On Saturday, we went to our first BioBlitz, hosted by Grassroots Ecology. I found it by looking up native plants in an effort to speak SMS’ love language. Although it was “sold out” on EventBrite, we went anyway. I planned a casual walk-by that, if things looked lame, we could just pretend that we were randomly out and about. But instead, things looked awesome! We talked to one of the staff to get signed in and we were set!
There were several stations we could stop at, while also looking for cool organisms to log into iNaturalist. We saw mushrooms, California cucumber, soap plants, and little bugs. We also saw the Bol Park (mini) donkeys that were very cute. But don’t log them into iNaturalist! They are cultivated, not wild.
We had a really nice time. We also saw some hawks from the Strawberry Hill vantage point. Afterward, we went to Esther’s German Bakery where we had a delicious lunch and German beer, sadly not on tap at the present time. Don’t worry, I got over it pretty quickly!
The next day, we went to San Bruno mountain which had been recommended by the birder guide from the previous day. We took a less traveled trail that starts next to the Montessori school on Hillside Blvd. I think most hikers start on the other side of the mountain at the Crocker Gate trailhead.
It was super-pretty. No joke- the fields and wildflowers looked like the Swiss Alps! Well, at least until we looked down to the super-developed valley. The flowers were such a bright yellow that they had a neon-like coloring to the them. It wasn’t a super intense hike (<4 miles), but I’m really glad we had been given the recommendation to check it out!