Sacramento Splash

This week’s Wildlife Wednesday features Cold Coping Critters Part 2! Last week, we started investigating some of the remarkable adaptations that wildlife in our region use to survive the winter months. We admired the luxurious fur coats of some mammals in our area, discovered why ducks’ feet don’t freeze when they stand on ice, and learned about some critters that just take a long winter nap! Some animals in our area, instead of going into a true state of hibernation, spe...Continue reading

Welcome to Wildlife Wednesday Cold Coping Critters Part 1! Brrr winter is here! It’s time to put on warm coats, snuggle under down comforters to sleep, stoke up the fireplace, or maybe even head to warmer areas. I know it doesn’t really get that cold in the Sacramento region, but I still enjoy fireplaces, down comforters, and hot chocolate on a chilly night! Surprisingly, wild critters in our region use many of the same strategies we do to cope with the colder tempera...Continue reading

Happy New Year!! Welcome to the first Wildlife Wednesday of 2021! Last week, we allowed the year 2020 to have its final swan song by making the native Tundra Swan the focus of Wildlife Wednesday. We mentioned in that post that there are three species of swans that can be seen in California, the Tundra Swan, Mute Swan, and Trumpeter Swan. We covered the Tundra Swan, Cygnus columbianus, last week. The Trumpeter Swan, Cygnus buccinator, is extremely rare in California. In...Continue reading

As we say good riddance to this dumpster fire of a year, let’s allow 2020 to have its final swan song with today’s Wildlife Wednesday post about swans! This is the best time of year to see swans in our region! It’s truly spectacular to witness these giant waterfowl flying overhead or making their splash landings in a beautiful wetland area. Although there are three species of swans that can be seen in California, the Tundra Swan, Mute Swan, and Trumpeter Swan, today we’ll...Continue reading

On this Wildlife Wednesday, let’s talk about one of the greatest wildlife spectacles in the world right in our own backyard in the Sacramento Valley! Imagine standing at sunset, surrounded by beautiful wetland habitat, while one million ducks and several hundred thousand geese take flight and disperse against the colorful sunset sky! You’re in the middle of this spine-tingling event, as the sky above you is swirling with birds, creating a symphony of sound that is both love...Continue reading

Twas the Wednesday before Christmas and all through the strife, We persist and still celebrate our local wildlife. It’s called Wildlife Wednesday, an alliterative post, With critters galore and Splash as the host.... We share some cool photos and videos too. We share all these things as our gift to you. This week we will feature one heck of a bird, The famed Great Horned Owl - rarely seen, often heard. Some folks get scared when its call’s heard at night. But don’t let that loud hoot give you a fright! No horns will you find, you could search many years. Those tufts on its head are just feathers not ears. They swivel their head far but not all the way. This ability’s due to more vertebrae. The Great Horned Owl is indeed a powerful foe, With needle sharp talons on the tips of each toe. These daggers exert 500 pounds per square inch! With weapons like these, killing large prey is a cinch! Their diet is varied, with voles, mice, and rats And rabbits and birds and even house cats. They’ll even eat skunks that they catch in the grass, Not even deterred by the stinky skunk’s butt! On this horrid odor I’ll try not to dwell, Suffice it say owls have no sense of smell. They’re silent in flight across fields, trees, and hedges. Their wings are adapted with fringed feather-edges. Across our continent, their range is widespread. Great Horned Owls mate for life, as if they were wed. They’ll nest in late winter, while most birds await spring. Great Horned Owls seem immune to the winter’s cold sting. It will incubate eggs during late-winter’s dead, Even sit on the nest with snow on its head! While owls brave the elements in cold that’s persistent, We’ll spend more time at home being socially distant. The holidays will be strange, with hardly a party, But Zoom with your friends, drink egg nog, and be hearty! We’ll watch Netflix, Prime, CNN, and then Fox, But grab that remote and turn off that darn box! Your friends here at Splash now give you a task, GET OUT INTO NATURE, and please bring your mask! Happy holidays from Splash to you and to yours It will surely be so if you go get outdoors! Poem and photos by David Rosen/Splash

The star of this week’s Wildlife Wednesday appeared several times over the last week on one of the remote trail cameras around the vernal pool grasslands at Mather Field. Let me give you a hint: If you cross last week’s Wildlife Wednesday critter (the Wild Turkey) with this week’s critter, you’ll get a fowl smell! That’s right, this Wildlife Wednesday is a slam-dunk as we debunk the skunk! Striped Skunks, Mephitis mephitis, are the biggest of the skunk species native to No...Continue reading

