Apologies, due to some technical errors the original version of this post went out to subscribers only, so here it is, going out to everyone …
On December 13th — and I know this because I just looked at when the photo was taken — I had a chance encounter in Briones Regional Park.
That day I was having a shitty day. It was raining outside. I was in that “end of the first week back after a two week vacation” mode at work. Winter break was near, but not near enough. And I needed to be outside again. I couldn’t find my wallet, but I was trying to push myself out of the house, a tall order for someone with hermit-like tendencies like me.
I’m gonna do something outside, I said. I’m gonna wear only comfy clothes. I’ll go hiking, but not HIKING hiking, I thought. So I put on sweatpants and a comfy undershirt and an oversized flannel and some tennis shoes instead of hiking boots and JUST DO IT. It was a little after 2:30 that I finally got out of the house. It was a little after 3 that I got to my destination. I realized it was the wrong place in the right park. The sun was going to go down by 4:30 or 5. I had limited time. So I was just going to hike. But the hills were sloped and my Nikes weren’t going to really appreciate this. I left the park because I had no cell signal, but decided to just … find it anyway.
I had been there twice. Once on a hike that lasted a quarter mile because it was the hottest day of summer, and my friends really didn’t want to do it once we realized it was over 100 degrees and shade was nil. The other was to sightsee it with my parents so they could see some pretty scenery in the Bay Area, and this had a gorgeous drive. But on this Sunday, the GPS shot me straight up an unexciting highway.
Eventually I figured out the right combo of words. I also found a welcome surprise. A near-empty park in California on a weekend is rare. But with shitty weather, all things are possible, so I had my run of the place, along with four people I only weakly interacted with. You know, like dark matter.
I saw some cows. It’s a grazing area for them. I walked on a bit more, deciding to see where the road would take me. And then I saw something in the road move, and went in for a closer inspection. I found this little feller or dame:
I had enough signal to Google what I was looking at. And it was either a rough skinned or a California newt. In December and January, they make their way from dry regions to wet regions, where they begin to mate. And I was witnessing potentially one newt on a migration.
I also found out a few things about both newts. The biggest is that they have no natural predators despite being the perfect size to simply put in your mouth and swallow because they produce tetrodotoxin, which is more famously in pufferfish. But the newts have even more concentrations of it. This tiny helpless seeming creature was deadly.
I walked on. And I got to a gate to another field and looked at the time and realized if I went on it would soon be dark and I’d be flirting with mountain lion or coyote encounters. And as I walked back … I began to see more newts. And a couple deer in the field but more importantly MORE NEWTS.
Here’s another one for good measure:
I decided that I was glad for this shitty weather day because I was encountering nature-ish again and wanted to bring my nice camera and not my cell phone the next week to see MORE NEWTS. I drove back roads back home, taking the leisurely way while listening to Desert Oracle.
But the weather was good the next week and no newts were to be found. Only cattle, far off falcons and ravens. So here’s a cow:
I decided to find water. Maybe the newts were there. But no newts in the wetter places (the creek was dry). Then I noticed something on a nearby picnic table. LICHEN!
A few years ago I used expiring airline points to meet up with my friends in Chicago, and we went to the field museum and saw a lichen exhibit. I was fascinated. This moss-with-a-leather-jacket-like plant isn’t a plant at all! At least not fully. It’s actually a symbiote of fungus and algae, living in a delicate balance with each other. (Sometimes cyanobacteria is involved instead of fungi.)
Subsequent hikes at different parks said to have newts yielded no newts, and I had my camera every time, so I decided to take more lichen photos. It couldn’t move or run away and didn’t need to seasonally migrate to reproduce.
On Christmas Day, the weather was crappy again, so I decided to strike out and find newts again. I failed again. But I found new and weird lichen and other growths. Before I knew it, every day, I was going to a new park, and every day, I was finding more lichen, and it cascaded into multiple trips to find more lichen. Newts were in the rear view mirror.
So now I’m finding myself with a new obsession: lichen. I’ve been taking photos. I started an Instagram. I want to make this my version of birding.
And it all started because I couldn’t find a deadly amphibian. But it’s getting me outside taking slow and thoughtful walks, which I appreciate. It has given me a thought. I think some parks should have a “stop and smell the roses” trail. No bikes. Trail running will get you three to five years of probation.
The idea is partly because I have a problem with exercise. I won’t do it for its own sake. It seems unproductive. So instead I … stay home and am unproductive? But as an asthmatic, I need to take my time anyway, and ambling hikes on a quest certainly count. And looking out for lichen, foss, ferns and fungi now gives me something to notice in the world around me. Because it’s not just in nature. It’s on rocks in someone’s backyard, on fences, in city parks, maybe even on your apartment building.
It’s a lichen’s world, but we’re just living in it. And I became clued in because I couldn’t find a deadly, scrappy little weirdo animal.
Here’s one last lichen for the road: