This is the Pepperwood Podcast, a production
of Pepperwood, a nonprofit conservation organization
based at a 3 ,200 -acre nature reserve near Santa
Rosa, California, in the heart of the traditional
homeland of the Wappo people. At Pepperwood,
we aim to inspire conservation through science.
And on this show, we talk to scientists, stewards,
and environmental educators about what they do
and how they do it. We hope to give you a glimpse
into the real experiences of folks who devote
their lives to taking care of local ecosystems
and sharing them with others. Welcome, Pepperwood
community. Welcome to our first episode of the
year in 2025. I'm Julianne, environmental educator
at Pepperwood and your host for this podcast.
We are starting the new year off with a look
back at a milestone that Pepperwood experienced
in 2024. the 30 -year anniversary of Preserve
Manager Michael Gologly's time at the Reserve,
an anniversary which took place, and which I
celebrated with a conversation with Michael,
back in April of 2024. First, we'll hear from
Michael about his process of joining Pepperwood
and a few major events and projects that he has
seen in his three decades at the Reserve. Then
Michael was excited to discuss an aspect of stewardship
about which he is very passionate, the use of
targeted cattle grazing as a tool for increasing
biodiversity and carbon sequestration, particularly
in grassland habitats. We touched on this a little
in episode four as we talked grasslands with
Michelle Hauber. Michael presents some of the
context and the process of this practice. His
experience and enthusiasm for the possibilities
of conservation -minded grazing practices really
shines through. Since this was the very first
conversation we recorded for this podcast project,
we were using different equipment and, consequently,
the conversation sounds a bit different. To prioritize
Michael's thoughts and messages, I'm going to
present a series of vignettes from our conversation.
We'll go back and forth between a bit of context
from me and Michael's invaluable stories and
perspectives. Thanks for following us through
this conversational journey, my friends. I feel
pretty confident that you're going to enjoy it.
Now, where shall we start? How about the beginning?
My first question for Michael was, what led him
to begin his work in conservation and preserve
management? What was he doing before he began
his time at Pepperwood? Well, you know, I was
really liking the idea of having a real positive
impact on a landscape and just a positive impact
in my life. I had done a lot of political organizing
in my life, working on campaigns and trying to
get initiatives passed and trying to make change
that way. And while we did some good work, it
was always a struggle. And, you know, two steps
forward, one step back kind of things. And working
on political campaigns where the candidate didn't
win. And you put a whole lot of effort and time
into these things. And there was always that,
I don't know, controversial side of, you know,
back and forth. And so I really look forward
to the idea of... working on a piece of land
where the effort that you put into it, you see
the results of. It's one of the reasons that
I liked construction and carpentry and that is
that you do something and you can stand back
and see what you built. And I was able to take
that concept into land stewardship. And, you
know, we've pretty much really knocked back Yellow
Star Thistle, so it's hard to find here now.
And, you know, we've had lots of really strong
impacts whereas wildlife is really benefiting
you know bears have come back in a big way the
mountain lion population and we've worked really
hard at removing invasive species and trying
to make our forests more healthy by doing forest
thinning and prescribed fire and so it's just
great to be able to put effort into something
and see the results from it and really end up
with a healthier environment as a result. What
a reward. Yeah, those tangible results. That
sounds wonderful. It's been an honor to do this
kind of work. You know, it's like, what a great
job where you can go out every day and work with
a piece of land, work with great people and accomplish
something that's really good for everybody. Next,
we dive into the story of how Michael found Pepperwood
as his professional and personal home of 30 years
and beyond. This was back in 1994, when the reserve
was owned and managed by the California Academy
of Sciences. My wife actually saw an announcement
of this position at the academy. bulletin board
and we both looked forward to the idea of getting
out of the East Bay where we were living at the
time and so I applied for the position which
at the time was a house to live in in exchange
for 40 hours of work a month so it was a good
fit because they were looking for somebody who
had experience you know fixing things I'm a carpenter
plumbing plumber electric electrician and but
i also have a degree in biology and led lots
of trips and so it was a nice mix of having some
real practical skills along with having some
education background as well so it was a good
match and we moved to the garrison canyon at
pepperwood which is a little 700 square foot
cabin that hadn't had any work done on it for
a long long time so my first job was just to
bring it up to a livable place we knocked the
crumbling old fireplace down and put in a hearth
and a wood stove and put in some skylights and
a new roof on it and remodeled the kitchen and
the bathroom and all to make it so it was a little
bit more livable so you know soon after April
of 94, I started doing other projects here. So
road maintenance, you know, we put fencing around
some of the sensitive wetlands at Pepperwood
because we were still doing cattle grazing and
wanted to be able to control the cattle a little
bit better. So did invasive weed work and just
fixed things as they broke, replaced toilets
and, you know, fixed the refrigerator and, you
know, all those. myriad of things that it takes
to keep a place running. A few decades down the
road, Michael and his family were living at Pepperwood
when the 2017 Tubbs fire impacted over 90 % of
the reserve, and the house that they were living
in was destroyed during that event. Michael shared
some of the ecological details of that event
and some lessons that we as a community can learn
from the catastrophic wildfires of the past decade.
