What We Saw On The Tomales Bay Hike

Here's Wendy's list of what we saw while hiking in Tomales Bay State Park on May 13th:

NATIVE AMERICAN FOOD SOURCES

Nuts: hazel (already on tree), bay, live oak, chinquapin

Berries: gooseberry (in fruit), salal (in flower), dewberry (native blackberry, some unripe berries), thimbleberry (some flowers, some unripe berries), huckleberry (some flowers, some unripe berries), salmonberry (in flower), manzanita (ripe berries)

Berries to be: toyon, madrone

PLANTS WITH OTHER USES

Medicine: coffeeberry (laxative), poison oak (wart removal), ocean spray (blossoms used for diarrhea, infusion of inner bark used as an eyewash, poultice of leaves applied to sore lips or feet.) Note: ocean spray uses are other tribes, not Miwok.

Salal: chew young leaves when lost in the woods to quell hunger (assuming no ripe berries for your hunger!), leaves to flavor fish, eaten by both husband and wife when newly wed for male first born child.

Baldness cure: ground seeds of coastal manroot (oval fruit instead of round fruit) mixed with skunk grease

Ledum (aka Labrador tea) It was used as a tea for colds and sore throats, but contains toxic alkaloids and is poisonous to sheep and other livestock. “It is said to be relaxing, and for some people to cause drowsiness, possible due to the potentially toxic glycosides present in the leaves. Others feel no such effects from it. Should be used in moderation. Excessive doses act as a strong diuretic or cathartic.”

Hunger suppressant: young deer fern leaves

Music: elderberry for clappers and flutes

Dye: alder bark

Pitch to seal baskets: Bishop pine

Fiber for basketry: chain fern (used in conjunction with other fibers)

FERNS

Deer fern (we saw sterile fronds which are perrenial and fertile ones which look like fish skeletons and are desciduous), bracken, chain fern, sword fern, lady fern

OTHER PLANTS

hedge nettle (for cordage), pickleweed, cord grass (lowest tide zone), goosefoot (triangular leaves, same family as quinoa, host plant for pygmy blue butterfly), dodder in flower (parasite on pickleweed), Siberian candyflower, one spotted coralroot without spots (immaculata instead of maculata), Ceanothus (full bloom!), toyon (real tree, not shrubby) CALIFORNIA BOTTLEBRUSH GRASS (“plant of limited distribution” a step better than threatened.)

FUNGI

Oyster mushrooms! Artist’s conk (always on bay, produces 350,000 spores per second!!!!)

BIRDS

Osprey (3 nests! Lots of calling!), red-tailed hawk, American robin, Stellar’s jay, spotted towhee (heard “coach’s whistle)

Heard: Wilson’s warbler, song sparrow (usually 3 introductory notes), Swainson’s thrush, wrentits (bouncing ball), hairy woodpecker (dog’s squeaky toy), winter wren (long song with circular breathing), warbling vireo (often ends warbler with a question, on an up note), Pacific slope flycatcher (chee-weep) Heard lots of ospreys!

MISC

RAYS We have at least three skates and five rays in this area, but most likely we saw bat rays that “seek out inshore bays and sloughs…where they dig and flap their wings to uncover the worms, shrimps, clams, abalone, and crabs that they feed on.” They are found from shore to 150’ depth and occur in aggregations. “Stinger and powerful crushing jaws are potentially dangerous.” So I was wrong about the stinger – I only remembered the crushing jaws.

Banana slug

Black-tailed deer

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