• Friends of the Garden 30th Anniversary

• The Miracle Mile: Sunday, August 2

• Butterfly Walks in the Botanic Garden: Sunday, August 16 and Wednesday, August 19

• Family-Friendly Sensory Garden Tour: Sunday, August 23

• Twilight Bat Walk: Thursday, September 3

• Birds in the Botanic Garden

• Free Garden Tours

Above: Santa Cruz Island buckwheat (Eriogonum arborescens) by Sandy Steinman.

Friends of the Garden 30th Anniversary

The Anniversary Celebration is on Saturday, August 22, 5:30-7:30, after the Garden is closed to the public. This Friends-only event will be in the Botanic Garden, with catered food, music, and speakers. It will honor special guest Glenn Keator, who was instrumental in starting the Friends organization. An invitation to the Anniversary Celebration was emailed to all Friends of the Garden in early July, with registration closing July 31. If you are a member of the Friends of the Botanic Garden and did not receive the invitation, please email the newsletter editor at: info@nativeplants.org

The Miracle Mile: Little Duck Lake and Russian Peak Wilderness; Sunday, August 2, 10:00 a.m.

Photo: Russian Wilderness by Michael Kauffmann.

Butterfly Walks in the Botanic Garden: Sunday, August 16 and Wednesday, August 19

Join Sarab Seth for guided butterfly walks in the Regional Parks Botanic Garden on Sunday, August 16th, and Wednesday, August 19th. Two walks are scheduled each day, at 1:00 p.m. and 2:15 p.m. Each walk is limited to ten participants and starts at the Garden’s Wildcat Canyon Entrance. Walks are free, but reservations are required. Register HERE.

From Sarab’s Notebook:

June, July, and August are usually the best months for butterflies in the Garden. But how many different species, and how many butterflies in all, are seen on a given day depends very much on the weather. On good-weather days, butterfly activity in July was at normal levels. But, just as in June, there were a lot of cold and foggy days, with much fewer butterflies than normal. Under good conditions— sunny, at least 65 degrees, and not too windy — I expect to see roughly 10 species over one hour.

Likely sightings on the August walks include acmon blue (Icaricia acmon), cabbage white (Pieris rapae), California pipevine swallowtail (Battus philenor hirsuta), field crescent (Phyciodes pulchella), gray buckeye (Junonia grisea), mylitta crescent (Phyciodes mylitta), and umber skipper (Lon melane). Field skipper (Atalopedes campestris), fiery skipper (Hylephila phyleus), gray hairstreak (Strymon melinus), and woodland skipper (Ochlodes sylvanoides) are also possible.

A recent, and rare, visitor to the Garden is the anise swallowtail (Papilio zelicaon). Sightings have generally been near the upper path, between the Garden entrance and the Channel Island section.

Where to Look Right Now (If You Can’t Join the Walks):

The best spot right now is still the area around the large circular bed in the Channel Island section, although the number of species seen here fluctuates. Expect to see acmon blue, cabbage white, field crescent, gray buckeye, and umber skipper, as well as California pipevine swallowtail fly-bys.

The Santa Susana tarplant (Deinandra minthornii) bushes near the entrance have started to bloom. For the next 8 or 10 weeks, they will be a magnet for the grass skippers: field skipper, fiery skipper, umber skipper, and woodland skipper. Some other species fly in, too.

At this time of year, western tiger swallowtails come to nectar on (and pollinate) the big stand of leopard lilies (Lilium pardalinum) on the southern edge of the pond lawn. If you’re lucky, you might see a butterfly with wings and abdomen liberally dusted with orange pollen.

California pipevine swallowtail adults can be seen in many parts of the Garden, including the area around the large California pipevine (Aristolochia californica) on the east side of the long bridge. There are still a few late-stage caterpillars on the pipevine. There are younger caterpillars on the small California pipevine on the north edge of the Franciscan section, at the bottom of the steps when you take the path down from the greenhouse to Wildcat Creek. There are several chrysalises on the long bridge, and on the Chrysalis Shed (on the upper path, just south of the Channel Island section). The ones on the bridge are hard to find, but the ones on the shed are easily seen on the west wall and the south wall.

Tip: Binoculars help a lot, especially close-focus ones. The happiest people at the end of the walk are usually the ones who brought them! Want a virtual walk? See the butterfly pages on the Garden website at: https://nativeplants.org/guides/butterflies-in-the-garden

Sarab Seth is a butterfly photographer and docent at the Botanic Garden. Sarab's monthly Garden butterfly walks will continue through October.

Twilight Bat Walk:Thursday, September 3, 7- 8:30 p.m.

The Regional Parks Botanic Garden is home to many native bats. Their sensitivity to habitat and climate disturbance makes them useful indicators of ecosystem health. Dr. Chelsea Andreozzi spent 407 summer nights monitoring bats using ultrasonic detection equipment across a spectrum of forest management types and microclimates. Her studies combining in-depth fieldwork with geographic data provide insight into what bats need to survive.

Meet inside the Visitor Center Auditorium at 6:45 p.m. The Visitor Center is just inside the main gate of the Regional Parks Botanic Garden located at the corner of Wildcat Canyon Road and South Park Drive. NOTE: for navigating the Garden after dark, please bring a flashlight!

Dr. Chelsea Andreozzi is a multidisciplinary environmental scientist; passionate about supporting healthy ecosystems and communities through science and stakeholder engagement.

Whereas Spotted Towhees are homesteaders, American Robins pop up everywhere berries are found. The garden's coffeeberry, barberry, and manzanita all seem to be growing robins along with their bounty of fruit. This bird shares a color scheme with the Spotted Towhee, but reconfigured, with a gray-black head and back, orange-red belly, and white circling their eyes and under their tails. Robins are members of the thrush family, known for highly developed control of their songs. They use this control to produce a fast, rhythmic series of liquid, rising and falling whistles often described as "cheerily, cheer up, cheerily, cheer up.”

Where the robin is ubiquitous, their relative, the Swainson's Thrush, is enigmatic. Their song, an upward-spiraling ethereal harmonic, is produced by singing two notes at once. This gives it a ventriloquial quality, causing the sound to bounce off foliage and making the bird seem like it is moving quickly or singing from much farther away than it actually is.

BELOW, LEFT: Swainson’s thrush; RIGHT: American robin.

Hoping to see the bird, I followed the song from section to section — Santa Lucia, Channel Islands, Franciscan — sometimes seeing a spotted breast or yellow beak. I gave up looking and rested on the bench near the glasshouse. As I let my gaze wander through the trees in the Canyon section, a flicker of movement caught the corner of my eye. I turned my head and stared directly into the eyes of a Swainson's Thrush. Head cocked slightly, he looked at me and started singing. Time stopped as I was wrapped in a world of trees and sky and song.

Beth Reuter is a Garden Greeter at the Botanic Garden and is enrolled in the California Academy of Sciences/GGBA Master Birder program.

Free Garden Tours

You're invited to our free, docent-guided tours every weekend and on Park District holidays! Explore the Garden sights with us on Saturdays and Park District holidays at 2:00 p.m., and Sundays at 11:00 a.m. and 2:00 p.m.

You care invited to schedule a free docent-led tour for your group. Request form is HERE.