I mean, for the most part, the Tubbs fire was
really beneficial if you look at it as an ecological
event, you know. The fire burnt through the southern
part of the preserve very intensely the first
night, being really wind -driven. And particularly
our Douglas fir forest took it pretty hard. Lots
of tree mortality from that. The fire killed
the trees. And Douglas firs aren't very good
at... um resisting fire as compared to oaks that
have a much denser and thicker bark so they've
evolved to to do pretty well with fire whereas
douglas firs have evolved to have those seeds
in the ground and they after a fire they rejuvenate
that way right so the the trees get killed but
the plant has evolved to come back from it whereas
the oaks can can survive more So after the first
night, the fire then moved north across the 3
,000 acres of the preserve, and it burnt more
as an understory fire and really benefited the
environment by clearing out a lot of that fuel
and giving other plants an opportunity to express
themselves. I think we found, I'm forgetting
now, seven, eight. new species of plants that
we've never seen before here. Incredible. And
Pepperwood's really well studied. If it's here,
we usually know about it. And so to find some
new plants, fire followers, they're called, that
need that heat and the smoke and the chemical
reaction in order for their seeds to germinate.
They're sitting there in the soil from probably
1964 when the Hanley fire came and sitting there
all this time. And then with the fire, they rejuvenated
that way. It's the people systems that didn't
do very good with wildfire. People lost their
lives, and lots of houses got burned down, including
my own. And that's the thing that I think is
the real lesson that we're all learning, is that
we live in a fire -adapted area, and fires are
going to keep happening. And apparently with
climate change, they're going to be happening
more and more intensely is what we're learning.
And so the people systems need to adapt like
the wild systems have. Wildlife did pretty well
through the fire and vegetation has evolved with
fire. It works pretty well. People need to evolve
with fire as well. So we need to be thinking
about where we build our houses, what we build
them out of, how we manage the vegetation around
them, having emergency response, people being
funded and trained so they know what to do in
an emergency, having escape routes to be able
to... Get out from your house and get away to
be safe. You know, all those things are things
that we have to be thinking a lot more about
so that we can be smart about that. Yeah, we
live here. Fire's going to happen. So let's be
prepared for it next time. A fairly recent project
that I was curious about was the Bechtel House
remote grid, part of PG &E's solar pilot project
that was launched at Pepperwood's Bechtel House
in September of 2023. I asked Michael to explain
that project's genesis and implications. Yeah,
PG &E came to us and said, we have this pilot
program that we're interested in starting. They
had done one of these in the Sierras and they
were interested in pursuing it more. And the
idea behind it is to... create these microgrids,
so providing power for a house or a group of
houses, and then being able to remove the power
lines that run to those houses. So power lines
being a risk of starting wildfires, and PG &E
has to insure them, and they have to do maintenance
on them, and they have to do the vegetation management.
And so the question was, can we create these
microgrids? give the electrical power that buildings
need or people want and get rid of the power
lines. Is it economical to do that? And so this
was a pilot project to do just that. And PG &E
offered a backup system, a diesel generator,
so that if the sun didn't shine for a week and
the batteries went down, there'd be a backup.
And we weren't really interested in that. Bechtel
House, where we did this project, is available
for people who are coming on a short -term basis.
Researchers stay in there for a night or two.
And so it seemed like we had a good opportunity
to try this without the backup system and see
if we could make it work. So we asked them to
design the system to last at least four or five
days with cloud cover, which is... It's fairly
common that we get sunshine and the system can
recharge within having one full sunny day. So
it's worked out pretty good that way. And we
don't have to have a diesel fossil fuel backup
system that way. So it's the first 100 % renewable
microgrid that PG &E has built in California.
So we're very proud of that. Then we dug into
the stewardship -oriented grazing practices that
Michael has been managing at Pepperwood for many
years. Like many of us, Michael experienced a
big change in perspective when it came to the
possibility of cattle herds having a positive
effect on native habitats. I had watched grazing
animals particularly cows in the sierras really
trashing some beautiful sierra meadows and you
know the impact of cattle on the grasslands of
california historically has been really negative
and you know we put too many too many animals
on the land and in those early days when Europeans
were coming to this country. They were bringing
those grazing animals and the hay and the ships
that they brought over here for the animals had
seeds from the Mediterranean climates that we
are in here. So they just flourished here because
they didn't have any of their natural control
mechanisms. And so a combination of overgrazing
and introduction of non -native invasive plants
really degraded the grasslands of California.
