#vernalpools

Today I went to the vernal pools in Sacramento by the Mather field airport. It was a beautiful place to be and I plan on going back in a few weeks to see the flowers in full bloom. #vernalpool #vernalpools #nature #wetlands #wetland #california #californiaadventure #californialove #californiadreaming #flowerfields #flowerfield #nature #naturephotography #naturephotography #sacramento #ranchcordova #sky #landscapephotography #landscape #flowers #flower (at Sacramento, California) https://www.instagram.com/p/CbEKU6FL2Mn/?utm_medium=tumblr

I've always been entranced by the life blooming out of shallow ponds. A pure source of magic! Vernal/ephemeral pools are temporary pools that fill with water during the rainy season, then usually dry up in the summer. They are some of the most ecologically important areas because they provide habitat for endemic plants and animals. These important breeding grounds for rare species are disappearing in CA so I'm shining a light on it! 🌟 Scroll to see a painting I made 10 years ago called "Small Pond", spiraling back & building on a recurring idea 💡 as I try to work the landscape into the grain of the wood this time. If only there was an emoji for tadpoles... ~• ~• ~• ~• ~• ~• Detail of "Ephemeral Pool", acrylic on maple panel, for my next show @joshualinergallery slated for this Fall. #wanderlust #discovery #tiffanybozic #painting #wip #process #vernalpools #ephemeral #puddle #scienceillustration #nature #aquatic #pacificchorusfrog #tadpoles

Now back to #CaliforniaNativePlants posting! I blasphemed the other day posting a couple of my cultivated exotic flowers during #CaliforniaNativePlantWeek, but in my defense that’s every week for me. Anyway… I got to go on another trip to a vernal pool site! @friendsofpqcanyon hosted a guided walk around their Lopez Ridge vernal pool preserve which was wonderful. 1. #DowningiaCuspidata, a vernal pool obligate also known as #ToothedCalicoflower. Very photogenic. 2. This photo just goes to show the extremes of this environment. There are prickly pear cacti (Opuntia sp., I’m guessing littoralis?) growing in between the #vernalpools full of downingia. This species can handle being drenched when it’s cool as long as they’re bone dry in the summer, and that’s exactly how it is here. A clay sponge full of puddles and then it’s like a bone-dry adobe brick. #MediterraneanClimate! 3. Zooming out more, we can sort of see a ground-level view of a #minamound. See that little island of chaparral shrubs in the center with the taller grass around the edges? That’s a mound. The #mimamounds in Southern California are thought to be the work of hundreds of generations of gophers trying to not get flooded out. You can see them in satellite [imagery & they look kind of like b. wrap. 4. Zooming further out you can see #LastheniaGracilis / #CommonGoldfields next to that vernal pool. They need open spaces without a lot of tall grasses and other plant shading them out. The areas around the vernal pools work well for that. You can also see the vernal pools’ natural predator, the Housing Development. 5. There are many species of lasthenia and one part of telling them apart is looking at the phyllaries, the leafy things at the base of the flower head. Somebody made a good YT video about how to distinguish between the species in San Diego County that I often have to refer back to. 6. A nice patch of goldfields and owl’s clover (Castilleja sp.) and more of that mima mound/vernal pool complex topography that leaves grassy openings. Good stuff. [CAPTION TOO LONG. SEE COMMENTS.] (at Friends of Los Peñasquitos Canyon Preserve) https://www.instagram.com/p/CrJmCKvuZj0/?igshid=NGJjMDIxMWI=

The day before yesterday I had the immense privilege of visiting #MiramarMounds #NationalNaturalLandmark with @cnpssd. This area is part of #MCASMiramar & not open to the public. It’s the largest remaining mima mound-vernal pool complex in Southern California and home to the federally endangered San Diego Fairy Shrimp and several endangered plants. #MimaMounds—named after the Mima Prairie in Washington state where they’re also found—are small, fairly uniform hummocks that give the landscape a strange bumpy texture when seen from above. Between the mounds are #vernalpools, shallow seasonal ponds that form where the soil has a nearly-impermeable hardpan underneath. Evidence suggests that the mounds are the result of generations of pocket gophers pushing dirt uphill rather than the usual downhill, which they do in places with low water tables. (Look it up, it’s fascinating!). The pools are soaking wet during the rainy season & dry as adobe bricks the rest of the year. It’s a harsh environment and the plants & animals that live in them have interesting adaptations to it. In Southern California, flat land is the favorite habitat of the highly invasive Suburban Sprawl, which has destroyed an estimated 90-97% of all vernal pool habitat. This land was spared development because it’s owned by a military base. See comments for plant info because my caption was gonna be too long. #californianativeplants (at Marine Corps Air Station Miramar) https://www.instagram.com/p/Cq2O9WJOIM4/?igshid=NGJjMDIxMWI=