Doug's Mountain Journal
A Chronicle of Natural History on San Bruno Mountain

Doug Allshouse has been writing his seasonal Mountain Journal for many years. It appears in the quarterly newsletters of the Yerba Buena Chapter of the California Native Plant Society (CNPS). We are very pleased to share his reflections on the natural history of the Mountain. Together with David Nelson, he is writing San Bruno Mountain: A Guide to the Flora and Fauna. The book will be published by Heyday Books in November 2022.

Buckle up! We’re going on a wild ride into an action-packed episode of Doug’s Mountain Journal. Be prepared to be introduced to two new native discoveries, a trail remake, and an aerial battle of large birds. But first you will need to bear with me as I discuss the weather and last year’s rainy season, or the obvious lack of it.

The rain season from July 1, 2020 to June 30, 2021 set a record for, by far, the lowest season total of any season I have recorded or have records for. Total precipitation was 10.96 inches, and July 2020 was the driest, warmest, and sunniest in memory. Naturally, August more than made up for that sin by giving us 0.60 inches of precipitation on a record 22 days and 0.49 inches of fog! The remaining 0.11 inches was supplied by the remnant of a tropical Mexican storm that wowed us with a spectacular lightning show that set fire to what seemed like half the state and gave us an orange sky last September. A record amount of 1.84 inches of fog precipitation was recorded on a record-setting 86 days, which means that a measly 9.12 inches of rain actually fell from winter storms. Here’s a frightening fact, fog accounted for 16.8 percent of the total yearly precipitation. The average for the six seasons from 2014 to 2020 was 4.985 percent.

Spring and summer have been a long and weary string of cold, foggy and brutally windy days. These dreary days and nights drastically delayed the wildflowers and the spring bird migrations. Everything was seemingly pushed back a couple of months. I’ve never heard Swainson’s Thrushes and Pacific Wrens singing in late July. I mentioned this to a Peninsula Birding friend of mine and he told me that this phenomenon has recently been discussed by birders in Oregon. Farewell-to-spring (Clarkia rubicunda) finally bloomed in earnest in July. Tall weedy grasses like wild oats (Avena) that normally grow 3 to 4 feet tall struggled to reach 2 feet.

Brisbane resident and good friend, Fred Matthews, found a new plant in Brisbane Acres and asked me to help identify it. White-flowered hawkweed (Hieracium albiflorum) is a perennial species that appears to have been there for quite a while based on the plethora of plants along the trail beneath the coast live oaks and madrones. The trail intersects an old bulldozer road accessed at the end of Paul Avenue.

They are about a half meter or so tall with 5-6 oblong basal leaves and smaller stem leaves; both are hairy and coarse to the touch. The inflorescence is an open, lightly-branched or umbel-like cluster of 15-40 tiny white dandelion-like flowers with flat petal tips that have four notches. They flower from May to September. The genus Hieracium is derived from the Greek word Hierax, meaning hawk. The species albiflorum is Latin for white flower. It is native to western North America.

Thanks to an iNaturalist posting, I was able to track down one leaf onion in mid-May, a plant that had been eluding me for many years. Its scientific name is Allium unifolium. Allium is Greek for garlic and unifolium is Latin for one leaf. This wild native onion is quite rare on the Mountain; it favors moist soils on grassy stream banks. The stem is a round scape (naked, no leaves), 30-80 cm long and, despite its name, usually has 2-3 widely channeled to flat leaves up to 50 cm long. The inflorescence is a cluster of 15-35 pink or occasionally white flowers on fairly long pedicels (stems). It is native to the coastal mountains of California and Oregon and blooms from May through June. It was found on the Summit Trail near the April Brook Bridge.

With the constant threat of wild fires and possible medical emergencies in mind, the County made a decision about the Saddle Trail. In the past, EMT vehicles and fire engines had an impossible time navigating the old fire road. There once was a medical incident where a visitor had a mild heart attack that took place on the far eastern portion of the Saddle. The rangers decided to drive one of their pickup trucks to the scene, load the patient into the truck, and deliver the patient to the EMTs and Fire Department in the main parking lot. This dreadful situation eventually led to the decision for a major Saddle Trail makeover. From mid to late May the old trail was bulldozed, layered with crushed rock, leveled, widened, and rolled into a firm roadbed. It is pretty slick (as in beautiful) with wide intersections and turnouts.

On one of the many cold, windy, and overcast May days, I was down in one of the grasslands in the Great Meadow checking on our only known patch of Choris’s popcorn flower, a notorious lover of moist soils. With me was my co-author David Nelson, and Aaron Schusteff, who wanted to photograph some plants. It was so dry this past year that the only patch of popcorn flower to appear was in the actual creek bed. This portion of April Brook did not run with water this year, so the wettest ground was in the bed. The meadow was not bursting with wildflowers this year, but a few were visible: owl’s clover, checkerbloom, layia, and brodiaea. We found a mysterious primary wing feather about 8 inches long, creamy white with light brown splotches on the margins, but the mystery didn’t last long.

As we were traveling back up the meadow to Radio Road, I spotted a pair of ravens about 40 yards up the hill. In a flash they took off and we heard some high-pitched cries above us. Looking up, there was a pair of White-tailed Kites flying overhead. I knew what was coming next. The ravens engaged the kites in an aerial dogfight, swooping and diving, making a lot of noise. Turnabout was fair play when the kites took the offensive and attacked the ravens. Suddenly one of the kites lost a primary wing feather and it floated down, spiraling in the air, and finally found its resting place in a coyote bush on the other side of April Brook. I ran down the hill about 30 yards and jumped the creek bed to retrieve the feather. It matched the other feather we collected so now I know what a kite wing feather looks like. As I continue to experience these fascinating episodes when I’m on the Mountain, I am reminded of what amazing entertainment is possible, and it’s absolutely free.

I sense autumn is near. The poison oak has turned fiery red and I saw my first pink everlasting in bloom a couple of days ago. That means shorter days as the sun heads south and a new season to write about.

See you on the mountain…