So it was a real learning experience for me to
see that grazing animals actually can have a
really positive impact after coming at it from
this idea of grazing animals are bad to seeing
that native plants in California really evolved
with grazers. And at that time it was elk and
pronghorn antelope and big herds of deer. So
with that evolution, the plants do really well,
actually, with some disturbance from grazing
animals. And if you've ever seen a landscape
after a big group of animals come through, you
know, I'm thinking of like caribou in Alaska
or, you know, some of the big herds moving across
the plains of Africa. They have a really big
impact. You can tell a bunch of animals have
been here, but they're on the move. they're going
somewhere or they're being approached by predators.
And so they're staying in a herd where they're
safer and they're moving across the landscape.
So they have a big impact and then they move
off on going somewhere else. And that's what
we've really learned by watching how things are
going here at Pepperwood and doing scientific
monitoring of what the impacts are of our grazing
program is that it's really, it's not so much
about overgrazing isn't how, intensely you hit
the landscape that first time, it's getting the
animals off and letting it recover. So what we
call rest period, the amount of time that the
plants have to come back after they've been grazed
down to the ground is what's really key. So that's
one thing I learned is that grazing doesn't have
to be bad. It's really how you manage it that's
what really matters. Michael went on to describe
the history of grazing at the reserve and how
our current practice works in terms of how the
cattle are moved about and how the ecosystem
can respond to this practice when we are successful.
Yeah, when I first came, we had four big pastures,
and they were in the 200 or 300 acre size. And
so the cows would come here in December and leave
in June, and we would move them between those
four pastures, usually getting two rotations
through all those pastures in that amount of
time. And what we have been doing now for the
last almost 12 years now is... Really learning
this idea of adaptive multi -paddock grazing
is what some people are calling it, targeting
grazing. prescribed grazing conservation grazing
people come up with all these names for this
but the basic idea is trying to mimic what i
was just talking about of the wild herds that
used to be here so by using more fencing we use
a lot of electric fencing here and either portable
water systems or we've been developing our springs
so that we have water troughs spread throughout
the grasslands and that way you can move the
animals a lot because you create smaller paddocks
and so the animals have a big impact there like
i was saying but then you move them off to the
next paddock and so right now we're moving cows
every three to seven or eight days so you like
i say you have a big impact and you get them
off and you don't bring the animal back until
those plants have really regenerated from from
that grazing so they've grown back and what people
have been finding is that that's really healthy
thing for the grassland that disturbance is important
getting rid of the thatch layer eating some of
that biomass down and then the hoof action of
the animals and the feces and the urine and the
the hoof punch on the ground all those things
are natural systems it's just that we've you
know it used to be done by elk and antelope and
now we're doing it with grazing animals so it's
a good food source for people at the same time
and what we've been seeing also is that by grazing
the So you have a grass plant and the animal
comes and eats it down a little bit. Well, underground,
those plants are losing some of their root mass
because they're equalizing. As you eat the top
exposed part of the plant, some of the root material
goes off into the soil. And that's just carbon.
So you're having a plant taking carbon out of
the atmosphere and distributing it into the ground.
Native bunch grasses have incredible root systems
that go down as much as 20 feet in the ground,
whereas the invasive annuals, we're talking less
than a foot into the ground. having native grasslands
and by having the plant eaten down and then get
the animal off it grows back then you bring the
animal back and it eats it down again each time
you do that cycle you're putting more carbon
into the into the soil so our grasslands actually
have an incredible potential for for carbon sequestration
you know and we talk about planting trees and
all that which is an important thing but we have
so much grasslands throughout the planet that
people really see this as a really great opportunity
moving forward to properly manage our grasslands
so that they can sequester more carbon into the
soil that way. And when a wildfire comes through,
all that carbon is down in the ground so you
don't lose it. Whereas when a tree burns up in
a wildfire, that carbon is going back into the
atmosphere again. So it's a good system and we
need to be more careful about how we manage our
grasslands for that. What are some of the signs
you look for that tell you, ah, it's time to
move the cattle from this area? Well, it really
varies. So right now, at this time of the year,
we're doing what we call fast moves, where we're
just having the cattle in, eating the grass.
down just a little bit and then moving them on
to the next paddock and trying to get all the
way through all the paddocks and then in the
second round we'll have the biomass down to the
level that we're looking for and it's what they
call rdm residual dry matter you know how much
of the plant material is left when you move into
the dry season where there's no more growth happening
And we try to vary that. There are places that
will have it down to maybe 1 ,000 pounds per
acre, which is fairly short grass, and there's
places that it might be 2 ,000 or 3 ,000 where
there's some taller grass. And the idea is that
different animals need different amounts of grass
there, different amounts of biomass. Burrowing
owls, which we don't really have here, we have
a few passing through, but burrowing owls really
like almost dirt. They like it really grazed
down a lot. That's why we see them at airports
and stuff out in the fields where they're mowed
down to the ground and they think that's great.