Uh oh, something fishy is going on with Wildlife Wednesday this week! Today we’re diving deep into the aquatic realm of our local salmon! Migratory salmon are surging upstream RIGHT NOW along the Sacramento River and lower American River! That’s right! November is the best time to observe salmon migrating up our local rivers and their tributaries. There are five species of salmon found along the west coast of North America. The one that we commonly have in our local rive...Continue reading

It’s Wildlife Wednesday but it’s the year 1850. You’re a gold miner, camped by a stream in the Sierra Nevada foothills, just east of Sacramento. As you sit around the campfire, feeling a bit tipsy from your cheap whiskey, you swap stories with your fellow miners, all of you exhausted from the day’s rigorous activities. As the fire begins to dim, nearly everybody retires for the evening. As you’re heading to your tent, you happen to glance upward and catch sight of a ghost...Continue reading

It’s Giving Tuesday! Give what makes you smile to the organizations that bolster our community. Help Mackenzie Wieser reach her goal in raising money for Sacramento Splash! You can also donate to Splash at sacsplash.org. Thank you for making our region a brighter place.

This is the season when, very soon, you’ll be experiencing the onslaught of scary, creepy, disgusting, ghoulish, and terrifying creatures invading your lives. No, no, no, not the politicians, with their pre-election campaign ads! I’m referring to Halloween being just around the corner! So, let’s kick off the season with a Wildlife Wednesday about spooky spiders! Specifically, let’s meet California’s tarantulas! Don’t worry though, tarantulas are big and hairy but tarantul...Continue reading

On this pre-Thanksgiving Wildlife Wednesday, let’s talk turkey! Although Thanksgiving tomorrow might look different for us than it does most years, many people will still consume some turkey during the holiday. If you live in the Sacramento region, you might be eating your Thanksgiving turkey, while you have a dozen Wild Turkeys walking by your home and pooping on your driveway! Wild Turkeys are now abundant in certain areas around Sacramento, including right in the downto...Continue reading

Welcome to Wildlife Wednesday! I found a dinosaur in my backyard last Sunday! If you don’t believe me, take a look at the photos! This was unexpected because the temperatures were pretty cool outside that day. OK, it was also unexpected because dinosaurs are extinct. But, you’ve got to admit, it looks like it’s right out of Jurassic Park (fortunately much smaller)! Meet the SAL, the Southern Alligator Lizard, Elgaria multicarinata, (hereafter referred to as SAL)! Not to...Continue reading

The star of today’s Wildlife Wednesday is a medium-sized songbird (about 8 inches in length) that behaves like a raptor! This masked bandit is one of the coolest birds in our region, unless you happen to be a large insect, reptile, amphibian, small bird, or small rodent! If you fall into one of these categories, this bird is your worst nightmare! Meet the Butcher Bird! Its real common name is Loggerhead Shrike; however, its nickname Butcher Bird is quite appropriate. The ...Loggerhead Shrike is most often seen in open country, such as the grasslands at Mather Field. There, you might see one sitting on a fence post or telephone wire surveying its territory from the elevated vantage point. The shrike is a sit and wait predator that stays on its perch and watches very carefully for anything moving below. When prey is sighted on the ground, the shrike swoops down and dispatches it with its hooked bill. When prey is plentiful, the shrike will skewer extra food items on the spines of bushes or on the sharp points of a barbed wire fence! Sometimes the shrike accumulates so many dead carcasses, they look like meat hanging in a butcher shop, hence the origin of its nickname the Butcher Bird! This odd behavior of impaling their prey on thorns or barbed wire serves a few purposes. The collection of impaled carcasses serves as a pantry or larder for the bird to visit when the hunting isn’t as productive. In fact, it might be one way the male Loggerhead Shrike attracts a female for mating. Some believe a female shrike will be more attracted to a male with a well-stocked pantry! Impaling the prey also makes it easier for the shrike to eat it. Shrikes don’t have the strong feet and talons of a hawk so it’s easier for it to tear the prey item apart if it’s stuck on something and held in place. Some of the prey items eaten by shrikes are poisonous, such as Monarch Butterflies and certain species of toads. By hanging the prey item for a few days, it gives the poison time to break down so the shrike can eat it safely! This behavior is highly unusual for a songbird but the shrike is so well adapted for it! The upper edge of the Loggerhead Shrike’s hooked bill is sharp-edged and has a pair of pointy projections, called tomial teeth. Like a falcon, the shrike tackles vertebrate prey with a precise attack to the nape, using these tomial teeth to kill the animal with a strategic bite and twist motion to the spinal cord. It can then carry prey as large as itself with its feet, or smaller prey in its bill. It’s very strange to see a medium-sized songbird fly by carrying a large mouse! Enjoy the photos of the variety of prey items skewered by Loggerhead Shrikes! Yummm. I think I’m hungry for shish kabob!

