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5 common Alameda county species I found on 4/17:

1 Sweet Fennel
2 French Broom
3 Daisy
4 Coast Redwood
5 Western Swordfern

1. A plant with regular flowers
2. A plant with irregular flowers
3. A monocot
4. A dicot
5. A plant in the pea family (Fabaceae)
6. A Gymnosperm
7. A terrestrial plant that is not a seed plant
8. A plant with pinnate leaves
9. A plant with opposite leaves
10. A plant in the sunflower family (Asteraceae)

This week, I was hiking the mountain around the UC Berkeley campus. There are two unidentified species, one california popper, one leaf from palm tree, and one red flower. One thing I realized is that there are a lot of new bloom flowers around the campus. I also realized that there are a lot of new grow flowers on the top of the tree, and some of the trees don't have any leaves. May be last two weekend was so hot, the leaves are so dry.

1. Osmia ribifloris and lavender: I took those photos just outside of the Giannini Hall, I saw three to four bee(Osmia ribifloris) was pollinating with a lavender. They stand on the plant's surface for less than three seconds.
2. Birds: I saw two types of birds playing on the surface of the pool. One of the bird attack other one. They just enjoy playing with each others.
3. bufflehead: male duck(bufflehead) sit near the female. One of the duck found some food and carry to the female. The female ate the food and run away.

I went on a hike on the south side of Strawberry Canyon, this is really dry and classical Mediterranean climate, those plants do not need to absorb huge amount of water in order to survive, but they absorb a lot of sunlight.

1. I saw the red flower and bare leaves plant near campus. The plant lives in a pretty dry environment. The trunk does not so large, but it supports the plant growth. The plant only 3 meters high.
2. I saw a bird setting on the top of a tree, the tree has 20 meters high. The bird might have a nest in the top of the tree. The bird did not move so much, and it sits there for almost 10 minutes.
3. Euphorbia Blasamifera: this plant original from Arabian Peninsula to Canary Islands. The plant only 1 meter high near the ground. I saw a lot of insects in the bottom of the plant such as ants. The plant has really deep root.
4. I saw the the white color plant near the ground. The plant has small leaves.
5. I saw a flowering plants in the middle of ground, this plant live in a really dry environment, since the Mediterranean climate does not supply too much rain, so they develop really dry leaves.

I went on a hike at the north side of Strawberry Canyon,this is a perfect location to do the observation. I started the hike from the football field.

1. I observed a couples of moist evergreen Ferns. I realized that those ferns located near the river, and it has large long leaves. I assume the long leaves can absorb sun light and water. Those trees are almost 20 meters high, and the leaves are really green and dark.
2. I saw a numbers of birds flew really low, and they were walking on the ground about 3 meters in front of me. They were looking for the food such as leaves and insects. One thing surprise me is that they did not afraid human walking really close to them.
3. I saw a tree that has a lot of beautiful red fruits. This tree does not grow really high, but the leaves are really green, and the fruits look really full.
4. I saw the Chilopoda slowly Crawling in the surface of a wood. I realized that Chilopoda has multiple legs, and they enjoy the moist environment.
5. I saw a red wood tree that does not have any leaves, it still grow really strong. Red wood absorb huge amount of sunlight and water when they grow.

From BBC News

Link:http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-21458463
14 February 2013 Last updated at 19:19 ET Share this pageEmailPrint
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The amateur naturalists discovering new species in Europe
By Ari Daniel Shapiro
PRI's The World, Mercantour, France

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In today's Magazine

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Everyone knows there are lots of species yet to be discovered in rainforests and remote parts of the world. But hundreds are being discovered every year in Europe too - most of them by amateurs.

"If you want to find something new, you have to go to a place nobody has been before," says Jean-Michel Lemaire.

"You have to open your eyes."

Lemaire is a retired mathematician from south-east France with a passion for beetles.

In the last few years, Lemaire has found seven new species.

He has hunted them down by exploring caves and crawling through tunnels dating back to the Middle Ages.

It was in one such tunnel in Monaco that he found his most prized discovery - a tiny, blind soil-dwelling beetle.

The Monaco beetle is only 2mm long
Lemaire thinks it probably lives nowhere else on earth but the Rock of Monaco.

"Finding a new species is like the holy grail," he says.

