Yosemite Nature Notes

Steller's jays are related to the eastern blue jay and to Clark's nutcracker, which is black and white.  Go figure.

In the late 1800s Sir Joseph Hooker said he had never seen a coniferous forest that rivaled the Sierra's because of the grandeur of its individual trees and the number of its species. 

The prime growing area for the ponderosa pine is in the Sierra. 

Incense cedars and sugar pines are California trees. 

The gold cup oak is also known as the canyon live oak. 

There are two tree problems for Yosemite.  Black oaks need fire to thrive, which they don't often get, and they love moist earth.  Cedars and pines like dry earth and are suffering root-rot because of ground moisture. When the settlers drained the swamps in the valley, pine trees began replacing the oaks.

Coyotes mate for life.

Mountain lion kittens are born from April to August.

The Western fence lizard is the one that does the pushups.

The western gray squirrel stays under the oak trees, and in autumn buries its food in many small holes.  This leaves the conifer forests to the Douglas squirrel, which buries its food all in one place.

Male deer travel around in "bachelor" pods most of the year.

I had been thinking that a "quidoquidoquido" sound in the trees was being made by a squirrel.  But I found a Steller's jay making it; finally something pleasant to go with its irritating "squawk."