Summer at last has settled in at the coast. Animal life that seemed disrupted and delayed by the long, late and relentless winter and harshly cold and windy spring has returned to normal, if late, activity. A few species clearly benefitted from the exceptionally wet two-year cycle. Earthworms and insect larvae were prolific with the continuous wet—December through March averaged 8 inches of rain each month. In response, mole populations and their surface tunneling increased dramatically in West Marin. Slightly boggy workable soil, a mole’s preferred habitat, expanded and lasted much longer than usual, and litters must have been large.
The vole population, thriving on the bumper grass crops, increased early and dramatically, especially on coastal bluffs where extended rains kept grasses growing. Grasses in general had successful germinations across seemingly every species, and they grew dense and tall. The early, wet and cold winter seemed to favor cool-weather grasses more than summer grasses, and with the abrupt shift into a hot, dry season, fields dried out quickly and the winter vole population declined dramatically.
Mice were slow to get active but now are out in force. Their populations must have been set back pretty hard with the unrelenting rain, but once seed-harvesting time arrived—itself a little early—large mouse highways appeared everywhere in the dunes as they trucked their harvests back to their caches. Gophers, as usual, have done well in all situations and are as prolific as ever. From shorelines to ridgetops, their excavations are extensive.
Chipmunks were apparently undaunted by the heavy rains and have proliferated this year, feeding happily on the variety of large grass seedheads. In the forests, grassy meadows are grassier this year, providing ideal conditions for the miniature squirrels.
Grey squirrels, too, seem to have grown in number, the two wet winters providing exceptional cone and seed supplies. The conifer forests echo with their incessant, bird-like barks high in the trees. Deer, too, had a successful birthing season, with spotted fawn sightings everywhere this summer, and—a particular delight to a tracker—miniature deer tracks, two or three sets sometimes, accompanying the large, steady doe trails, while the bucks have retreated to the densest canyon thickets. Brush rabbit and jackrabbit populations seem average to high.
The predators are a mixed story. Badgers are doing well and apparently had large litters. There have been dispersal digs all over West Marin, frequently in yards and neighborhoods bordering the fields where gophers are abundant and badger parents have steady territories.
Coyotes and bobcats seem surprisingly absent, though scat on the trails attests to some presence, coyotes more in open areas and bobcats more in the thickets. Both usually pull back from public areas during their birthing season, and, again, due to the hard and late rains, both species had late litters. Another factor may be higher than usual tourist traffic in the park as heatwaves drive more inland people to the coast and animals pull away to quieter areas. And after the last couple years of very high coyote populations on the outer coast, there may have been some die-offs this year.
Raptors never seemed to congregate in the usual numbers during the fall and winter migration seasons, and they seem light now in the summer, though this would contradict the high numbers of rodents. Perhaps the weather itself discouraged normal nesting and migration in the area.
Along the shores of lower Abbotts Lagoon, common tracks include coyote and otter, gulls, terns and cormorants, a variety of plovers and, late this year, pelicans, who saw a spring die-off apparently due to low supplies of the shallow-water fishes they feed on. With fewer pelicans for the otters to predate, as they had learned to do in the last few years, there are fewer otter-killed pelican carcasses and more peregrine-killed gull carcasses, along with the unique trails of scavenging ravens and vultures.
The otters, it seems, have fallen back on fish and cormorants and their tracks and haul-out zones are spread more widely along the upper lagoon. On the ocean beach, coyotes have been scavenging at high tide, their long, steady, weaving trails coursing up and down the shoreline.
Up in the ocean-facing foredunes, jackrabbits are busy and abundant, with one of their favorite plants, the sand verbena, doing exceptionally well after nearly dying out in recent years. In transition areas where dunes push up against chaparral-covered hillsides, brush rabbits are moving back to pockets they haven’t inhabited for several years, while quail move in flocks around the edges, never too far from cover.
Out across the Abbotts sand basin itself, the ground is crisscrossed with the usual animal trails—skunks, raccoons, jackrabbits, deer and gophers. Ravens patrol for anything edible (though large insects seem unusually absent right now), and herons and egrets walk to steep dune roosting spots to take a break from fishing. Coastal bobcats must be concentrating on sparrows and mice in the fields or brush, and it is rare to find their beautiful overstep walking trails in the sand.
Up in the grazing fields, a close look reveals what’s happened with the voles. With the early and extended grass season, their populations boomed, but as fast-cycle, short-lived animals, they declined rapidly with the intense drying of early summer. At any boggy edge where rushes and grasses still grow, their covered runs—scatters of chopped grasses and scat accumulations—can still be found, usually at the drying edges.
And at last, today, I saw one surprisingly scrawny little coyote pup up in the grazing fields, same color as the yellow-brown grasses.
Richard Vacha is a Point Reyes Station resident. He is the founder of the Point Reyes Tracking School and the Marin Tracking Club.