's list of snails to watch for

Target Snails

1. Azalea Hesperian Snail
2. Redwood sideband
3. California lancetooth
4. Bronze shoulderband
5. Nicklin's Shoulderband Snail

6. Ribbed lancetooth (only one inat observation - tiny and found inside shells of larger dead snails)
   And we've already found:

7. California lancetooth, and
8. Sonoma shoulderback snail

As Krissa said, "Basically, if you see a snail, take a pic - we have lots of endangered native snails around here. When photographing snails or snail shells, take a pic of both sides of the shell, a pic of the shell in profile, and a pic of the shell opening."

If anyone wants to prepare list of butterflies/flowers/etc. we should keep in mind, please do!

Thank you!

Gentle Colleagues,

If you have any SDC observations of Endangered, Threatened, or Vulnerable species, they may be being left out of our observation list, and I need your help to fix that. This is because iNaturalist automatically obscures the locations of many special status taxa. Observations taken within SDC boundaries, but with obscured location, won't show up on our location-based project. This is a problem many iNaturalist users are currently having, and there are multiple discussions of this raging on the iNaturalist Forum right now.

The fix for the moment is to start a second, non-location based project, and contribute individual key observations to it. Only the person who took an observation can contribute it to a project. So, I'd like to ask you to check if you have any "threatened" observations from within the SDC borders.

Please do the following:

1. Open an iNaturalist.org tab and click "Your observations"
2. Click on "Filters" in the upper right hand corner and check the box that says "threatened." And hit "Update Search."
3. Scan through the resulting observations for anything that isn't a Coast Redwood, Water Fern, Double Crested Cormorant, or Cooper's Hawk (these four count as threatened but aren't obscured). Anything else on that list is being obscured and left off our project.
4. If you discover that any of your observations are being left off, please let me know and I will show you how to contribute them to this project: https://www.inaturalist.org/projects/sonoma-developmental-center-contributed-observations. Once they are contributed there, we will be able to see their locations and keep track of them appropriately.

Thank you, and sorry for the trouble.

Dan

P.S. This same problem applies to any location based iNaturalist project, including the one I set up for Sugarloaf Ridge State Park.