_Name%20Only%20with%20SoCal%20Black.png)
Who’s Who on the Ranch? Meet Our Animal Visitors On Our Santa Paula Ranch
This month’s photo is a little different, it features some of the other residents of the ranch. Every animal pictured was photographed right here, from honey bees and Monarch butterflies to bobcats, bear and, yes, a mountain lion.
We grow avocados, but we share this land with an impressive collection of wild neighbors. Some help us, some challenge us, and some we are perfectly happy to admire from a distance.
1. Great Blue Heron, Ardea herodias
This impressive visitor is a Great Blue Heron, one of North America’s largest herons. She likes to hunt in our koi pond. With a wingspan that can approach six feet, when her shadow passes over you, it is surprisingly intimidating.
2. Greater Roadrunner, Geococcyx californianus
Yes, roadrunners really do spend much of their time running rather than flying, and I caught this one on a road! These California natives hunt insects, lizards, snakes, rodents and other small animals. They are wonderfully entertaining members of the ranch’s natural pest control crew.
3. Striped Skunk, Mephitis mephitis
Skunks are mostly nighttime visitors, searching for insects, grubs, rodents and other food. Their appetite for insects and small pests can make them useful neighbors, even if we would rather not meet one unexpectedly after dark. This is one ranch resident we appreciate from a respectful distance.
4. Bobcat, Lynx rufus
Bobcats are remarkably good at living near us without being seen. They hunt rabbits, rodents and other small animals and play an important role as predators in our local ecosystem. When we catch one on camera, we have to wonder how many times it has watched us without our ever knowing it was there.
5. Western Fence Lizard, Sceloporus occidentalis Our “lizard with the fun tail” is a Western Fence Lizard, a familiar California native. These little predators eat insects, spiders and other invertebrates and spend plenty of time basking on rocks, logs and sunny spots around the ranch. Lizards make a distinctive rustling sound as they run across the dry avocado leaves.
6. Western Honey Bee, Apis mellifera
These may be some of the hardest working residents on the ranch. Honey bees move among thousands of avocado flowers, carrying pollen from blossom to blossom and making them important partners in producing our crop. Right now they are enjoying our citrus flowers and Spanish lavender, and during avocado bloom the hum of bees working through the orchard is one of our favorite sounds.
7. Orb Weaver Spider, Family Araneidae
I am not an expert, but I think this is an orb weaver, part of the family Araneidae. These spiders construct beautiful circular webs that seem to materialize between branches overnight and capture moths, flies, mosquitoes and other flying insects. They are also why you wear a hat on morning walks this time of year, their webs seem to be strung between almost every tree!
8. Monarch Butterfly, Danaus plexippus
Few visitors are as immediately recognizable as the orange and black Monarch. John plants milkweed because it is essential to the Monarch’s life cycle, serving as the host plant for its caterpillars, while the adults visit many different flowers for nectar. Seeing one floating through the ranch is always enough to make us stop what we are doing and watch.
9. Tarantula Hawk, Pepsis or Hemipepsis spp.
Despite the name, a tarantula hawk isn’t a bird, it’s a very large wasp famous for hunting tarantulas. The female paralyzes a tarantula and provides it as food for her developing offspring, one of the more dramatic relationships taking place quietly around the ranch. They seem to be efficient hunters, in five years I have seen only two tarantulas but oodles of tarantula hawks.
10. Mountain Lion, Puma concolor
Mountain lions generally avoid people, which makes evidence of one passing through the ranch particularly exciting. These powerful native predators can range across enormous territories and are an important part of Southern California’s remaining wild landscape. A photograph of one is a wonderful reminder that our orchard sits within a much bigger ecosystem.
11. Mule Deer, Odocoileus hemionus
Deer are the main wildlife threat to our young trees. We don’t mind them in the backcountry, but we work hard to keep them out of the orchard. They browse tender leaves and shoots and can do considerable damage to young plantings, including killing them.
12. Red Tailed Hawk, Buteo jamaicensis
That large hawk circling above the ranch is often a Red Tailed Hawk, one of California’s most familiar raptors. They hunt rodents, rabbits and other small animals, making them valuable neighbors on agricultural land. My favorite view is when I am on a mountaintop looking down on them making lazy circles. You can’t see the red tail from that vantage point, but it is magical.
13. Western Toad, Anaxyrus boreas
Our wonderfully warty ranch resident is a Western Toad, which emerges especially at night to eat insects and other small invertebrates and uses leaf litter for shelter. Starting in February, their nocturnal chorus lulls us to sleep.
14. Raccoon, Procyon lotor
Raccoons are both cute and a nuisance. This photo was taken from inside the kitchen while he was pondering how to get to the cat food. They are fun to watch, but we would rather they didn’t live quite so close to us.
15. California Quail, Callipepla californica
Few sights say California quite like a little procession of California Quail hustling across a ranch road. Watching a family with a string of tiny chicks following behind is guaranteed to slow down ranch traffic. Every once in a while, one also poses perfectly for a photograph.
16. American Black Bear, Ursus americanus
American Black Bears aren’t necessarily black, their coats can range through brown and cinnamon shades, which are the colors ours seem to favor. They enjoy our watering holes and occasionally snack on avocados. We mostly don’t see them, but we certainly pause when we see the size of their footprints!
Not pictured: the coyotes, who howl at night and occasionally chew through our irrigation lines looking for a drink. We actually maintain watering holes for wildlife in hopes that they will drink there instead of destroying the irrigation.
These critters are a good reminder that an avocado orchard isn’t separate from nature, it is part of it. Bees pollinate our flowers, hawks and bobcats hunt rodents, spiders and lizards eat insects, deer occasionally eat things we would prefer they didn’t, and every once in a while a bear strolls through. We grow avocados here, but we certainly aren’t the only ones who call the ranch home.
A note about food safety: We take food safety and handling very seriously. We would rather have all of the wildlife stay in the backcountry and none of it in the orchards, but wildlife doesn’t always respect those boundaries. We routinely monitor the orchard for evidence of potential contamination, mitigate risks when we find them, and would never harvest fruit that we believe may have been contaminated.
We hope you enjoyed meeting some of the animals that share our ranch. From familiar visitors to more surprising sightings, there is always something wild happening among the trees!
Tell us in the comments: How many animals did you recognize? Which one surprised you the most?
Sign up for our monthly heirloom avocado boxes & join in on the fun!
Comments