Text by Victoria Schlesinger; images by Jane Kim.
SPOTLIGHT SPECIES: OCHRE SEA STAR
Ageless
The sliver of ochre sea star (Pisaster ochraceus) wedged into a rocky crevice of the tidepool you’re peering into while the tide is low this July may be as old as 20 years. It owes its longevity to the fact that the ever-omnivorous gulls and clever sea otters are the only predators with the strength of will and skill to pry a sea star from its shelter. It can be almost as tough to confidently guess the age of a sea star. They grow and shrink throughout their long lives as conditions demand.
Puckery
If you like to forage berries from Bay Area wilds, you’ve probably got a story about the evergreen huckleberry (Vaccinium ovatum), a native of coastal California. For the berry-curious: Huckleberries ripen in late summer to early fall and are basically the blueberry’s almost untamable tart cousin. Because they can be hard to grow—although many gardeners try—harvesting them in the wild, often in forests, comes with lore: family rituals, secret spots, and a price paid in purple fingers and sometimes a case of poison oak. Wildlife love the fruits too, so remember to share.
Oldest fishing net?
Brown pelicans (Pelecanus occidentalis) look ancient. And they are. The pelican that floats along Bay Area shorelines year- round has been here since the Miocene, between five and 23 million years ago. This summer, watch a peli do what its kind has been doing for millions of years: fishing with its gular pouch, the dark skin beneath the bill. That pouch can balloon to hold more than 2.5 gallons of water. You’ll know a dive was successful when the peli pulls its sea-swollen bill chestward, forcing water to slowly drain, then tosses its head back and the catch down the hatch.
Inside the hat
Nearly the only place on the planet to find the Lilliputian red cone gall wasp (Feron kingi) is California, on the leaves of our valley or blue oaks. Come August, these galls are myriad. In the palm of your hand, the baby-pea-size, pinkish cone looks like it could be worn as a hat by a tiny gnome. Instead, it is a nursery for a cynipid wasp that will crawl out of the tip as an adult in winter.
In real life
As spring wanes, northern fur seals (Callorhinus ursinus) haul themselves from the Pacific onto the rocky shores of the Farallon Islands, 30 miles from the Golden Gate. It’s just one of two breeding colonies found south of the Aleutian Islands. For most of the seals, it’s the first time ashore in eight months. By July, pregnant females get busy with birthing the black-furred, footlong pups, whose wide-set eyes and tiny ears are so dang cute, they’re the stuff of memes. IRL, the also-charming-looking adults lunge, bare teeth, bite, and fight over their corner of dirt and rock. Most will slip back into the sea once the pups wean in November.
Baby rattles
Sometime between August and October, the Bay Area’s only species of venomous snake, the western rattlesnake (Crotalus oreganus), gives birth to an average of four to 12 live pups. Some research has found that the mothers of black-tailed rattlesnakes guard and defend their young until the pups shed their skin for the first time. With each wardrobe change, a rattler gains a new button on its rattle.
