too hot to blog?

During the past week much of the western US experienced record high temperatures. Among those places was Santa Cruz. The signs of the oncoming heat were already evident last Friday.

My office is 250 m above sea level, and I usually walk up from the downtown floodplain. The walk starts at the river, heads through the main street of Santa Cruz, and then starts climbing. The climb involves numerous separate rises, each of which is one of the many marine terraces that have formed by the combination of the climactic changes of sea level and the 1 mm/year rise of the land around Santa Cruz.

The first rise takes me from the location of the first Mission Santa Cruz (which got flooded out) to the existing remnant of the mission. That site is now largely occupied by the large Catholic church and its school, with the surroundings converted to suburban neighborhood. The next several rises continue through the upscale neighborhoods which surround the springs which were the water supply for the old mission site. Above the neighborhoods is the meadow at the base of campus and the several terraces that it covers. In these were the first signs of the oncoming heat. The meadows are now covered with wildflowers, clover, and grasses. They are also full of active ground squirrels busily eating in preparation for giving birth to their babies.

Above the meadow begins the forest; it is a mix of bay, oak, redwood, and fir. Last Friday it was clear this would be a bad year for the oaks, for from the trees were hanging silky threads of the first generation of oak worms. They come down when it gets warm, they can go through several generations during a hot summer, and they can completely strip the oaks of all their leaves. Over the weekend it got hotter. By Monday it was difficult to walk through the forest without getting caught in multiple tangles of oak worm silks.

On Tuesday the high pressure system was centered over us. When the conditions turn hot and stagnant the ground squirrels tend to hide, for that is when the golden eagles command the sky. I often see them perched on the trees in the gulches. Several times they have surprised me as I walk up. They seem to like to swoop over the meadow about 2 m above ground, right about my eye level. They also seem to like to surprise me by doing that just behind me. It's disturbing to hear the rush of wind over the feathers and turn around to see a raptor whose wingspan is greater than my own.

But this Tuesday the eagle was more polite. As I walked up the eagle swooshed past me just in front of me. Having passed me heading east the eagle banked, casting its shadow upon me as I winced looking sunward. As I turned to track it the eagle swooped back over the pathway behind where I was, and then glided back to its perch on the dead top of a tree in the gulch.