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Fifth Visit

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Name and Location: Lake Sonoma Wildlife Area - No Name Trail   Coast Live Oak (Quercus agrifolia) Time and Date:  11/15/2020; arrival 11:50am, departure ~12:45pm                                              Weather:  61 degrees F, wind SW 2mph, no rain, humidity 63%, air quality 16                                                           Alone or with people?:  With fiancé   Rich, green leaves of the oak tree pictured above. In the 11 days since my last visit, it has cooled down, by a lot! That is why I waited a few extra days between my fourth and this, my last, visit. Throughout the observation period, the changes have been very small, and I thought that it would be interesting to see what happens when it gets colder a little bit abruptly. Humidy has gone up through the roof! We're at 63% now, and it feels amazing. When I started my observations it felt very much deserty, and the hot wind would just hit me like a hot wave of wind. Now, the air smells fresh and there's that s
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Third visit

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Name and Location: Lake Sonoma Wildlife Area - No Name Trail Time and Date:  10/21/2020; arrival 3:12pm, departure ~4:00pm                                              Weather:  86 degrees F, wind S 6mph, no rain, humidity 25%, air quality 25                                                           Alone or with people?:  With fiancé My first observation today was that the smell is changing, it seems to be smelling sweeter. And there are so so many more flies than usual... Why is that? Is it because of the sweet smell? Maybe fermenting fruit that has fallen off the trees? It is not fruit flies though, it's the classic fly. The oak tree that has been a big part of each of my site visits is a Coast Live Oak (Quercus Agrifolia). There is visibly less fruit on the trees and the whole site landscape is looking dryer than the weeks prior.  It's been nice observing how week by week not much seems to change, but then when I compare my visit today to my first visit, I can see a differe
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Fourth Visit

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Name and Location: Lake Sonoma Wildlife Area - No Name Trail Time and Date:  11/04/2020; arrival 3:15pm, departure ~4:30pm                                              Weather:  82 degrees F, wind SSW 5mph, no rain, humidity 34%, air quality 24                                                           Alone or with people?:  With fiancé Obligatory oak tree appreciation picture. My first observation today was that it felt colder, but after doing my 10 min observation and then taking inventory of today's conditions I realized that the temperature was 82 degrees, which is only 4 degrees colder than last time, and which is also still a very warm one. It felt chilly to me. Humidity has also gone up again, and that's definitely very much detectable. It has been going up consistently since the first visit, but at this point we jumped from 19% to 34%. It feels really nice and it creates perfect autumn hiking and outdoor conditions. I think what might be contributing to it feeling less
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Second visit

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 Name and Location: Lake Sonoma Wildlife Area - No Name Trail My new favorite majestic oak tree.   Time and Date:  10/12/2020; arrival 3:29pm, departure ~4:00pm                                              Weather:  90 degrees F, wind S 4mph, no rain, humidity 19%, air quality 30                                                           Alone or with people?:  With fiancé It was an interesting hike to my little observation side today. The ground felt drier and sandier and we saw a baby rattlesnake on the trail. We saw him early enough to neither scare us or him/her. It was so small, that I first thought of a glass lizard, but its beautiful coloring and at closer inspection, the very well developed rattler gave it away. After a while he slowly slithered away into the grasses next to the trail, that's when we passed and moved along. It was a Northern Pacific Rattlesnake (Crotalus Oreganus Oreganus). I've gotten so good when it comes to spotting snakes. I used to pay much less att
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First visit

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Name and Location: Lake Sonoma Wildlife Area - No Name Trail I picked this site because it's an area that I hadn't really explored, but that's been on my radar.  Additionally, it's really close to where I live now - about 10-20 min drive depending on the trailhead. With the air cleared up, I decided to venture out to the Lake Sonoma area and combine a hike with my observational study. Coast Live Oak (Quercus Agrifolia) This beauty of an oak tree married with the random assortment of rocks and varied collection of bushes and trees made this site easy to choose. Time and Date:  10/05/2020; arrival 3:35pm, departure ~4:30pm                                              Weather:  90 degrees F, wind 7mph, no rain, humidity 16%                                                           Alone or with people?:  With fiancé General Observations The site contains primarily evergreens, but also some deciduous trees with mainly waxy, thick, strong leaves. I observed a lot of dried ne
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Location: Lake Sonoma, California, USA
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