eridanlover's Journal

Hello everyone!

It’s been one week since the Spooky Season Bioblitz concluded. That should’ve given you ample time to submit all of your observations. With that being said, I’m sure you’re all excited to see our results.

In first place we have Team Vampire Bats, with a total of 425 observations. 12 of those observations belong to Class Arachnida, cumulating in a total of 437 points! The team roster for Vampire Bats includes @katsuofthenubs, @elkoftheriot, and @leviathanteeth. Team Vampire Bats scored 59 more points than Team Grey Wolves, making them the winning team for the blitz. The top observer for this team was @katsuofthenubs with 364 observations and 70 species.

In second place we have Team Grey Wolves, with a total of 361 observations. 17 of those observations belong to Class Arachnida, cumulating in a total of 378! The team roster for Grey Wolves includes @eridanlover, @tsslimemold, @local_romano_lover, and @danyantree. The top observer for this team was @eridanlover at 291 observations and 117 species.

In terms of taxa diversity, Team Grey Wolves scores above Team Vampire Bats, 183 to 125. The most observed species was the muskovy duck (Cairina moschata), with 43 observations, all by @katsuofthenubs. Several threatened native species were also observed, including California adolphia (Adolphia californica), Heermann’s gull (Larus heermanni), San Diego sagewort (Artemisia palmeri), and San Diego marsh-elder (Iva hayensiana) by @eridanlover, as well as Southern California walnut (Juglans californica) by @elkoftheriot.

Special thanks for @mako252 and @aaronddhh for being the top identifiers for Team Vampire Bats and Team Grey Wolves respectively!

In total, 786 observations of 290 species were observed over the course of the entire blitz. Congratulations to all of our team members for making this contributions to citizen science, thank you for participating, and hope to see you again next season! Our next blitz will take place December 5th-11th. Stay tuned for more information.

On Saturday, October 29th, 2022, I made my 5000th observation: Chamise (Adenostoma fasciculatum), or iipishi in the Kumeyaay language. I have a rather large backlog of observations yet to be uploaded. Sorting through the various photo backups from my devices over the years is a tedious task, not to mention the difficult memories this often trudges up. Therefore, it’s more than likely that this observation is not truly my 5000th. It is, however, the 5000th I have uploaded so far, and that is worth celebrating in itself.

Chamise is a little less common in the northernmost reaches of San Diego County, despite being an extremely ubiquitous chaparral shrub in California. I typically encounter it on more southward and inland hikes. It is of no surprise then that I observed this chamise in the Rancho La Costa Habitat Conservation Area in Carlsbad and San Marcos while photographing organisms for my bioblitz.

Chamise is a xerophyte that occurs in dry, wildfire-prone habitats. It thrives following such fires and regrows quickly even after being burnt down to their water and food-storing basal burl, also known as a lignotuber. They are an essential food source and home to a variety of animals, and they provide stability to the soil through their deep-reaching and extensive taproots. The local Kumeyaay people use the greasy shoots of this plant to kindle fires, the burl is used to produce charcoal, and the heated stems make excellent arrowheads.

Their long, slender shoots grow quite tall, often taller than me such as in this particular observation, and have fascicles of small, richly olive-colored and (typically) narrowly oblanceolate leaves, similar to the foliage of California buckwheat or rosemary. Panicles blossom densely with stunning five-petaled white flowers that produce achenes following fertilization.

Fire does not kill chamise. Rather, its seeds can sit dormant in the soil for decades until germination is facilitated by exposure to smoke produced by fires. The resinous leaves promote quicker burning, which suggest that flammability may be beneficial to the health of this centenarian species.

I think I would like to be more like chamise, finding prosperity after being scorched time and time again, rather than devastation.