CLERC

10/21/2026

10/19/2026

Last Friday, a roadside fire started along Bottle Rock Road, directly within an area that had recently received fuels reduction treatment.

The fire still started, but what happened next is exactly why this work matters.

Because much of the surrounding vegetation and surface fuel had already been reduced, the fire had far less material available to carry it farther into the surrounding area. Local residents were able to act quickly and extinguish much of the fire before it could spread, with responding agencies helping secure the area afterward.

You can see the result in these photos: a burned patch immediately beside the roadway, surrounded by treated ground where there was much less fuel available to carry the fire.

Fuel reduction cannot prevent every spark or roadside ignition. What it can do is help give a fire fewer opportunities to grow.

This is why CLERC and our partners are working throughout Lake County on roadside clearing, shaded fuel breaks, and other wildfire resilience projects.

The initial treatment is also just the beginning.

By doing the heavier fuels reduction work up front, these projects can leave an area much more manageable for continued care. Vegetation will grow back over time, so keeping treated areas effective is a shared, long-term effort. Property owners can help by maintaining treated portions of their property where appropriate, while CLERC and our local partners continue working toward funding and opportunities for future maintenance and retreatment across larger project areas.

If you live in an area that has already been treated, even small efforts to keep new vegetation and accumulated fuels in check can help protect the progress that has already been made.

If your property is within one of our upcoming project areas and you have received a Right of Entry (ROE) form, please return it. ROEs allow eligible work to move forward on private property and help create more continuous treatment areas with fewer gaps.

This is what the work is for: reducing fuels before the next ignition happens, making treated areas easier to maintain, and building wildfire resilience one project at a time.

A big thank you to the local residents who acted quickly when this fire started, as well as the responding agencies, property owners, and partners who help make this work possible.

10/16/2026

FREAKY FUNGI FRIDAY

Old Man's Beard
Usnea spp.

This week we are breaking format. Old Man's Beard is not a plant. It is a lichen, a fungus living in symbiosis with algae, two completely different organisms functioning as one. As lichenologist Trevor Goward described it: lichens are "fungi that have discovered agriculture." For Halloween month, we are making room for it.

If you have hiked through Lake County's oak woodlands, you have seen Old Man's Beard. It hangs from branches in pale green, ghostly tassels, draping dead limbs and bare canopy like something out of a Southern Gothic novel. On a foggy morning or at dusk, a tree heavy with Usnea looks like it belongs in a haunted forest. The lichen is not hurting the tree. It does not parasitize its host. It lands as spores or broken fragments, takes hold on bark, and pulls its nutrients entirely from rainwater and the surrounding air.

That relationship with air is what makes Usnea ecologically significant. Because it absorbs everything directly from the atmosphere, it cannot tolerate pollution. Sulfur dioxide, heavy metals, and other airborne contaminants kill it. This makes it what ecologists call an indicator species, an organism whose presence or absence reflects the health of the environment around it. If Old Man's Beard is thriving in the trees around you, your air quality is good. If it disappears, something has changed. Researchers have used lichen surveys as a low-cost way to map air quality across entire regions. Over 1,000 lichen species grow in California, and their presence or absence tells a story that no air monitor can capture at the same scale.

Usnea also contains usnic acid, a compound that modern research has confirmed is effective against gram-positive bacteria including Staph and Strep. Indigenous peoples across North America knew this long before the chemistry was identified. Fresh lichen was packed directly into open wounds to prevent infection and gangrene. The Pomo of northern California used Usnea californica as absorbent padding in baby diapers. Peoples in what is now Mendocino County used it as bedding material. The Nuxalk of the Pacific Northwest used Usnea longissima to make false whiskers on ceremonial dance masks.

Do not confuse Old Man's Beard with Lace Lichen (Ramalina menziesii), which is California's official State Lichen, designated in 2016. They look similar hanging from oaks, but Lace Lichen has a flat, net-like structure when you unroll it. Old Man's Beard has round, cord-like branches. Pull a strand of Usnea gently apart and you will see a white elastic cord running through the center, like a rubber band. Lace Lichen does not have that cord. That is the quickest field test.

Next time you are walking through Lake County's oak woodlands and spot pale green beards swaying from the branches overhead, take it as a good sign. That is Old Man's Beard telling you the air up there is clean.

