Illustrations by Jane Kim, text by Bay Nature staff.
Mouth in foot
In the small universe that is a tidepool, an ochre sea star (Pisaster ochraceus) dominates its patch of the rocky intertidal. Creeping on hundreds of tiny tube feet, it seeks out its favorite food, mussels. Those little tubes help pry apart the bivalve, letting the sea star begin to digest the mussel in its shell. When ochre sea stars are absent from a tidepool, the mussels can go wild. Kinda. They proliferate, filling an area and influencing what other species settle there. An afternoon in fall, during a low tide—this year, around the first week of December tides will be at their lowest—is an excellent time to catch sight of an ochre sea star, which, a little confusingly, are also commonly purple or orange or brown or red, or various shades in between.
Everlasting
Sometime around now, early fall, young oak titmice (Baeolophus inornatus) will find their mates, often pairing for life, and stake out a woodland territory (mainly oak) spanning up to six acres. If their land includes your yard, and all goes well for the monogamous couple, they will be defending it from other titmice and intruders year-round. Listen this fall for their scratchy calls and in spring for the male’s various songs.
From the she shed
Listen to the drum solo in Phil Collins’s iconic ’80s song “In the Air Tonight,” and then imagine you’re a female Bay Area blond tarantula (Aphonopelma iodius), hunkered down in your cozy burrow. The worst of the Diablo Range heat is over, the fall days are growing shorter. Suddenly, reverberating through your home’s dirt walls come quick staccato taps, a few thumps, and bodily vibrations. It’s a male tarantula drumming. After prowling hillsides in search of you, he is now banging out his best solo to woo you from your she shed to mate, and you must decide, “Does this beat get me on my feet? Is that my Phil?”
Who knew?
The diminutive, ghostly white fingers of candlesnuff fungus (Xylaria hypoxylon) that reliably rise each fall and winter from decaying wood in Bay Area forests have caught the eye of researchers. They say genome studies show the little fungi produce a slew of unusual secondary metabolites—substances that help with fungal defense, growth, and communication—some of them previously unknown to science and of interest to agriculture and medicine. Even a common fungus can harbor mystery.
Shrub of plenty
The bright red splash of joy that breaks through the sometimes-gloom of late fall and early winter days in the Bay Area comes from a shrub called toyon (Heteromeles arbutifolia). Its bouquets of berries feed robins, hermit thrushes, and flocks of cedar waxwings, among other creatures. Tribes throughout the state have recipes aplenty for preparing the puckery fruits. Check Merriam-Webster’s wonderful etymology of the word toyon, tracing its origins to Mutsun, Rumsen, and Chochenyo, languages indigenous to the greater Bay Area. Toyon is a distinctly West Coast kind of cornucopia.
Guardians of the thicket
Mountain beavers (Aplodontia rufa phaea) are like the gnomes of Point Reyes National Seashore. Emerging at night from their tunnels to gather food, the muskrat-size, stubby-tailed rodents are rarely glimpsed, even by the most quest-driven researchers. But by winter, when the thickets of vegetation thin where mountain beavers make their burrows, one might spy a small, tidy heap of vegetation piled near the mouth of a hole. The sword ferns, coyote brush, and poison oak have been left out to wilt a little, before the mountain beaver brings them inside for food or bedding.
