McClellan Ranch Park

22 March 2008
Cupertino, CA

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Another Saturday morning without a specific plan for hiking. The dawn was breaking and the sky was crystal clear, but where to go? Several folks had said, "Why go all the way to [...]? Just go to Rancho San Antonio Park. It's right there!" Well, it's apparently "right there" for half the valley! The sign at the [already open] gate clearly says, "Open -- 8 AM" and every parking space was already occupied! And they have acres of parking. Even all the equestrian parking area spaces were full!


OK. I was in the area. Where else to go? I chose McClellan Ranch Park. It used to be a working ranch with animals, orchards, and farm crops. One of the old buildings is now offices for the park, 4-H, the Audubon Society, etc. The 4-H Club has various animals in pens and barn space (chickens, goats, ponies, ...). The city of Cupertino has space for community gardens. The Master Gardeners have one of the spaces where they have a garden project each year. (Mom's been co-leading the project for some years now.)


But, surrounding all the on-going activities surrounding the buildings, is open area for hiking and birding. There's a creek that skirts the area giving rise to a riparian community. The old farm field has been reclaimed by nature. The Boy Scouts have projects periodically, variously identifying the trees and replanting natives. I don't know who's in charge of the birdhouses -- could be BSA, could be Audubon Society -- but there sure are a lot of them out there. Even more than at Edgewood! In the picture above you see a sundial, then an open field, then the trees lining the creek, and you can just make out the top of a house on the other side of the creek. Most of the park is surrounded by houses.


The trail takes you along the creek. With creeks you get water. With plenty of water you get plenty of vegetation. With plenty of vegetation you get plenty of birds. Sadly, with plenty of vegetation you also get plenty of cover for the birds, so picture-taking of birds is kinda minimized. Also with plenty of vegetation you get plenty of shade which minimizes the amount of stuff that wants to bloom. *sigh* The vegetation you're looking at here is a wild grape (blooming) and climbing up a redwood tree.

This pretty little flower is a vinca. Unfortunately, it's an escaped landscape plant that is also an "invasive alien."

Here's the same little flowering vine taking over the entire creek bank. You can just make out a bunny hole and his trail down to the creek to the right of the tree.

The Pacific blackberry is just starting to bloom. Rubus ursinus likes wet areas and will create quite the impenetrable bramble along creek banks, drainage ditches, and generally wet areas. The birdies love the berries. They also love the fact that bird hawks and cats can't penetrate the bramble and use it for dense cover. It also makes for dense cover from photographers!

Like the trip to Edgewood, this hike was rife with bird houses. Here's a pair of old houses mounted to poles. I don't remember seeing houses 1 thru 6, or even 7 or 7A, but there was a 7B and the rest of the numbers thru 14 that I saw.

Neither of the two bird houses mounted to the metal poles above, but all of the hanging and one of the mounted houses had numbers burned on (like 7B here) or marked on (like 9 and 10 here) the house.

House number 8 had its number scratched on the front and side, but it was much more photogenic than the rest.

Earlier we saw grapes climbing on a redwood tree. Here we have grapes climbing on a Coyote Bush.

The rule of thumb is, where you have willows, you have water. Well, here we have willow blooms.

The willows we find in the wilds here are not the weeping sort. This looks back on the trail thru the grass, flanked on the left by live oak and scrub oak, and flanked on the right by willows.

Mister Hummingbird is all puffed up against the cool of the morning, but is out enjoying the beautiful, crystal clear morning.

The California Buckeyes are fully leafed-out and are putting on their "candles."

Here's one of the bazillion song sparrows that were out serenading me. They didn't seem to have a problem cruising up fairly close and singing to me and letting me take the occasional photo. On the other hand the Black Headed Grosbeaks and the Quail(?) were much, much more shy. No pictures of them. I'm not even sure I was seeing quail, but they were acting like quail. I know there were Black Headed Grosbeaks.

I had seen two male Mallards kayaking down the creek early on, but then I came across this couple taking a rest in midstream. Mr. Mallard pulled his bill out of his wing to give me the ducky eyeball.

Part of the trail wanders thru the old, played-out orchard. There are a wide variety of old fruit and nut trees (living and dead) in the orchard. And here we have two different trees that grew up entwined around each other... and a squirrel has planted an oak tree nearby.

There are at least two fungi here in this photo. Can anyone tell me what they are?

We saw lots of bluebirds at Edgewood, but I saw this one little guy on an archway at the community gardens. When you've got an itch, you've gotta scratch.

Not the first Robin of spring, but still...

Pretty little Seaside Daisy, a California native, but not normally found in this area. This one is planted in the flower bed at the Audubon Society office.

And another California native, Coyote Mint, planted outside the Audubon Society office/store.

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Send e-mail to me at:
stephfenton @ mindspring . com

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This page was last updated on 23 March 2008.