Tehachapi shows off the familiar sights and sounds of spring

As I’ve been outside roaming the Tehachapi area lately, enjoying my favorite season of spring, it’s been gratifying to see some of the familiar plants and animals making a return after being absent for many months.

Although it has been another drought year, we have had a few later rains, including half of an inch of moisture on April 22, which has been especially beneficial to plants up at our higher elevations.

There are lots of wildflowers visible on the slopes along Water Canyon Road on the way up to Tehachapi Mountain Park, and they have especially benefitted from the late rains. I drove up their last week and was amazed by the display, especially by the darkly beautiful jewelflowers.

While in the park, I lifted a rock and encountered a California Meadow Vole (Microtus californicus). These are rounded little rodents that resemble small brown hamsters. They have a much blunter face than mice typically have, with a shorter snout and also a short tail.

They have little dark eyes and small ears partially hidden in their fur.

Voles actually resemble pocket gophers, but without the formidable teeth, and voles are not underground creatures. They eat primarily fresh tender new leaves, shoots and developing seeds, so spring is their main season, unless they are located near a year-round water source.

Voles are not particularly flighty or frightened of humans, and may be active during the daytime. In wetter years when there have been more of them, I have sat quietly and watched voles forage for greenery and then retreat into little tunnels they made through the tall grass.

The population of voles can occasionally irrupt during favorable years, which provides a boon for medium-sized predators like foxes, bobcats, coyotes, hawks, owls, snakes, etc. None of these creatures can digest grass, but a lush crop of grass can still provide them with lots of nutrition, provided it is first converted into a burgeoning vole population.

Voles are not well-understood by most people, and a few times I’ve been asked about them by people whose yard was “being decimated by voles.” When I visited their property and saw lots of tunnels and earth mounds, it was clear that the damage was being done by gophers and ground squirrels, not voles, which will hide underneath rocks, logs, discarded plywood, etc., but are not active diggers.

Because of their short tails, docility and endearing chubby little appearance, a friend’s grandmother was convinced that they were the hybrid result of mice breeding with her grandson’s escaped hamsters, and so she called them “mousesters” and would report seeing them in her garden from time to time over the years. You can sometimes find old references to voles that call them “meadow mice,” though they are not mice.

Grape Soda Lupines continue to bloom in the area, and they are one species of wildflower that has definitely been able to capitalize on the timing of our rains and soil temperature this year. This is the best blooming of these beautiful purple flowers that I’ve seen in years.

In the warmer evenings, and sometimes even during daylight, you can hear male Pacific Chorus Frogs calling for a mate. They do so while floating in a pond, puddle or other water impoundment, including things like am unused kiddie pool filled with rainwater, or some other accidental watery location.

You might think that they would be better off choosing a more established, permanent water source, like a lake, but there is a very good reason for picking more ephemeral locations: Temporary water sources typically don’t have fish or other predators, so it is safer for the frog eggs and resulting tadpoles to be in a short-lived, shallow basin.

The Nuwä (Kawaiisu or Southern Paiute) term from Pacific Chorus Frogs is wogit, and that onomatopoetic name sounds just like the “wogit, wogit” that you hear from male frogs on warmer nights.

Of course we’ve started to see the ubiquitous Western Fence Lizards (Bluebellies) since the days have gotten sunnier and warmer. These and their smaller relatives, the Sideblotch Lizards, are the first reptiles to become active in spring. Larger lizards and snakes wait a little longer until the days get more dependably warm before they emerge.

Warmer weather has brought about much more insect activity, and one species I’ve enjoyed seeing are called Woolly Bear Scarab Beetles (Paracotalpa granicollis). These robust, russet-colored beetles are about a half-inch long, and then buzz around almost like a kind of bee, and then periodically plop down into vegetation, seemingly exhausted, then rest for awhile and start flying around again.

They are called Wooly Bear because they are somewhat fuzzy along the margins of their wings and sometimes on their wing covers (called elytra).

Spring is indeed in the air — and in the valleys, slopes, canyons and mountains. Get out and enjoy it while you can.

Have a good week.