Spotted Old Man's Beard in Lake County? Drop your sightings in the comments! 👇

🍄

Links:
https://baynature.org/article/signs-season-old-mans-beard-lichens-live-air/
https://tricycle.org/magazine/old-mans-beard/
https://www.coastalrivers.org/old-mans-beard-lichen-or-usnea/
https://www.botmed.rocks/usnea-longissima-yarnell.html
https://www.backyardnature.net/n/x/usnea.htm
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Usnea
https://www.californialichens.org/state-lichen
https://mcrcd.org/blog/returning-to-lichens

10/14/2026

🦂 Wildlife Wednesday: California Common Scorpion

Our October Creatures of the Night series continues with an animal that literally glows in the dark.

The California Common Scorpion (Paruroctonus silvestrii) is native to California, with a documented range stretching from Baja California up through Marin County and east toward Lake Tahoe. They're nocturnal, spending the day tucked under rocks, bark, or in shallow burrows, and emerging after dark to hunt insects, centipedes, and spiders.

The most striking thing about scorpions is something you need a blacklight to see. All scorpions fluoresce a vivid blue-green under ultraviolet light. The glow comes from compounds in the hyaline layer, a paper-thin but incredibly durable coating on their exoskeleton. Freshly molted scorpions don't glow until their new shell hardens, suggesting the fluorescent compounds are a byproduct of the hardening process itself. The glow is so resilient that scorpion fossils hundreds of millions of years old still fluoresce under UV light. Scientists have proposed several theories for why this exists: it may help scorpions detect ambient UV levels so they know when to stay hidden (they're far less active on bright, moonlit nights), it could play a role in communication between individuals, or it might serve as a form of UV protection. The honest answer is that nobody knows for certain.

Scorpions are also among the oldest land animals alive today. Their lineage stretches back over 430 million years to the Silurian Period, predating dinosaurs by roughly 200 million years. The basic body plan; pincers, segmented tail, venomous stinger, has barely changed in all that time.

Their reproductive strategy is unusual for arachnids. Female scorpions give birth to live young rather than laying eggs. The soft, white newborns immediately climb onto their mother's back, where she carries and guards them for 10 to 20 days until their first molt hardens their exoskeletons enough to survive on their own. It's an unusually high level of parental care for an arthropod.

The sting of the California Common Scorpion is painful but not considered dangerous to humans. Their venom is mild compared to species like the Arizona bark scorpion. Around here, the scorpion's biggest concern isn't you. It's the pallid bat. As we covered last week, pallid bats are one of the only bats that hunt on the ground, and they regularly take on scorpions, shrugging off stings thanks to a venom resistance that researchers at UC Riverside have only recently begun to understand.

Next time you're out at night, try sweeping a UV flashlight across the ground. You might be surprised what lights up.

🔬 Paruroctonus silvestrii
📍 Lake County, CA



Links:
https://www.insectidentification.org/insect-description.php?identification=California-Common-Scorpion
https://animals.howstuffworks.com/arachnids/why-scorpons-glow-under-black-light.htm
https://animals.sandiegozoo.org/animals/scorpion
https://askabiologist.asu.edu/scorpion-facts
https://www.trvst.world/biodiversity/scorpion-facts/

10/09/2026

Western Poison Oak
Toxicodendron diversilobum

Our Freaky Flora Friday series continues with a plant that has probably ruined more Lake County hikes than any other living thing.

Western Poison Oak is not actually an oak. The name comes from the shape of its leaves, which loosely resemble oak foliage. The scientific name is more honest: Toxicodendron translates from Latin as "poison tree." Every part of the plant, leaves, stems, roots, berries, even bare winter branches, contains urushiol, an oily resin that causes severe allergic dermatitis in roughly 80% of people. It absorbs into the skin within about ten minutes of contact. It clings to clothing, tools, dog fur, and boot laces. It remains active on dead plant material for years. And when poison oak burns in a wildfire or a brush pile, urushiol volatilizes into the smoke, which can cause serious internal and external reactions in anyone who breathes it in. Firefighters in California's coastal ranges lose significant work time to poison oak smoke exposure every fire season.

In October, the plant puts on its most striking display. The leaves turn deep scarlet and bright orange before dropping for winter. A hillside lit up with red poison oak in fall is one of those views where beauty and danger sit right next to each other.

