NATURAL PERSPECTIVES:From Shipley Nature Center to the Sierras

People seem to be enjoying the outdoors even more this year than last. The Friends of Shipley Nature Center report that they’ve had 5,377 visitors so far this year, versus 4,900 for all of 2006.

If you haven’t been in a while, you’ll be shocked at how much the plants have grown. There are always plenty of flowers in bloom, and there are even a group of newly-fledged Cooper’s hawks to enjoy.

To accommodate the increased interest in the nature center, the Friends of Shipley Nature Center are opening the facility in Central Park on Thursdays during July through August from 4 to 8 p.m. so people can enjoy the habitats in the cool of the evening.

Shipley Nature Center is still open during regular hours of Monday through Saturday from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m., in addition to the new evening hours on Thursdays.

The Friends have also announced a free monthly lecture series. On Saturday from 10 to 11:30 a.m., Rich Flammer will present a talk on composting. Vic and I have been composting our yard and kitchen waste for several years now. We’ve gone from one composting bin to two to keep up with the yard waste. The finished compost is a great addition to our vegetable garden. We use it around our fruit trees as well.

It’s really pretty simple to make compost. Just put alternating layers of wet green waste (we use mainly vegetable and fruit peelings plus coffee grounds, but never any grease or meat) and dry brown waste (we save bags of leaves every autumn) into a composting bin.

We use Garden Gourmet brand composters that we bought at Armstrong Nursery. Vic tosses in a shovel full of dirt every so often and I keep the bin watered. After a few months, we scoop out finished compost from the bottom.

Shipley has some great displays on composting that you should check out, plus exhibits of various brands of composters. For those who want to get into vermiculture, Friends of Shipley Nature Center’s August 18 lecture topic will be “Eek, a worm! Wow, compost!”

With so many interesting things going on there, it’s no wonder that people are flocking to Shipley.

The Bolsa Chica Conservancy reports a similar uptick in visitation. They normally receive 6,000 visitors annually at their interpretive center, but they have already exceeded that number the first half of this year. The new marine aquarium and exhibits are drawing quite a crowd.

Vic and I have been too busy with his summer birding and natural history classes for senior citizens to put in much time at either Shipley Nature Center or Bolsa Chica this summer. We just returned from four days at Mammoth with his bird class.

The Sierra Nevada Mountains are always beautiful this time of year, even though the lack of rain this past season has reduced the number of wildflowers.

I take a more sedentary approach to birding than Vic. For example, while Vic took his class on a hike at Virginia Lake, I stayed on the porch of the little lodge and photographed gray-crowned rosy finches, pine siskins, a red crossbill, and some of the fattest Belding’s ground squirrels I’ve ever seen. The operators of the lodge put out food for the birds and wildlife, so the ground squirrels, chipmunks, and chickarees were plentiful.

But the lodge operators had some unwelcome visitors as well. They said that a 2-year-old, cinnamon-colored black bear had raided their trash cans early that morning. We saw huge paw prints on the dusty windows of a pickup truck where a bear had investigated the vehicle. Life in the mountains can be exciting.

After visiting Lundy Lake, we drove up Tioga Pass, taking a side road along Lee Vining Creek to Saddlebag Lake. We stopped at Ellery Lake and several other places in Yosemite.

Our last stop was at the tufa towers on Mono Lake, followed by a side trip to 600-year-old Panum Crater, one of the most recent volcanoes to erupt in that area.

The next day, I remained at the Mountainback condo where we were staying to work on some material for next week’s natural history class. Vic took his students out birding again. The highlight of their day wasn’t a bird, however, it was a great look at a long-tailed weasel being chased by a tiny Wilson’s warbler. I really regretted not seeing the weasel, but I got quite a bit done on the history of Owens Lake from the Ice Ages to the present.

When we took our luggage down to the car on our last morning at Mammoth, we found that a bear had raided the building’s dumpster, leaving garbage scattered around. Fortunately, our car was untouched.

On our way home, Vic and I investigated some one-lane dirt roads. We had to go slowly because it was open range and cattle stood in the road. They watched us and we watched them until they moved out of the way.

We saw a half-grown calf chase a coyote pup from a waterhole, and watched a red-tail hawk chow down on what looked like a ground squirrel. We enjoyed a tailgate picnic in the boonies with a fabulous view and no sounds other than those of nature.

Whether you get out to experience nature near home or afar, we hope that you will spend some time this summer appreciating the great outdoors. It’s a wild and wonderful world out there. Go enjoy it.