Redwoods

Far south on the northern coast of California, a tremendous and special grove of trees have thrived.  The Redwoods of California.  We'd spent the day in Crescent City where seal had come to sun themselves on the rocks in the bay.  On our way home we parked in one of the pull offs along the Redwood Highway.  Towering Redwoods all around us, just taking one step up the trail made me feel we'd stepped into another world.

In fact, the Redwoods were used in the Star Wars film Return of t
he Jedi.

But they are also famous for something else.

There's a sea bird called the Marbled Murrelet.  In the wake of the 1970s when forest management, ecology and nature were reaching new heights, biologists had a puzzling problem.  Where does the Marbled Murrelet nest?  They've seen them on the ocean water where they spend most of their time.  They've seen them fly over the old growth forests such as the Redwoods or the rainforests of the Hoh in Olympic National Park.  But no one knew where they nested.

Then one day, a ranger was way up in a Redwood tree trimming what he thought would be a dangerous limb over the camp ground.  He stepped onto another branch to get better footing when he almost stepped onto a Marbled Murrelet chick.  The moss created a nest of sorts and feathers from the chicks parents could be seen as well.  It was then that they discovered these sea birds won't nest anywhere but in the high canopy of old growth forests.

I love the Redwoods.  They are one of my favorite places to visit.  Where else can you find such a special grove of trees, but then drive 10 minutes further west to a sprawling California coastline?  But I could literally get lost in the Redwoods for days.  No two trails are alike, and yet the trees remind me how small we humans are.  It's dizzying just looking upward.  Patches of sky appear here and there, but mostly, all you see are towers of red and green.

And the forest floor is covered in mosses, lichens and ferns.

And it's home to the Marbled Murrelet among many other animals.

I pointed out the nurse log to my son who was visiting me from back east. I explained that in the Pacific Northwest and up in Canada and Alaska, when a tree falls over, mosses will grow on it and create a living environment for other plants to grow.  Seedlings from the Redwoods themselves will gather on that moss and eventually start growing in what appears to be right out of the fallen log.  But really it's taken root in the moss and dirt that's gathered.  The log will nourish the new growth and eventually decay away giving itself back to the earth.  The new growth will take over.  The Redwoods are full of these.  Nature has a way of taking care of itself in cycles, and the process is happening all around us while we stand in the forest.