Surprised by Turkeys!

Last Friday the rain gods were busy, so instead of tramping the mud on the fire trails, I decided to take a walk up Centennial Drive to the Lawrence Hall of Science (LHS) in the Berkeley Hills above UCB campus.

Maybe it’s because I grew up in the desert, but I love walking and hiking in the rain. The colors of the plants and earth seem more vivid, and the gray skies somehow make the green hills seem even more green. I’ve also noticed that I usually see more wildlife on a rainy day than a sunny one. Maybe it’s because there are fewer humans out, or maybe some animals like foraging in the rain.

So, I expected to see some animals on the hike, but was happily surprised to come upon this on Stadium Rim Way just above the California Memorial Stadium:

Wild Turkeys—not your typical Thanksgiving gobbler!

Wild turkeys! I am a huge fan of this native American bird. I consider it the American peacock:

But I didn’t always appreciate what amazing birds turkeys really are. Like a lot of people, my early impressions of turkeys were from the standpoint of Thanksgiving. I remember being told as a kid that turkeys were so dumb, they’d look up in the sky during rain and drown, and other nonsense. (See the debunking Snopes site:
http://www.snopes.com/critters/wild/turkey.asp
)

The problem is, as the Snopes article points out: “Domesticated turkeys are not necessarily ‘stupid,’ but because they have been bred in captivity for so many generations, they lack the survival skills of their wild cousins: They’re weak, they’re fat, they’re not agile, they can’t run very fast, and they can’t fly.”

[Update 2010-02-04 - There's a fascinating article on the domestication of wild turkeys at ScienceNOW called the Turkeys: So Good People Tamed Them Twice.  It explains what molecular anthropologists have been able to figure out about who first domesticated turkeys and when it occured.]

The turkey—one remarkable bird

The wild turkey is the very antithesis of our domesticated Thanksgiving bird. It’s wicked smart (“cunning” is a term hunters often use), illusive, and agile. And it’s a big, powerful bird.

An adult wild tom turkey typically weighs between 10 and 25 lbs and can be over 4 feet tall.  That’s one big bird!  Females typically weigh half as much and can be up to three feet tall.  The wingspan of turkeys range from four to nearly five feet.  The record-sized adult male wild turkey, according to the National Wildlife Turkey Federation, was 38 lb!

Despite its size, a wild turkey can run over 20 mph and uses that five-foot wingspan to hits speeds of 55 mph in flight. The wild turkey can defend itself, too. The spurs on a 20 lb. tom turkey make it a formidable foe, as many a hapless dog has found out when cornering one.

The turkeys one encounters in the Berkeley Hills are fairly used to humans, and it’s amazing how close you can get to them. This rafter (flock) of turkeys seemed to be all the same size and age —they seemed to be from the same brood. They walked up Stadium Rim Way for several hundred feet and then nonchalantly moved up the hill away from the Stadium, feeding as they went.

Centennial Road—beautiful lichen and black-tailed deer

As you head up Centennial Road up Strawberry Canyon, you’ll see some wonderful examples of lichens on most of the trees. I plan on doing an in-depth post about lichens later. They are fascinating plants, but identifying lichens is much more difficult than identifying vascular plants. Each lichen is a complete microscopic world with unique characteristics, and they can be very hard to tell apart.

The rain made the vivid green and yellow of two species of lichen quite striking:

About a quarter of a mile from the Berkeley Botanical Garden, I spotted two black-tailed deer grazing on the new grass that’s been springing up with our late fall rains:

Late Fall storm from Lawrence Hall of Science

It’s a pretty steep hike up to the Lawrence Hall of Science, but the view is always worth it. Even on a stormy day, unless you’re fogged in, the vistas can be wonderful, especially if you’re a fan of dramatic clouds.  In these shots, you can see Sather Tower just coming out of the low clouds, with the distant San Francisco Bay mostly hidden:

Compare these views to this one from midsummer:

And here’s a view looking over to Oakland:

That golden stream in the distance is Highway 24, the Grove Shafter Freeway, curving through Oakland. This picture doesn’t do it justice; It looked like a river of molten gold—magical!

Going home—caressing clouds and a talisman

On the way back down Centennial Drive from LHS, the rain lifted some, and there were beautiful views of Strawberry Canyon. I alway love to watch the interplay between low clouds, fogs, and the Berkeley Hills.