I’m really excited! Not only because it’s Wildlife Wednesday but also because I just heard the extended weather forecast for this week. Believe it or not, there’s finally a chance of rain this coming Friday and Saturday! Yay! When I heard the forecast, my mind recalled a familiar and pleasant scent that I always look forward to smelling. Have you ever noticed that unique odor of rain, especially the first rain of the season? It smells sweet, pungent, and earthy all at th...Continue reading

I’m so easily distracted. I’m sitting here at my desk trying to get my work done for Splash but I have a big window just to my right that looks out over our beautiful backyard. As I was trying to focus on my work, I was just distracted by two squirrels jumping from tree to tree playing with each other. Yes, just like Dug, the talking dog in the movie Up, I too am distracted by squirrels. However, today, I’m going to embrace my distraction! So, today’s Wildlife Wednesda...Continue reading

Welcome to another Wildlife Wednesday! Today, we’re going to jump right in and discover some fun facts about California Jumping Galls, just one of the many types of galls that you can find on oak trees in our region! It’s by far the liveliest and most fascinating of these oak galls and this is the best time of year to observe them too! What the heck is a gall? A gall is an abnormal outgrowth on a plant in response to an invasion from some sort of parasitic organism such as ...Continue reading

Welcome to another Wildlife Wednesday! Are you ready to meet one of the cutest little critters on the planet? Let us introduce you to the California Vole! California Voles are tiny members of the rodent family of mammals. The rodent family is a big group of mammals that includes mice, rats, gophers, squirrels, porcupines, and beavers. Voles are just a little bigger than most species of mice. California Voles are only about 5-6 inches in length, from the tip of their cute...Continue reading

You fans of the original Star Trek might recognize the subject of today’s Wildlife Wednesday from a classic movie scene! In the movie, Star Trek - Wrath of Khan, Khan (the bad guy) pulls a vicious-looking creature out of a container where it was burrowing in the sand. That creature is a perfect, enlarged version of today’s Wildlife Wednesday star the antlion larva! That’s where the movie's entomological accuracy stops because Khan then proceeds to pull what he says are l...Continue reading

Welcome to another Wildlife Wednesday! Well, one minute you’re a Kingsnake and the next minute you’re a Kingsnack! Here an adult Red-tailed Hawk, hunting over Mather’s vernal pool grasslands, caught a large California Kingsnake for dinner! The Red-tailed Hawk is the most common large hawk that we typically see in our region. Although it’s called a RED-tailed Hawk, the tail is really more of a rusty, cinnamon color when seen from above and it appears much more pale when seen... from below. As with most raptors, both hawks and owls, there is a significant size difference between the male and the female Red-tailed Hawks, with the males being much smaller. It’s especially noticeable when you see them together. A large female’s wingspan will reach just over 4 feet! During the winter months in our area, if you drive along our major highways, you might see a Red-tailed Hawk every mile or two along the roadsides. They often like to perch on fence posts, road signs, and trees in open habitat where they can use their superior vision to spot prey. Red-tailed Hawks eat a wide variety of prey items but prefer mammals, including small rodents, such as mice, voles, and gophers. They’ll also eat larger mammals such as cottontail rabbits, jackrabbits, and ground squirrels. When mammals aren’t readily available, the hawks will certainly be opportunistic and eat birds, snakes, and even carrion. A Red-tailed Hawk’s prey doesn’t stand a chance if it’s grabbed. The hawk has long, needle-sharp talons that sink into flesh like a hot knife through butter. They can close their talons with an amazing, crushing force of 200 pounds per square inch! Yikes! Then the hawk will use its razor-edged bill to tear off chunks of the flesh. Bon appétit! Red-tailed Hawks usually mate for life and stay together until one of the pair dies. Each spring, they perform a beautiful and elaborate courtship flight, in which they soar together in wide circles at dizzying heights. The male will make a steep dive and then shoot back up again at a similar angle. After several of these swoops, he approaches the female from above, extends his legs and touches her briefly. Sometimes, the pair will even grab onto each other by clasping talons and then plummet together in spirals toward the ground before separating and pulling away. You undoubtedly have heard the calls of Red-tailed Hawks in movies, regardless of what species of large soaring bird is actually being shown! Hollywood directors love inserting the Red-tailed Hawk’s long, drawn out, raspy scream whenever any large soaring bird is shown in a movie! Try to see or hear a Red-tailed Hawk next time you’re wandering outdoors near open grasslands OR next time you’re sitting on the couch and watching an old western! Photos David Rosen

