Calico Hills Road Rehab


Like last year I spend half a day doing “vertical mulch” rehabilitation on old road tracks through a wilderness area. The idea isn’t to erase the track instantly, but to get it reseeded with local vegetation and discourage further incursions. It takes a long time, but a few hours work by ten volunteers does make a visible difference.

Road Rehabbers

Road Before

Road After

Afterward I join Scott, Renee, Steve, and Mimari for a little hiking around the area. Near the road I spot a dried up mushroom, the first I’ve seen out here.

Post-project hiking

Dried Mushroom

The dry creek bed is home to dense webs, many with entrance tunnels. I think wolf funnel spiders weave these.

Wolf spider web?

A western fence lizard gives me a peek at his blue belly.

Western Fence Lizard with blue belly and chin

We attract a good number of black-throated sparrows by playing recorded calls on Scott’s phone, and scramble around some of the nearby rock formations.

Black Throated Sparrow

Steve takes in the view

Calico hill rocks


2 responses to “Calico Hills Road Rehab”

  1. probably not wolf spider (family Lycosidae)since almost all do not spin webs (sometimes burrows tho)

    could be funnel web spinner (Agelenidae) or many others

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.