Finally, in the grass along the road, I found one this lone feather, a final reminder of the rafter of turkeys I’d seen earlier. For me, it was a talisman of a remarkable bird that makes the Berkeley Hills such a wonderful place to explore.

Winter blast-snow in the Hills-black-tailed deer

Instant Karma—winter arrives with a howl!

In some sort of “instant karma,” just days after posting about how bad New England winters are and how great the weather is here in the Bay area, even in winter, we got our first real cold snap. And maybe even some snow showers in the Berkeley Hills! (More on that in moment.)

Last Sunday, a very cold and powerful low pressure system dropped down out of the Gulf of Alaska—our winter storm-making center—and plunged south into the Northwest and then central California.

The low’s powerful counter-clockwise rotations sucked down some seriously cold air out of Canada, and snow levels dropped to 1,500 to 2,000 feet around the Bay Area and the Berkeley Hills. My wife and I were walking around San Francisco Sunday evening, and we experienced very cold winds, some heavy sleet, and even some snowflakes.

On Monday, with the rain gone, I wanted to take a hike up into the Hills.  I decided to take a walk up Cyclotron Road and climb up to The Big Cabove the Berkeley campus.

Cyclotron Road Snowman!

Near the upper end of Cyclotron Road (how cool is it for a science buff to live at a place with a road named after a cyclotron?) I laughed out loud when I came upon this:

Apparently built earlier in the morning, or the night before, this whimsical snowman seems to suggest that the snow level was considerable lower than 1,500 feet on Sunday. As cold as it was, I’m not surprised that even Cyclotron Road had enough elevation to receive snowman-making amounts of snow.

Of course, it could have been a prank, but upon examination, it seemed to be made from real snow, and it had twigs and leaves embedded in it from the ground. The fact that someone took to the time to build it and put it on the memorial is just another reason I love this area.

UPDATE 02-24-10: I now know that the snowman is in fact the work of the doughty Berkeley Lab’s Anonymous Snowman Building Team.  Kudos to BLASBT, and I hope to see more of their work in future cold snaps!

BLASBT Snowman 12-18-08

A Trail to Some Great Bay Views

At the parking lot below the entrance gate on Cyclotron, you can cross the road and catch some trails over to the canyon that leads up the The Big C.

You get some very nice views of  the University of California, Berkeley, campus  and The Campanile, or Sather Tower, from here:

The sky was beautiful.  The big low pressure had moved west to create blizzard condition and below zero weather in Nevada, Colorado, and the Midwest. But here, the sky was blue with some puffy winter cumulus sailing through the sky.  The views of the Bay, Golden Gate Bridge, and San Francisco were spectacular:

Hello Black-tailed Deer!

One of the reasons I like to go on these improvised trails, instead of up the fire road up The Big C, is that you often see Black-tailed deer (Odocoileus hemionus columbianus) here in the little valley below The Big C.  And sure enough, as I hiked up, I came upon several deer resting under the trees:

The Black-tailed (or Blacktail) deer is a subspecies of the Mule deer family. It is common in the western United States and here in the Berkeley Hills. In fact, the Berkeley Hills are ideal for Black-tailed deer, because their natural place in the ecosystem is on the edge of forests. Deep in a forest, there are not enough grasses and underbrush for the deer to eat. But on open grasslands, they deer have no place to hide or take shelter from severe weather. The Berkeley Hills give the deer the mix of grasses and hiding places they prefer.

If you want to see Black-tailed deer grazing or on the move, the best time it at dawn or dusk. During the day, you’re mostly likely to come upon them resting in secluded places under trees. Here’s a nice close-up of a Black-tailed deer from Wikimedia. I don’t have a telephoto lens and can never get close enough to the shy deer to get a shot like this.

The Big C and back again

If you go straight up the hill to the Big C, it’s quite a workout, but as I said, it’s the best way to see some deer. The Big C is a great place to sit and rest and enjoy some vistas of the San Francisco Bay.

If you take the fire trail back down, you also get some very nice views of Strawberry Canyon:

On my way back, I ran into the same group of Black-tailed deer, who had moved down the small valley from where I first saw them. They move fast, but I did catch one of them crossing the fire trail in front of me:

Soon, I was out of my beloved hills, walking down Hurst Avenue to my home and some hot chocolate.

Winter—A Tale of Two Coasts

Last night it was in the low thirties here in the Bay Area, and as the GEOS satellite image below shows, there’s another winter storm heading our way. Old man winter really is here.