Poison oak grows as a dense shrub up to about eight feet in open sunlight, or as a woody climbing vine up to 75 feet long in shaded areas. It reproduces by both rhizomes and seed. It is extremely variable in appearance, which is part of what makes it tricky to identify. Leaves can be glossy or dull, lobed or smooth-edged, and anywhere from small and tight to broad and sprawling. The one reliable rule is "leaves of three, let it be," though even that oversimplifies it since leaflets can number three to five.

For all the pain it causes people, poison oak is a productive part of the ecosystem. Bees pollinate the small flowers from March through June. By July and August the berries ripen, and they persist through fall, feeding mockingbirds, sparrows, warblers, quail, turkeys, and cedar waxwings well into the season. Deer and woodrats eat the leaves and stems without any reaction. Dense poison oak thickets provide shelter and nesting cover for birds and small mammals year-round.

Indigenous Californians had a working relationship with this plant that would astonish most hikers today. The Pomo used the juice in tattooing: a design was drawn on the face with poison oak juice, then soot was pricked into the skin with a sharp needle from the California nutmeg tree, producing a permanent blue-green color. The Pomo name for the plant is ma tū' yä'' hō. The Wappo dyed baskets with the sap. The Ohlone used the stems in basket weaving. The Chumash applied the sap to remove warts and corns and drank a decoction of the roots for dysentery. Some groups ate buds in spring as a way to build tolerance. Those who were susceptible to the rash treated it with soap plant, mugwort, or yerba santa.

If you are hiking Lake County trails this October and spot a shrub with brilliant red three-part leaves, appreciate the view from a safe distance. That is poison oak reminding you it was here long before the trail was.

Spotted poison oak turning red this fall? Drop your sightings in the comments! 👇

🌿

Links:
https://www.calflora.org/app/taxon?crn=8015
https://putahcreekcouncil.org/creekside-neighbors/poison-oak-toxicodendron-diversilobum/
https://nathistoc.bio.uci.edu/Plants%20of%20Upper%20Newport%20Bay%20(Robert%20De%20Ruff)/Anacardiaceae/Toxicodendron%20diversilobum.htm
https://www.suddenoakdeath.org/wp-content/uploads/pdf/Tribal/Tribal_uses_for_Poison_Oak.pdf
https://calscape.org/Toxicodendron-diversilobum-(Western-Poison-Oak)
https://nativeplantspnw.com/poison-oak-toxicodendron-diversilobum/
https://www.waynesword.net/ww0802.htm

10/07/2026

🦇 Wildlife Wednesday: Pallid Bat

It's October, and all month we're highlighting some of Lake County's creepiest, crawliest, and most misunderstood creatures. First up: a bat that hunts on the ground.

Most bats hunt on the wing, snatching insects out of the air with echolocation. The Pallid Bat (Antrozous pallidus) does things differently. This pale, big-eared bat is one of the only species in North America that regularly lands on the ground to hunt, chasing down scorpions, Jerusalem crickets, centipedes, and beetles on foot. It can run across the ground on its folded wings and hind feet, and it uses its oversized ears not for echolocation but for passive listening, detecting the sound of prey moving across soil and leaf litter in total darkness.

What makes this even more remarkable is what it's willing to eat. Pallid bats routinely take on scorpions, getting stung multiple times in the process. Until recently, their apparent resistance to scorpion venom was only supported by anecdotal evidence. A 2017 study published in PLOS ONE by researchers at UC Riverside was the first to systematically test it, confirming through behavioral mea

10/02/2026

FREAKY FLORA FRIDAY

Sacred Datura
Datura wrightii

It is October, and all month we are highlighting some of Lake County's most fearsome, toxic, and misunderstood plants. First up: a flower that only opens after dark.

Sacred Datura is a member of the nightshade family and one of the most poisonous plants in California. It has earned plenty of names to match: Devil's W**d, Devil's Trumpet, Thorn Apple, and Moonflower. Every part of it, roots, stems, leaves, flowers, seeds, contains tropane alkaloids including atropine and scopolamine. A lethal dose is not much higher than the amount that would cause symptoms. This is not a plant you handle carelessly.

