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.
Botta’s Pocket Gopher
How do pocket gophers end-up as meals for predators such as owls, hawks, coyotes and bobcats when they spend 90% of their life in the safety of their burrows? This slow motion video of a GNG pocket gopher captures what they do the other 10% […]
The Beginning of a Hot Summer Day…
Summer has officially arrived when cicadas begin to sing, and they are now singing in the GNG!. As the sun rises on this soon-to-be 100° day, cicadas were gearing-up to serenade with their soft buzzing song. Cicadidae – Okanagana vanduzeei
National Geographic Films in the Garden!
Red Rock Films was in the GNG for a couple of days this week, filming hummingbirds for an up-coming National Geographic special on California. Using regular and extremely high-speed video cameras, they were able to capture stunning footage of hummingbirds feeding and interacting in the […]
Hummingbird Feeds on Manzanita
Hummingbird feeders have always been a conspicuous part of the GNG, occasionally feeding over a hundred birds at a time! Wild birds are happy to exploit an easy meal, but that doesn’t mean they stop feeding on native food sources. Here an Anna’s Hummingbird dines on nectar […]
Cat and Aggressive Great Horned Owl
With Bobcats, Coyotes, Gray Foxes and Great Horned Owls around the GNG, this neighbor’s house cat is going to go through its 9 lives very quickly!
Bobcat!
This was a very exciting remote camera-capture, as we have had no evidence of Bobcats being in the GNG for more than four years now. Not the best photo ever, but documented nevertheless! We really hope this big cat wasn’t just passing through and will […]
Great Horned Owl Fledgling
Tune-in to your surroundings while spending time in your garden – you just might find someone has tuned-in to you!
Animals Leave Clues…
…and a feather is a good one. We found this down feather blowing in the breeze recently. The color scheme of faint brownish stripes against pale-yellow on this large down feather points to Great Horned Owl. We’ll keep alert for other signs that this raptor […]
White-lined Sphinx Moths
During a nocturnal GNG species review a few weeks ago, we were surprised at how many White-lined Sphinx moths were seen during the evening. Over two-dozens of these large, beautiful moths were attracted to our UV light sheets. Seeing all of these adults was a […]
Yikes – So Many Crane Flies!
With all of the rain that we had this past winter came crane flies (their larvae, for the most part, feed on moist dead plant matter). Seems that anywhere you look, there they are. Crane flies are in the family Tipulidae, one of the largest […]