But my dear East Coast friends (who I love to tease in good fun about their weather) shouldn’t smirk too much.  I happen to know that this morning they are “enjoying” a powerful wind and rainstorm that’s bringing driving rain, low 40s, and local flooding to the area.

Oh, and the big low pressure that blasted us? That’s now winding up big time in the Midwest, with near blizzard conditions and wind chills of minus 25 to minus 40 °F below zero!

And guess what? All that cold weather heading toward the Northeast, drawn inexorable by New England’s winter nemesis, the Icelandic Low. I’ll always love you, New England, but now that I’m done writing this, I think I’ll go take a walk in my beloved Hills—in the bright California sun. (And yes, I admit it; I will wear a jacket and cap!)

Holiday greetings to all!  May you and your loved ones be safe and happy.  Steve

Rethinking Berkeley, Naturally!

This post, originally published on June 22, 2010, has moved to The Nature of Berkeley.

You can see the original post here:

Rethinking Berkeley, Naturally!

♥♥♥

Berkeley Hills Landslide

Last week’s third and final storm was a doozy, setting all-time record low pressure in a number of cities. Here in the Bay Area we got 3 to 8 inches of rain, and wind gusts of over 80 mph.

Powerful Thunderstorms Drench Berkeley and North Bay

All along the coast, 20 foot waves pounded the shore:

Storm Surf - Jan 2010

causing significant beach erosion:

Beach erosion - Great Highway, San Francisco - Lea Suzuki - Chronicle

And as I mentioned in my last post on the storms, the first of the three storms even produced a tornado (and some waterspouts) in Southern California. (see Berkeley Hills-El Nino Storms Hit Hard)

And of course, snow in the Sierras was measured in feet—8 to 10 feet in some spots!

Sierra Summit Had 10 feet of Snow! - Ken Clark

After the mid-week second storm, I wanted to hike into the Berkeley Hills to see the effects of the storm on the canyons. But because it was so muddy, instead of taking a fire trail, I took one of my favorite paved roads up into the Hills, Panoramic Way:

I usually walk south on Piedmont, past the Memorial Stadium:

And then take a left up Bancroft, just past the International House:

When Bancroft dead-ends, I walk up the Bancroft Steps and then cross over to Panoramic Way, which winds up into the Hills:

Panoramic Way - Google Map View

As soon as I got up into the upper, less-developed parts of Panoramic Way, I saw lots of rocks on the road and erosion like this:

Typical Panoramic Way Storm Erosion

Typical Panoramic Way Storm Erosion - Closeup

But I was really shocked when I came around a bend of on the upper part of Panoramic Way and found this:

Panoramic Way Landslide

A landslide!  Not a huge one, but still, impressive to see first-hand. Over a hundred feet of the steep upper slope adjoining the road had given way:

Source Area - Where the Slope Gave Way

And flowed down Panoramic Way for quite a distance:

Depositional Area on Panoramic Way

I was struck by how intact the top layer was; the whole section had been slipped down the slope pretty much in one piece, carrying along most of the shrubs intact.  Although small in scale, this little landslide had all three of the basic  elements of any landslide:

Of course, this landslide on Panoramic Way in the Berkeley Hills was a small one compared to the huge landslides California is famous for.  In the hills and on the cliffs all along the California Coast, heavy rains and steep, unstable land create a deadly combination that leads to highly destructive and often lethal landslides and debris flows. One of the worst in recent memory was the La Conchita landslide in 2005, which killed 10 people.

2005 La Conchita Landslide - John Lehmkuhl

In Southern California, this vulnerability is only made worse after wild fires, fanned by the infamous Santa Ana winds, denude the hills of vegetation.   Without vegetation to slow it down and trap it,  water runs off too quickly, causing flash floods and debris flows filled with huge rocks and tons of sand and gravel. Sometimes truly enormous boulders are set loose:

300 Ton Topanga Canyon Boulder - 2005 Landslide - (AP Photo)

You don’t have to have barren hills to be at risk for a landslide. Doing research for this article, I came across this amazing image of a landslide in England.  Known as the Holbeck Landslide, it occurred south of Scarborough in North Yorkshire:

Holbeck Hall Landslide - England 1993 - British Geological Survey

Fortunately, this particular landslide didn’t happen in a moment.  It took place over a two-day period, so people were able to evacuate when the first signs of movement became evident.  The scale of the movement of land is hard to fathom, until you know that the the cliffs in the depositional area are over 180 feet high! Geologist estimate over a million tons of loose glacial till (sediment) flowed down to the sea shore.

