As the Gottlieb Native Garden’s naturalist, Scott Logan documents the ever-changing array of wildlife species as they vary with the garden’s blooms, seasons and migratory patterns. While bringing these observations to life for all to experience, he also coordinates scientific research projects, and monitors the overall health and biodiversity of the garden. The Naturalist’s Journal also highlights the work the Gottliebs and Scott are doing to educate and inspire people to start gardening for wildlife with native plants.
Native Pollinators come with delicious benefits!
Here is a perfect example of how we, and wildlife, benefit from native pollinators. In early summer our prickly pear cactus plants flower and insects are immediately attracted to them. Among those insects will be bees in the tribe known as Eucerini , or Longhorn […]
Orbweavers cat and mouse mating game
The arrival of fall means orb weaver spiders, and their webs fill the Garden. This is also the breeding season for many spiders, including the Spotted Orbweaver – Neoscona crucifera. In the video below, a male Spotted Orbweaver is determining if it’s the right time to […]
Summer night skies are alive with Bats
Bat activity in the Garden is always at its height during the Summer months. This year during July, August and September our ultrasonic recorder picked up 4900 individual calls from possibly 10 species of bats. Eight of them are currently on our vetted bat species […]
Cuckoo bees
I just found another species of Cuckoo bee in the Garden – Genus Coelioxys ! Cuckoo bees are kleptoparasites, meaning they employ a feeding strategy where they steal food from another. In their case, it’s their young that rob other bee larvae of their food […]
native bee identification
For the most part, I do not collect specimens for identification. I carry out most of my documentation with photographs. Unfortunately, most insects are very difficult to ID beyond family, sub-family or Genus with images alone. For this reason, at times I will choose to […]
carrion plant
The transformation of the GNG began in 1990, not as a California native garden, but as a drought-tolerant Mediterranean garden. But it wasn’t long before the connection between native plants and the survival of native wildlife was made. During the proceeding years, the majority of […]
GNG MOTUS Station
The Gottlieb Native Garden, in collaboration with Pasadena Audubon, installed a Motus Wildlife Tracking System in hopes of adding data to this international collaborative research project that uses radio telemetry to track flying animals. Motus collaborators have contributed to hundreds of academic publications covering a […]
decorative nesting box
The GNG has many nesting boxes throughout the garden, supplying secondary cavity nesting birds with important habitat to raise their families. As long as the box is of appropriate dimensions and placed in the proper niche, it will be considered as a nesting site. A […]
Silk Moths Rock!!!
We don’t see Ceanothus silkmoths in the garden often, but when they appear – WOW – they never fail to impress! These beautiful large moths have a wingspan of up to 5”. In the greater Los Angeles area, they most often fly between the months […]
Coopers Hawk with prey
I was alerted to a predator in the Garden by the chorus of bird and squirrel alarm calls. When I located the marauder, I wasn’t surprised to find a Cooper’s Hawk with prey. What did surprise me was what the hawk had caught – a […]