northern harrier
Bluebirds Now, Acorns Later
The bluebirds’ wet warbles call from fence lines, the birds swoop, scooping up grasshoppers from the dusty ground, picking off caterpillars from stalks of dry grass. Acorns fatten on the oaks, not yet ripe, not yet falling. The days shimmer from bright sunshine and a clear dark blue sky. It is nearly half way between the summer solstice and the fall equinox; the days are becoming noticeably shorter, the nights sometimes warmer, the cricket songs more diverse and louder. And, full moon is tomorrow.
The Silence of the Birds
The jays and acorn woodpeckers are more silent. Most of the birds have quieted considerably. Cooper’s hawk is terrorizing the entire range of bird life, but the quail are its favorite game. It is everywhere: flying through the apple orchard, winging around corners of buildings, soaring above the fields…full of the energy of the hunt. The northern harrier is more surprising, returning for stints and then disappearing for a day or hours – its hunting ground extends beyond Molino Creek Farm. Two red tailed hawks are constantly but less energetically hunting, sometimes soaring, often perched, watching, waiting. The night brings the barn owls’ metallic screech; these are as commonly calling as the great horned owls- the fire may have favored the return of barnies because there is less of the great horned’s favorite dense tall forest cover. There’s even a barn owl baby calling in the San Vicente creek canyon just over the ridge. I worry, though, since there are great horned owls…when will we find a pile of barn owl feathers in the field- that’s a repeating pattern: the great horned owls always seem to win.
Sunflower Show
Judy’s sunflowers are making quite a show. What skill to keep a batch always coming into bloom through the entire farming season, making bouquets for farmers’ markets each week. Bright yellow cheerful sunflower heads…the dominant cut flower in the irrigated field alongside onions, zucchinis, cucumbers, and pole beans. She grows a lovely small patch of diverse market crops.
Apples A’ Hoy
Meanwhile, in the apple orchard the burgeoning crop of fruit is unbelievably large. Almost every branch of every apple tree is bent with full weight of fattening fruit, props holding them from breaking or resting on the ground. The frequent zipping by of the hawks have substantially decreased bird damage to apple fruit. Gala apples are always the winners: last to set and first to ripen. We recalled that the second week of September is the week of gala, but it might be early…
Oranges at Molino? Moooo
On Citrus Hill, near the Barn, we have been plucking cara cara oranges from the two trees we planted a few years back. The first substantial crop of cara cara has been wonderfully juicy and sweet: Score! Cara cara navel oranges are crosses between ruby red grapefruit and navel orange. Its flesh is redder than normal oranges. We are very very stoked to be able to grow a tasty orange: the others we’ve tried make okay juice, but they aren’t that good to eat just plain- cara cara oranges ARE good.
Night Walks
Shorter, hotter days create conditions for night watering of the orchard, leading to late night walks to turn off irrigation valves. This leads me to unavoidable opportunities for nurturing the nocturnal naturalist in me. Tonight’s observation: black widow spiders aka Molino farm road median lurkers. Over and over again I witnessed (for the first time!) black widow spiders busily building web networks 4” or less from the soil surface on the unimproved road median strips, emanating from web encrusted gopher holes that must be their lairs. Another nocturnal roadside observation: the emergence of many brown field crickets, now evident in the chorus from various areas. Also, slender shiny dark brown ‘night ants,’ tiny cockroaches, big greasy looking black field crickets, and a myriad of different spiders. No mammalian eye shine gave something away with my bright headlamp, darn.
Rodent Fiasco
The fact that this is an epic Rodent Year still is in force. Mark Jones reports hundreds of rodents fleeing the path of the mower. Every inch has been rototilled by gophers. Farmers are losing crops. Orchardists are seeing girdling, making for more urgent trunk clearing. Every storage shed reeks of mice. A family of 10 mickey mouse deermice greeted me when opening up the small orchard tool storage shed. The bunnies have proliferated in areas, as well. And that fox which we had been seeing down the road a bit…well, its moved onto the farm! Prints in the dust, leaping fox scattering to hide: welcome back Gray Fox!
Hoping you get some warm weather basking!
Midsummer Rabbit and Hawk Weather
Until recently, flocks of fruit and seed eating birds flitted between orchard trees or sauntered across farm fields happily getting fat on the burgeoning ripening of Molino Creek Farm’s midsummer. Then, suddenly, hawks appeared. Three weeks back the merlin appeared first with its pointy winged butterfly-like energetic wingbeats, flying high along the ridges above the farm, harassing swallows and purple martins almost exclusively. Gradually, more avian predators arrived to take advantage of our hundreds of herbivores. Today, on one short walk lower on the property I saw a kestrel, one northern harrier, and a single Cooper’s hawk all hunting scattering, frightened birds. The fruit destroying jays and acorn woodpeckers have quickly changed behavior- now shyer in their orchard haunts, hiding deeper in the canopies of the apple trees. Glancing up, I notice the harrier was successful, soaring about with a frightfully struggling bird gripped tightly in its claws while being dive bombed by brave fighter-swallows trying to rescue its prey. The harrier soared into the distance to feast and then night fell and a barn owl, rare on the Farm, has been screeching steadily out in the thickly starlit darkness, joining the cricket chorus.
The Ripening
The days have been hot, great for growing crops. Two Dog Farm’s butternut squash plants are 4’ in diameter and growing rapidly…fruit already getting big in places, pointy petals of the female flowers, star-like and pale orange, opening at the end of baby squash. Their freshly mowed vineyard is also looking great- the vines are making their first Chardonnay crop with thousands of tiny grapes growing in clusters. The thousands of apples are also growing fat quickly and changing into their recognizable patterns of color. The gala apples will be our first big crop – ripening in about one month; we are already eating the few gravensteins that one small tree has produced. Meanwhile, in Judy’s fields, the sunflowers smile brightly alongside beds of dark green, perky and lush zucchini plants.
Monsoon!
This past weekend was (another) bout of weird weather: the edge of a summer monsoonal system raked across this part of California. It was muggy and warm and there were even some light showers, dappling the dust without adding any real moisture to the soil. Bastions of tall cottony cloud clumps loomed threateningly in patches of lighter patterned clouds. We would have hated to have lightning but those faux storms produced nothing of the sort. There was all of that stormy-looking situation but no wind, no downpours, and no thunder. Somehow, everyone seemed more cheerful for the weather, energized by the shift, which only gradually is departing, returning to the relentlessly warm, sunny skies arching above the cooling southward march of lower elevation dense fog bracketing the days at dawn returning at dusk.
Stridulation and Pounce
The nights have returned to a steady multi-species cricket chorus. Each window has its own mix of insect song, sometimes high and constant, other times more rhythmically pulsing.
After sunrise, the crickets hide and the grasshoppers start hopping. There are so many grasshoppers that you can watch the western bluebirds successfully hunt by hopping around the grassland just like robins (bluebirds usually fly and then pounce on ground prey), briefly standing proud and tall another prey item held in high in their beaks.
Bunny Wonder
As they will, the rabbit population has been getting larger and larger. Stepping out the front door, a big poppa bunny trots away from me only to flop a short distance away in the midday shade of a bush awaiting my safe departure. Two generations of young scamper more furtively away, the smaller of the two running towards and sitting next to flopped poppa. I could watch the twenty or so rabbits around my house graze all day. Their sparkling eyes gazing at me and their soft brown fur are enchanting, but their continued curiosity at nibbling this and that intersects well with my botanical interests: why do they like some plants and not others? Thank you rabbits for keeping my yard more fire safe!
Molino Creek Farm 