Looking at the Holbeck Hall image, I have to admit that the little landslide on Panoramic Way seems pretty insignificant! (Although I wouldn’t have wanted to be in its way when it broke loose!) Still, the soil physics involved are very similar.  All you need for a landslide is instability—relatively loose soil and rock, a steep-enough slope, and some sort of triggering mechanism, such as too much rain, an earthquake, or erosion of the base of a slope of land.  As this USGS diagram shows, there are all kinds of landslides:

Kinds of Landslides - USGS

The bottom line is that at some point, the friction and cohesion that hold the soil on a slope are simply overcome by gravity, and the soil and rock take off down hill, acting more like a liquid than “solid” land. In California, the majority of landslides caused by rainstorms, though earthquakes and tremors are a not-too-distant second.

Because of the unique geology and weather of California, landslides and debris flows are always going to be a part of the California experience, just like earthquakes, wildfires, Santa Ana winds, and El Niño events.  Because Californian love their hills and the vistas they offer, hill dwellers are always going to be in harm’s way.

Claremont Canyon Hills - Beautiful Vistas and Risk

We can do what we can to be safe, but as nature writer John McPhee makes so clear in The Control of Nature, even our best efforts may be inadequate.   In the last section of his outstanding book, he shows how  residents of the San Gabriel Mountains in Southern California have had little success in preventing debris flows from destroying their houses in spite of spending millions on creating man-made diversion pits and dams.

Landslide & Debris Flow Scars in the San Gabriel Mountains - USGS

From the standpoint of geology, landslides, mudslide, and debris flows are simply the more spectacular forms of the ceaseless erosion that shapes our beautiful planet, wearing down mountains and creating the sedimentary rock and soil so much of life depends upon.  Walking in the Berkeley Hills, you can see evidence of this  ceaseless erosion of wind and rain up-close and personal.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

National Geographic has a fantastic video on YouTube about landslides.  The opening scene of a landslide in Portland, Oregon is simply amazing.  Watch as a fellow in a truck outruns a landslide coming down the street, sweeping away cars and everything in its path!

National Geographic Landslide Video

In this next amazing video, caught on camera by a Japanese research team, you can watch a whole mountainside slide across a road with the forest riding along intact!  Amazing!

Heyelan Japan Landslide

Berkeley Hills-El Niño Storms Hit Hard

All my East Coast friends that used to live in the San Francisco Bay Area have told me how much they envy the weather out here—especially when the windchill is say, 20 below zero and snow and ice are everywhere! But they always warn, “True, the weather there is mostly wonderful, but wait until the winter rains come!

Well, they came, and I have to say, I’m impressed! The storms that march in from the North Pacific are indeed amazing, powerful storms, with huge amounts of water and energy.

As a weather buff, I knew this was coming, and in fact, have been looking forward to it. (See “Escape from New England-a weather nut’s confession“)

It’s El Niño Time!

We are in the middle of what’s called a “moderate” El Niño event (technically, the phenomenon is called the El Niño-Southern Oscillation ). The bottom line is ocean temperatures in the Pacific have changed dramatically, shifting global air masses, and allowing far more of the amazing storms that form in the Aleutian Low and in the Northern Pacific to strike all along the California coast.

(I’m going to do an in-depth discussion on El Niño in a later post, but if you’re interested, in the “weather nut’s confession” post, I explain the basic mechanism of storm genesis in this area, and the Aleutian Low is one of the very big players.)

Here Comes the Rain! ( And we need it!)

For now, suffice it to say that the rails are greased for all that moisture and energy that are often blocked off by semi-permanent high pressure to head our way the rest of this winter. And head our way they have! Today marks the passage of the third, and most powerful storm, in string of storms that have pounded both Northern and Southern California with flooding rain, snow, high winds, and even an apparent tornado in the Long Beach area Tuesday afternoon! (See “Rare Mesocyclone/Tornado Hits Southern California” at AccuWeather Ken Clark’s terrific Western US Weather Blog.)

