Younger me in the foreground -- and overlooking a dry part of the island and the Pacific Ocean in the distant background. The only native conifer, bishop pine, occurs here in small patches, seen behind me, it occurs almost exclusively where fog impacts certain elevations and slopes.
Me explaining how to core a tree to an ecophys colleague. We are next to a relatively large bishop pine growing in a relatively lush valley on SCI.
The weathered end grain on the top of a ~100 year old fencepost on SCI that was cut from coast redwood and had 200-300 rings.
A dwarf gray fox. It looks like a fox but it is smol and retains a big floofy tail.
For this #TreeRingTuesday that I got to visit Santa Cruz Island in 2014:
This island is off the coast of Southern CA. I led tree-coring efforts to understand forest mortality patterns.
The island is home to dwarf foxes that are not afraid of people.
Really cool place I was lucky to visit.
