I'm one of those people that believe things happen for a reason. Over the last few months, I've had a lot of free time to dedicate to volunteering. It wasn't my idea to have all this free time but why wallow in the negative when so much positive can be made from it?

I love to volunteer for various causes such as childhood cancer awareness, habitat restoration, beach cleanups, an educational citizen scientist website, nature preserves, etc. What I enjoy the most is seeing the benefit of what I do, whether it's instant gratification or knowing that it will be appreciated by someone or something in the future. The next best thing is the education! There is so much to learn when doing new things and it never stops. It's like a great river that forks into smaller streams, so many parts to one big thing.

Today I volunteered for my second wildlife transect survey. It seemed like a nice stream to take since I'm a trained naturalist/docent. It combines hiking, searching, identifying, socializing and photography. Well at least I include photography ;)

There were three wildlife transect tunnels to survey today and they were full of signs that wildlife is abundant. Sure, I prefer to see the critters themselves but so many are elusive and I just don't want to sit for hours each day and night waiting for the off chance that one will scurry by. I did see a few live critters but saw the signs such as scat, bones and tracks. Below are some pics from both of the surveys I did. If you click on the images, another tab will open that includes more information about that spotting.

I can't wait to do another wildlife transect survey again in the Spring!

If you couldn't tell from my links and comments, I'm a huge fan of Project Noah. I have learned so much about nature and photography over the last 2 1/2 years! It is much more than a hobby to me, especially now that two of my teenagers contribute to the site and all three share my love of the outdoors.

While on one of my searches for new-to-me critters last year, I found a spider that I hadn't seen before. I submitted it to Bug Guide and they said it looks a lot like a spider from South America. I was contacted by someone and given the name of an Entomologist that is here in So-Cal. He came down to help look for another specimen in our backyard but we were unsuccessful. It figures we couldn't find it when we really wanted to. Apparently they're active at night, not in the day.

3 weeks later, one of my daughters helped me catch one of these elusive spiders and we sent the live, young female away for science. We found out that there was a manuscript in process about this spider establishing in So-Cal.  She was reared in captivity and about 6 months later, the paper was published with my daughter and I referenced :)

This has been an exciting find and I'm looking forward to the next critter that contributes to science!

I hope everyone had a wonderful holiday! If you're the resolution type, perhaps more time out in nature was among the list :)

I spent a lot of time with the family that included a few new nature spots. We finally played tourist in our Southern California backyard and visited the Anza-Borrego desert and the tidepools at both Dana Point and the Cabrillo National Monument. Both the desert and the tidepools were beautiful and in typical So-Cal fashion, the weather was great. We escaped the heat at home in all locations finding temps in the low 70's.

Exploring with only a macro lens (other lens is being repaired) was a bit challenging and limited scenic photography but I was able to focus more on my family which is really what vacation should be about!

Here's hoping you find new adventures with friends and family this new year.