Storm Surf in Pacifica - Paul Sakuma/AP

Petaluma Flooding - Brant Ward - The Chronicle

These last three low pressure systems have caused considerable damage with twenty-foot surf, winds over 80 mph, and flash floods.  Some areas have gotten over 6 inches of rain. Mudslides and debris flows have been a special problem in southern California, as they often are:

Even so, the development of this El Niño is not all bad. For one thing, the surfers at Mavericks, near Half Moon Bay, love the enormous swells that come with these powerful storms:

Storm Surf at Mavericks

But most of all, it’s bringing much-needed rain and snow to California and to the drought-parched Southwest. (The problem in El Niño winters is getting too much rain too fast.)

Here in the Bay Area and the Sierras, the heavy rain and snow are very good news. Due to a drought over the last three years, statewide reservoirs are still just at 74 percent of average to date, so all of this rain is a big boost.

The good news is that the Sierra snowpack, where the bulk of California’s water supply comes from, is now at 96 percent of normal, and will only pile higher with each new storm this winter.

Heavy Sierra Nevada Snows

The prognostication is that this very wet pattern will continue until spring, and if you look out in the north Pacific, you can see the next set of impressive storms are already forming and heading our way:

Pacific Storms Lining Up - The Weather Channel

Storm Scenes on UCB Campus and in the Berkeley Hills

Here in Berkeley, we got several inches of rain and wind gusts over 50 mph. Powerful thunderstorms embedded in the low pressure system actually produced hail, a rarity in this area. I wanted to take  pictures in the Berkeley Hills as each storm system passed through, but I would have needed an underwater camera!  In between storms, I did get some cool storm images. (All the images below are “clickable” for larger versions.)

During a break in the rain, I went out to see how the storm had affected the Berkeley campus.  The newly repaired and renovated Campanile had weathered the storm just fine:

and the campus was  a sea of umbrellas as students scurried to classes:

I did see a fair amount of tree damage from the high winds of the thunderstorms.  The Eucalyptus seemed fine, but I saw a fair amount of lost limbs with the red woods:

The north divide of Strawberry Creek runs in front of the Life Sciences building.  The debris line on the grass shows how high the creek got during the some of the torrential downpours:

Leaving the campus, I headed up Centennial Drive into Strawberry Canyon itself.   The Creek was really full, and even hours after the last heavy downpour, water was pouring into it from its tributaries:

On the hike up into the Canyon, I was once again struck by how beautiful the lichen and moss on the trees look, especially after a rain:

About half-way up the lower Strawberry Canyon  fire trail,  a thunderstorm cell moved through the canyon, and I got totally soaked:

But, I loved it.  Hiking in the rain, or in a storm, in the Berkeley Hills is one of my favorite things to do.  The rain makes everything so clean and  beautiful, and the smells and sounds are so intense.

As I got higher up the fire trail, I crossed over to Claremont Canyon.  Looking out at Oakland, I could see two strong thunderstorms moving through:

Looking north toward El Cerrito, I could see another powerful storm in the northern part of San Francisco Bay:

At this particular moment, San Francisco was in-between thunderstorm cells and catching a small break in the clouds (that line of lights on the right side of the picture, by the way, is University Avenue in Berkeley)

Soon, it was getting pretty dark, so I headed down from the fire trail onto Panoramic Way:

As the darkness closed in, I got one more photo of San Francisco and the Bay:

As the lights of Bay cities came alive, I thought to myself how blessed I am to live in Berkeley and in the Bay Area.  The storms of winter and  El Niño are all just part of the wonder of one of the most beautiful places in the world.

(In my next post, I’m going to show a large mudslide I discovered yesterday in the Berkeley Hills on Panoramic Way and discuss the mechanics of mudslides and debris flows.  Stay tuned!)

Escape from New England-a weather nut’s confession

This post, originally published at Berkeley, Naturally! on Dec.03, 2009, has moved to my new  blog The Nature of Berkeley.

To read this post please click here:

Escape from New England to Berkeley-A Weather Nut’s Confession

Why I love the Berkeley Hills

Why I Love the Berkeley Hills

This post, first published on Dec. 01, 2009, has been moved to my new site The Nature of Berkeley.

You can read the original post here:

Welcome UC Berkeley Students! Be Sure to Discover the Hills!

Steve Goodheart
2011-09-08

Hello world! Welcome to Berkeley, Naturally!

The blog is a celebration of the natural beauty and wonders of the Berkeley Hills area.  I hope you enjoy your visit here!

Steve Goodheart
November 6, 2009

UPDATE August 2011:

Berkeley, Naturally! is inactive.  For new posts, please visit:

The Nature of Berkeley