Little Corona Tide Pools

I love the tide pools.  I don't know what it is that draws me to them but I know my children enjoy this nature location just as much.  Green Bubbles loves the rock scrambling and Little Miss likes to puddle jump and eventually end up in the water, no matter how cold or unprepared we are for it!  (Thankfully I was prepared this day and we had a change of clothes in the car for her).

 The kids spent little time finding a great pool to play in.  Little Miss was wet almost immediately!

 Another mom spotted this awesome sea slug.  I love the blue dots in the stripe down his back.

 Here are a lot of sea anemones.  While they are beautiful in the water with color waving tentacles waiting to catch an unsuspecting fish, above water they camouflage into what looks like squishy, grayish blobs with bits of broken shell stuck all over.  Some of the smaller ones can be hard to spot sometimes so it's always wise to be careful when navigating the rocks so you don't step on the sea life that may not be presently in the sea at that moment. 

 Here we have a sea urchin shell.  While sea urchins normally look like those spikey purple beasts of the tide pools, after they die they leave behind their exoskeleton.    The Echinoblog has a great post all about the differences between sea urchins and sand dollars that is very interesting if you want to learn more.  We found a lot of these shells at the tide pools!  The one above Green Bubbles found all by himself and was one of the more intact shells we found.

And, as with any beach adventure, the sea gulls were everywhere.  I normally dislike sea gulls.  They are brazen at this beach and have no hesistation picking through your bags when you walk away looking for your lunch to steal.  It doesn't even have to be left out for these birds.  They pull things out of your bags, rip through plastic bags, grab paper bags with their beaks and fly away.  I've learned through experience to back everything into backpacks that snap or zip closed to keep the birds away from our lunches!

However, I did notice today that we had two types of gulls trying to open our backpacks.  I was curious enough to try and figure out the differences.  Since we went in January, both gulls are common to our area only in the winter time and travel north in the summer for breeding.

 This is the Thayer's Gull, easily identified by his pink legs.  He also has a yellow beak with a red spot on the lower mandible. They winter on the California coasts and aren't really seen anywhere but the coast line.  They travel quite far for migration, in the summer breeding up in the far north Arctic in Canada. 

This is the Heermann's Gull.  His beak is a redish orange color and his legs are black.  A striking difference to the Thayer's Gull above. They are the only North American gull to breed south of the United States and travel north. After breeding they move into Canada in July, but are back in California and Mexico in December.  The gull in the background is also a Heermann's Gull.  It's his first winter so he's a younger bird.  With age he will look like the gull in the foreground.  

Oak Canyon Nature Center

Oak Canyon Nature Center in Anaheim Hills is a beautiful place to go on a sunny day.  The area is abundantly shaded with oak trees and has a short trail following along a steam with many fun bridges to cross over.

The kids got to see the wood ducks that make this their home.  We've seen them no matter the season, swimming up and down the little creeks and walking along the fallen leaves.  Some of the kids disturbed them this time and they flew up into the trees for safety.  It was funny to hear the startled gasps when the flock took to the wing in a burst of flapping wings and splashing water followed quickly by their laughter. 

We've been in a multi-year drought in California now so water is scarce.  Many of the parks that normally have water have dried up completely unless it's man-made.  We were lucky enough to have a rain storm this past weekend however, so there was some moisture, if not water, hanging around.  With the thick overhang of oak trees trapping a lot of that moisture in, we were able to find mushrooms!

I know that doesn't sound very exciting, but I always get a kick at of how varied mushrooms can look.  I don't really know much about them however so on a quest to discover the name of the one before, I found some great information.

Mushroom Appreciation has a great list to look for when identifying mushrooms.  He suggests 8 things beginners should look for.  Gills (spore producing components), stalk description, spore color, bruising when touched, habitat, time of year, cap description, and smell/taste.  The last one I wouldn't recommended, especially with children involved. 

Armed with that information however, I discovered what the mushroom below is called Russula californiensis.  I'm sure because it's only found in California!   The link above says they like pine and oak trees, which fits our find perfectly.

Now, I didn't do any research for the other types of mushrooms we found on our trip, including one the kids described as a roasted marshmallow, but here are all the pictures I took of them.  Altogether, I think we found 8 different types of mushrooms.

 

 

Red Wood Hike at Carbon Canyon

Many people have no idea there are California Coastal Redwoods right here in Orange County.  It's actually a very short hike to get to a small grove planted right by Carbon Canyon Dam.  They were planted in 1975 so the trees aren't as large as the Redwoods you typically hear about in Northern California, they were still awesome to see!

Carbon Canyon Regional Park is located in Yorba Linda.  Parking does cost $3 weekdays and $5 on the weekend but, like so many of our regional parks here in Orange County, it is worth it!  I always recommend getting an OC Parks parking pass to enjoy going to our wonderful parks whenever the mood strikes without having to worry about money for parking. 

To get to the trail for the Redwoods, turn left at the main entrance and just keep going until it dead ends at a parking lot.  You'll be able to see the trail head from there.

Here is Megatron sitting in the grass at the parking lot while I was packing my lot up.  You're never to young to get out and and really explore nature.  Crawling through the grass, crumpling dead leaves between your fingers, and maybe taking a small taste just to make sure it isn't something wonderful to eat are great learning experiences for very young children.  I can speak from experience that my children, even the babies, are always much happier and better behaved at home when we've had some type of outdoor play.

There's a great climbing tree near the parking lot too.  The kids all dumped their backpacks on a branch and were all over the branches.  Even Little Miss was able to climb parts of this tree.

The path to the Redwoods is about a mile but an easy hike for the kids.  There wasn't a lot of shade on the trail so I recommend doing this hike on cooler or overcast days.  Even in January it can get hot.  The day we went hiking was in the 80's and the hike back had some hot and tired kids.

We did see some really cool insects though.  It's great timing since Green Bubbles is studying insects for science this week. (Edited to add.. Thanks to Allexpects.com we were able to identify this bug as a bark beetle, the Plicate beetle. ( Noserus plicatus) It is a common California beetle.)

By the time we made it to the Redwoods it was a welcome relief.  The shade was awesome and the kids loved playing under the trees.  They climbed a fallen tree, collected pine cones, and ran around a lot.

Even the birds were hopping around on the fallen leaves and branches.

Green Bubbles found a broken branch which was a great learning oppunity.  We were able to discuss the colors the wood, and hence the name of the trees!

A great follow up for the Redwood trees is Redwood EdVentures website.  They have games, activities, facts, videos, and even lesson plans for teachers and links to many other helpful websites not just about Redwoods, but ecology in general.