Author Archives: Marisela De Santa Anna

Butter Butts Everywhere

March 13, 2023 Out on the north end of the Mitigation Lands there is a beautiful wetland. This time of the year it functions as a small lake where ducks and geese congregate. The Tules and cattails change color with the seasons and grow lush and thick in some areas. Walking out into this area…

Read more

Winter Tracks and Scat

February 28, 2023 Winter weather always provides great conditions to go out and look for wildlife tracks. Paul Rezendes writes in his wonderful book, Tracking and the Art of Seeing: How to Read Animal Tracks and Sign, that “At one time, being able to read tracks and sign was a matter of life and death.…

Read more

Robins in the Rain

January 23, 2023 The rain has changed Little Lake Valley in many ways, and it is now the middle of winter. The days are still shorter (though each day is incrementally longer) and we have especially cold mornings with a few hours of warm sunshine on the days it hasn’t been raining. Walking out into…

Read more

What Thrives in Winter?

January 4, 2023 This time of the year I become obsessed with the plants and other organisms that thrive during the wet and cold time of the year. Looking at the bare branches of the trees one can see a light sage-green fuzzy looking organism that looks like a plant, and erroneously is often called…

Read more

Turkey Time

November 18, 2022 The Wild Turkey, Meleagris gallopavo, makes up a large portion of the fauna in Little Lake Valley. It is a resident found year-round, sometimes congregating together in flocks of over fifty birds. A few years ago, I counted over two hundred of them making their way into the north end of the…

Read more