After sunset, it puts on a show. Large white trumpet-shaped flowers, up to eight inches long and often tinged with lavender, uncoil in a pinwheel pattern as darkness falls. They release a heavy, sweet fragrance into the night air. By a few hours after sunrise, they wilt. The entire performance happens in one night, and it is staged for an audience of one: the sphinx moth. These large nocturnal moths hover like hummingbirds and unfurl a long proboscis to reach nectar deep inside the trumpet. In the process, they pollinate the flowers. Scientists have observed that after drinking the nectar, sphinx moths fly noticeably more erratically, suggesting the alkaloids in the plant have a narcotic effect on the moths themselves. Even the pollinators get dosed.

After pollination, the flowers give way to spiny green seed pods about the size of a golf ball, earning the plant another common name: thorn apple. When the pods split open, they release dozens of flat, kidney-shaped seeds that remain viable in the soil for years.

The plant's dark reputation extends well beyond California. Archaeological evidence shows Datura has been used for at least 3,000 years in the southwestern United States, and even longer in other parts of the world. The Aztecs used it as a painkiller during initiation rituals and as a narcotic during ritual sacrifices. In the Caribbean, it was used in zombification rituals and known locally as "zombie-cucumber." Some scholars believe the Delphic oracles of ancient Greece may have used Datura to induce their prophetic visions.

The whole plant has a look that fits the season. Sprawling, gray-green, velvety leaves that smell unpleasant when crushed. Pale flowers that glow in moonlight and disappear by morning. Spiny pods that look like something out of a medieval apothecary. In 1676, British soldiers in Jamestown, Virginia accidentally ate a related species in their salad and hallucinated uncontrollably for eleven days, which is where the common name "Jimsonw**d" (a corruption of "Jamestown w**d") comes from.

Look for it along roadsides, sandy washes, and disturbed ground around Lake County. If you spot one blooming at dusk, stick around and watch for the moths. Just do not touch it.

Spotted Sacred Datura in Lake County? Drop your sightings in the comments! 👇

🌿

Links:
https://www.calflora.org/app/taxon?crn=2622
https://putahcreekcouncil.org/creekside-neighbors/sacred-datura-datura-wrightii/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Datura_wrightii
https://naturecollective.org/plant-guide/details/sacred-datura/
https://ucanr.edu/blog/healthy-communities-blog/article/ancient-native-americans-painted-common-psychoactive-w**d
https://www.fs.usda.gov/wildflowers/ethnobotany/Mind_and_Spirit/datura.shtml

09/30/2026

Last call, Lake County.

Today is the final day to vote in the Best of Lake & Mendocino awards.

For the past two weeks, we've shown you a small part of what CLERC has been working on across the county: hundreds of acres of fire prevention work, safer areas around communities and evacuation routes, biological monitoring, restoration work and many more projects still moving forward.

But the reason we're asking for your vote isn't the award itself. It's because we would love to see this work recognized by the community it is meant to serve.

If CLERC has helped your neighborhood, worked with you on your property, taught you something about Clear Lake or local wildlife, handed your kid something at a community event, answered one of your questions, chipped your brush pile, or simply done work you were glad to see happening here, we'd love your vote.

Find us under General Services > Nonprofit Organization > Clear Lake Environmental Research Center

🗳️ Vote for CLERC for Best Nonprofit Organization: https://bestoflakeandmendocino.com/vote/

And to everyone who has already voted, shared a post or told someone about our work, thank you.
We have a lot more work ahead of us.

09/28/2026

If it feels like you've been seeing CLERC crews and projects in more places lately, you're right.
Nine projects have already been completed this year.

Fifteen additional project contracts have been awarded.

Three are currently in the bidding process.

And there is more work behind them.

Projects at this scale don't happen because one organization decides to go clear some brush.
They take landowner permission. Funding. Surveys. Planning. Contractors. Biology work. Local agencies. Fire partners. County and city coordination. And a lot of conversations with the people who live in the areas where the work will happen.

CLERC has spent years building the local systems and partnerships needed to move these projects from an idea on a map to actual work on the ground.

We're proud of how much is happening. We're even more interested in what we can get done next.

There are two days left to vote in the Best of Lake & Mendocino awards.

If you want to see this work continue growing across Lake County, we'd appreciate your vote for CLERC as Best Non-Profit.

Find us under General Services > Nonprofit Organization > Clear Lake Environmental Research Center

🗳️ Vote for CLERC for Best Nonprofit Organization: https://bestoflakeandmendocino.com/vote/

Voting is open through September 30, and you can vote once per day!