After reading this week’s Wildlife Wednesday, you will have graduated from the school of hard knocks! As you leisurely wander through California’s oak woodlands, you’re likely to hear a sound that will make you think somebody’s laughing at you, Haha Haha Haha Haha! Carefully scan the oak trees around you for a medium-sized woodpecker with a very distinctive black and white facial pattern, a black back, an intense white iris in each eye, and a red patch on the top of the h...Continue reading

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Last week’s Wildlife Wednesday introduced you to one of the most adorable critters living around the vernal pools at Mather the Western Spadefoot. See our August 19 post for details about this endearing creature, as well as some really cute photos! Warning! You’ll fall in love with Western Spadefoots! For this Wildlife Wednesday, we’d like to follow up by sharing an amazing, high-tech research project that was conducted right here at Mather to learn more about how Wester...Continue reading

It seems like everyone’s prime directive in California lately is to figure out how to stay cool during this intense heat wave. Keep in mind that the blazing hot temperatures don’t only impact humans; they affect wildlife in our region as well. Animals native to this area have adapted some very unique strategies for dealing with the heat. A great example of this is the adorable, little Western Spadefoot (Spea hammondii), a small toad-like critter, only 1.5 2.5 inches long....Continue reading

For today’s Wildlife Wednesday, let’s all hang out together and talk about bats! This is a great time of year to see bats in our region! All you have to do is go for an evening walk, right at sunset, and you’ll probably soon see bats fluttering over you, dipping and diving with incredible precision and lightning-fast reflexes, as they catch insects on the wing. These nocturnal mammals are true aerial acro-bats! Relax; I won’t drive you batty with too many puns today. I ...certainly don’t want you thinking I’m a total dingbat. However, I am a bit flighty. If you’re near a pond or stream on your evening walk, the bats might seem like they’re swooping right down towards your head! Don’t worry! They definitely won’t hit your head or get caught in your hair! They have a superb system of echolocation to let them know exactly what’s in front of them at all times when they’re flying. Using echolocation pulses at 100-200 times per second, a bat not only can detect a small insect in flight, the bat can also tell how fast and in what direction that insect is flying! In fact, when bats swoop near you, they’re helping you because they’re probably grabbing the mosquitos that tend to congregate around your head. Most of the bat species in our region catch and eat flying insects. One insect-eating bat can catch and eat up to 1,200 insects per hour! Since they feed for several hours, that one bat could consume up to 8,000 mosquito-sized flying insects each night! Now, multiply that times hundreds of thousands, or possibly millions, of bats flying around the Sacramento Valley each night during the warmer months of the year. That adds up to some serious insect control! Bats are a farmer’s best friend because many of the insects they eat are agricultural pest species. Therefore, the bats significantly contribute to our food production and economy here in the Valley. There are about 1,400 species of bats around the world! To put that number into perspective, bats make up about 20% of all the classified mammals in the world and they are the only type of mammal capable of true flight. Of all those bats, only about 27 species regularly occur in California, with over a dozen of those here in the northern part of the state. There’s so much cool stuff to share about bats but we can’t include it all here on Wildlife Wednesday. So, we’ll just focus on some fun facts about 3 of the common bat species that are our neighbors right here in the Sacramento Valley. Click on each of the photos to discover some amazing bat facts about the Mexican Free-tailed Bat, the Pallid Bat, and the very creatively named Big Brown Bat! After seeing how incredibly cute they are and learning more about them, I’ll bet you’ll totally fall in love with bats too! Photos David Rosen