Monterey Cypress

I was doing some research for work on wind farms, and I found that the average wind speed at a particular location can be estimated by the shape of the trees that grow there. That made me think of these pictures of Monterey Cypress trees I took in Pebble Beach, California on the beautiful 17-Mile Drive.

The photo above is the famous "Lone Cypress", which the Pebble Beach Corporation claims to have copyrighted. If you are reading this, my blog has not yet been shut down by their overzealous lawyers.

The photo below was taken from an angle that really shows the shaping of the trees. You can see that the amount of leaves and branches to the left of the left-most trunk is much less than the amount to the right of the right-most trunk. This is called "flagging", since the tree is starting to look like a flag, with the fabric (the leaves and branches) all to one side of the flagpole (the trunk).


A couple of guys actually sat down and put together a scale to gauge wind speed based on the flagging of trees. When a tree starts bending over from the wind, they call it "throwing", and when it gives up and lies down they call that "carpeting". I love their descriptive language! This table is courtesy of Idaho National Laboratory.

When I did some more reading about Monterey Cypress trees, I found that only some of their deformity is due to the wind coming off the ocean. Some of it is due to "salt pruning", which is damage to leaves due to the salty mist. So these trees are getting a double whammy, a wind that is carrying salt mist.

One more thing about the famous Lone Cypress. If you look a little closer, you will find that the Pebble Beach Corporation has protected its money-making copyrighted tree by tying it to the rock outcropping with wire.


Now for your moment of Zen, sunset on Pebble Beach:

Eight Ways Elephant Seals Have Evolved

I took these photos of elephant seals at Piedras Blancas State Marine Reserve in California. Here are some interesting ways that elephant seals have adapted to their harsh environment:

1. As you can guess, their name comes from the large noses of the males. Besides being a way to scare off competing males and attract the ladies, these noses may also help males conserve moisture when they are out of the water. Elephant seals can spend up to 3 months at a time “hauled out” on the beach during breeding season, with their stored blubber their only source of energy and moisture. It is believed that some of the moisture they exhale is captured and reabsorbed by their nose.


2. Another way elephant seals conserve moisture is by producing urine that is more concentrated than many other animals. Yuck, enough said.


3. Elephant seals and monk seals are the only mammals that molt their skin all at once, rather than shedding it continuously in small amounts. This allows them to shut down blood circulation near their skin when they are in the water, helping them to keep warm, conserve energy, and build up that all-important blubber. I was at Piedras Blancas in late July, which is molting season for the males. The tan seal in the photo below has some good molting going on.



4. Elephant seals have really bad sleep apnea. But in their case it is a good thing, allowing them to conserve energy while on the beach without food or water. They can go without breathing for up to 30 minutes while lounging on the beach.


5. Another way that female elephant seals conserve energy is through “delayed implantation” of their embryos. The breeding season includes giving birth, nursing pups, and being impregnated again before going back into the water. But the new embryo will float around in the uterus for 3 or 4 months before attaching to the uterine wall, giving mom a chance to eat and build up her strength before sharing with junior.


6. Elephant seals can dive as deep as 5000 feet. The only mammals that can dive deeper are sperm whales and bottlenose whales. One way they accomplish this is by completely collapsing their lungs before diving, driving out all the air. This prevents nitrogen in the air from dissolving in their blood under high pressure, and coming out when they resurface causing the “bends”.


7. Elephant seals can stay under water for over an hour, then resurface for only a few minutes before diving again. They are able to do this by storing a higher concentration of oxygen in their blood and muscle tissue than other mammals.


8. Elephant seals have been observed eating stones before hauling out of the water for the breeding and molting seasons. When they return to the water, these stones come out the other end. It is believed this helps them fill their stomach while fasting.

The Ponderous Borer

This beetle is a Ponderous Borer. No, I am not criticizing its social skills, although it didn't have much to say as I took its picture. It is "ponderous" as in "huge". You can't tell from the photo (I should have put a coin next to it), but it is about 2 inches long not including the antennae. The "boring" part refers to the larvae of this beetle, which bore through the wood of dead and dying trees.

These beetles like pine trees, so they are sometimes called Pine Sawyers. But I would call what their larvae do "boring" more than "sawing", so "sawyer" is misleading. Coincidentally, they especially like Ponderosa Pines. "Ponderosa" is Spanish for "ponderous", as in "that is a ponderosa steak", or "that is a ponderosa ranch".

This particular beetle was crawling on the sidewalk in a small strip mall in Lake Tahoe. That is not normally where you would find a beetle that loves trees, so I think this one was ill. He had two types of growths or abnormalities on his exoskeleton, the yellow and white pus in the middle of the photo below, and the shiny spot surrounded by white pus at the bottom right.


Here is another closeup that is not so gross. This is his tarsus (foot), showing the hooks that allow him to climb tree bark very well.


If you are into really gross insects, you will want to check out this photo of a Ponderous Borer larva being held in a man's hand. It is a 3 inch long grub as thick as your finger. If Thomas Jefferson had known about the Ponderous Borer, he could have used it as further evidence of the superior vitality of New World species.

Point Lobos California

We're going all the way back to 2006 for this post! That is when my wife and I visited Northern California. One of my favorite places was Point Lobos. For you literary types, this was where the character "Doc" in John Steinbeck's Cannery Row used to go to escape the cannery scene and collect wildlife from the tide pools. You can't do that today, since this is a protected area.

The photo above shows a unique geological feature of Point Lobos. If you are ever doing a class project on "sedimentary rock" or "conglomerate", you couldn't find a better picture.

Geologists call this the "Carmelo Formation". It was created 60 million years ago, when some canyons that were previously on land found themselves under the sea. Runoff from the land filled these submarine canyons over the millennia. The layers that contain pebbles mark the times when volcanoes had recently erupted inland, and the runoff contained rocks ejected from the volcanoes.

Check out this website for more details on the geology and other natural features of Point Lobos.

If you are curious to see what Cannery Row looks like today, see the photo below. Yes, the third sign from the right says "Starbucks". And those aren't sardines in the carts those people are pushing up the hill. Poor Steinbeck is spinning in his grave.