Already about 350,000 beetle species have been identified, making it one of the biggest animal orders on the planet. Lemaire has discovered seven of them.

A helmet-mounted lamp is key equipment for a beetle-hunter
It is hard work crawling around underground, but, Lemaire points out, beetles are at least easier to catch than some other creatures - butterflies, for example.

For centuries, scientists have catalogued the creatures of Europe - the tall and the small, the feathered and the furred.

After all, Europe was home to some of the most revered naturalists of all time, including Britain's Charles Darwin and Sweden's Carl Linnaeus, the biologist who popularised the Latin naming system for every species on Earth.

And yet "we only know the tip of the iceberg," says ecologist Benoit Fontaine of the National Museum of Natural History in Paris.

"There are more species that we don't know than species that we know."

In Europe alone, about 700 new species are being discovered each year, says Fontaine. That's about four times the rate of two centuries ago.

These species tend to be tiny creatures - often insects, spiders, and worms. And many of the animals would likely have remained undiscovered if not for a dedicated band of naturalists who have set out to find new creatures.

New species recently discovered in Europe
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This is a new species of spider, Troglocheles lanai, discovered at Mercantour National Park. It's only about 2mm long and lives in caves
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One such place where this is happening is Mercantour National Park, at the foot of the Alps on the border between France and Italy. While Jean-Michel Lemaire goes hunting in inaccessible nooks and crannies, there are still plenty of creatures waiting to be found in a more accessible place like this.

"We have a very good knowledge of birds, and mammals" in Mercantour says Marie-France Leccia, an ecologist at the park. "Less for the insects."

Leccia manages a project to look for new insects and other small organisms here.

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The park is known as a hotspot of biodiversity. It sits at the intersection of Mediterranean, alpine, and continental climate regions. The rainfall and temperature patterns from these regions converge on the park's undulating landscape, splintering the area into countless tiny habitats.

Species emerged to adapt to these micro-environments. In Mercantour National Park alone, they have found 50 new species in the last six years, including species of centipedes, moths and spiders.

Some of the amateur sleuths are young, some middle-aged, but pensioners are well represented too.

Two of them - Michel Brulin, 63, and Pierre Queney, 73 - crouch beside a creek, scanning for insects, looking like children searching for their next treasure in the water.

"Marvellous. Extraordinaire!" exclaims Brulin, delighted with the amount of life in the water. "It's a paradise for me."

Pierre Queney on the hunt for new species in Mercantour
Brulin, a former biology professor, is one of France's experts on mayflies, and Queney, who used to work in the nuclear power industry, is a specialist in aquatic beetles. And there are many similar groups in other countries fanning out across the continent looking for new animals.

In fact, six out of every 10 of the new species in Europe are discovered by amateurs, often self-taught experts in particular insect and invertebrate families.

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New species hotspots

About 16,000 new living species are discovered each year around the world
700 are discovered annually in Europe
The top top countries in Europe for finding new species are: Spain, Greece, Italy. Germany and France
More facts and figures
BBC Nature
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New species are sometimes hiding in plain sight - a new species of wasp was recently discovered by a technician in a car park by his office in Spain. And not long ago, a retired man in Wales came across a new type of slug in his back garden.

At the National Museum of Natural History in Paris, ecologist Benoit Fontaine says the search for new species in the Old World does not diminish the need to continue looking in the tropics, where there are also more species to be found.

He says people should be looking everywhere - because extinctions are happening at an unprecedented rate.

"We will need several centuries to describe everything in the world," he says. "And things are disappearing faster than we can discover them. So we should hurry."

Ari Daniel Shapiro was reporting for The World and the PBS program NOVA. The World is a co-production of the BBC World Service, PRI and WGBH

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I found Beschorneria Rigida at Strawberry Canyon. It belongs to family Asparagaceae and native in Mexico.

The red flower I found near the Berkeley campus, which the leaf out.

1) Plant - Oxalis purpurea: Near the road at the Strawberry Canyon, and it had beautiful color.

2) Bird - Unclear: this bird is orange color at the belly, it located about 30 feet above the surface.

3) Insect - Unclear:I saw a couple of the those insects swimming at the water surface

4)earthworm: I took this photo during our class, it was located at the observatory Hill.

5) Fish - Carp: there are some carp near the mountain.