entirely safe and fun

Abby and I went on a hike at Rancho San Antonio this weekend. RSA is a county park west of Cupertino, in the mountains that make Silicon Valley an actual valley, thick with wildlife and offering beautiful hikes. In the rainy season, seasonal torrents pour down the mountains and every square inch turns green; now, in the height of the dry season, the mountain lions stalk their mule deer prey in meadows gone brown and dusty.

Click any picture for a larger version. There’s a more comprehensive Flickr stream available.

Rancho San Antonio is lousy with California Quail, Callipepla californica. They’re not especially scared of people here, and can be observed at length. Their close cousinship to chickens (Sibley-Ahlquist puts them both in the Phasianidae family) couldn’t be clearer as you watch them scratch and peck, and dustbathe.

A baby Coast Range Fence Lizard (Sceloporus occidentalis bocourti). He was perhaps two inches long, and would have evaded detection via camouflage, had the glint of his scales in the sun not given him away. Cute little guy, no?

An adult fence lizard. This photo took some patient stalking to set up, on both of the lizard’s part and mine.

I’ve tentatively identified this attractive fellow as Skilton’s Skink, Eumeces (or Plestiodon) skiltonianus skiltonianus.

Abby and I hiked up Rancho San Antonio’s Wildcat Loop Trail to the top of the ridge, where we were greeted with an expansive view of Silicon Valley…

Silicon Valley. A few big landmarks are easy to pick out - the hangars at Moffet toward the left, the skyline of San José pretty far to the right. When I see it from up here on Saturday afternoon, it seems a lot less overwhelming than it did at (say) 10AM on Friday.

Abby and I also saw wild turkeys, Meleagris gallopavo; this was the first time I had ever seen them in California. I imagined that, since the species is native to Mexico and widely distributed in the Eastern US, that it was probably also native to California, but as it turns out this is a point of contention, as this article discusses.