Ranger Duckie at Point Reyes part 2

 

Point Reyes National Seashore is a good place to view how man influences nature and how nature influences man.  Here I am viewing an introduced plant, ice plant that had a significant and negative influence on the coastal dunes.

An exhibit at North Beach explains how the invasive ice plant and European beach grass are displacing the native plants and keeping the normally shifting dunes stable.  Stable dunes may sound like a good idea but I think we need places where we can see nature at work.

Here you can see piles of ice plant that have been pulled up while some of the native plants are reestablishing themselves.

Beach Primrose

 Seaside Daisy

Near the visitor center we can see how nature can have catastrophic effects on man.  The 1906 San Francisco earthquake ran right through Point Reyes.

The offset of this fence shows how far the earth moved.

 The line of posts on the hill above the fence demarks the San Andreas Fault.

The fault runs through Tomales Bay, in front of the lodge where were staying.  I wonder what it would be like to be there when the earth moves again.

 Mom took me to point Reyes National Seashore.  This is a place filled with both human and natural history and lots of great places to hike.

Our first hike was the estero trail.  The first section goes through a grassland where we saw a variety of wildflowers.  Here I am checking out some blue eyed grass and coast lotus.

Douglas iris was common almost everywhere we went.

Sun cups.

The trail leaves the grassland and winds through an abandoned Christmas tree farm. 

When we reached the estero the tide was out and Mom liked the texture in the sediment as the retreating water left braided rivulets behind.

In this area we saw a variety of shrubs like this ceanothus, 

and this plant that Mom was unable to identify.

Finally we reached a place where we could see the open water of Drakes Bay and we turned around and retraced our steps.