And other animals want to hide in the deep grass.
We're trying to mix it up a little bit when we
go from one paddock to the next and leave different
amounts of grass there. Kind of aiming for that
mosaic look. Exactly. Mosaic is the term we use
a lot. Fantastic. So it sounds like you have
more than a decade of experience with watching
how this grazing regime impacts the grasslands.
So have you learned things through that process
other than what you've already said? Yeah, well,
I think, you know, The carbon sequestration is
one thing. By removing some of the biomass and
some of the thatch buildup, you get more sunlight
into the soil, and so you get the seed bank that's
there germinates, and so you get a lot more diversity
in plant life because of that exposing the soil
to some sun. And, you know, you don't want to
just bare soil. It's a mix, you know, and we
try to... mix up our grazing intensity so you
have different impacts on some places we leave
the grass long other places we graze it down
pretty low because different animals and organisms
need to have that diversity instead of doing
the same thing everywhere you try to mix it up
a little bit so we're seeing more native forbs
the wildflowers and and non -native ones too
but just a greater diversity by having the grazing
program Well, if there are any consistent messages
that I have received in my time studying ecology,
increased diversity makes for stronger ecosystems.
So it's exciting to hear that cattle grazing
can be managed in a way that supports increased
biodiversity in Pepperwood's habitats. Michael
went on to reflect on the beef cattle industry
as a whole and Pepperwood's relationship with
our current grazing partners, Markagard Family
Grass Fed. We contract for our grazers, you know,
the people who own the cattle and bring them
here, and we manage them kind of jointly. So
I think it's a challenge for people who are raising
cattle and for meat and trying to have a business
model that works. beef production in our country
is really geared around feedlots and trying to
fatten animals up with corn and this is a real
different way of approaching it grass -fed beef
and so developing a market for that and being
successful is a challenge for a lot of people
and it's one reason we're really happy working
with market guard family grass -fed because they're
They've figured out how to make it work, and
so they're financially successful, which really
helps them be successful on the land, right?
They can manage the cattle in a way that we're
asking, and they really support the idea of having
healthy food and healthy grasslands go hand in
hand. So it's been really great working with
them. As a reflection on his 30 years of experience,
I asked Michael one of those old chestnuts. What
has been his proudest accomplishment in his time
at Pepperwood? I think just bringing fire back,
you know, it's something that we've wanted to
do. It's a really important tool. And so being
able to get fire back on the landscape is really
a great accomplishment. And, you know, my assistant,
Devin. Friedfeld, he was in the first group of
15 to get his burn boss certificate from the
state that allows him to sign off on burns and
conduct burns. And so I just feel really grateful
to him and proud of him for going through that
step and taking that responsibility because it's
a big deal to put fire on the ground and to do
it in a responsible and thoughtful way. So he
writes burn plans about, you know, there's a
very specific set of conditions that have to
be there for a burn to happen. So the air temperature,
the relative humidity, the wind, you need to
have good dispersal of the smoke so that it doesn't
settle down and become a health hazard to the
people who are going to be there. So the fuel
moisture, you know, how much moisture is in the
things that are actually going to burn. And so
you write a prescription that the conditions
have to be within this window for all of those
different considerations. And then you have to
have the personnel there. And so that's another
part of the prescription of how many fire trucks
do you need? How many people do you need? How
much fire hose? You know, all this stuff that
goes into having a safe burn. So Devin's able
to write that plan. initiate it with a group
of people. And that's been another really great
thing that I'm proud of is the community building
that has come together around doing these firms.
I was going to say, it takes a lot of, you know...
reciprocal help right there's a lot of uh inter
-departmental and exactly all of us are coming
together there's this volunteer group called
the good fire alliance which is people who are
interested in getting fire back on the ground
and some of its organizations a lot of it's just
individuals who want to see this and so they're
getting trained about how to be practitioner
of getting fire back on the ground and so you
know when we do a burn the sonoma land trust
is there the state parks is there regional parks
is there multiple fire agencies from around sonoma
county um you know it's just it's great to see
it's kind of uh you know the barn building or
you know all the community coming together to
make something really good happen and you know
so pepperwood goes to other people's firms and
we support them as well and we have our own fire
truck, a truck with a water tank and a pump in
the back that we can loan out to other organizations
that are doing burns. So continuing to support
those partnerships. Exactly, because we're so
far behind. We have a lot of work to do to try
to get our forests back into a healthy balance
again, and it's really going to take that and
a lot more. We're just scratching the surface
of what needs to happen. But at least we're scratching
the surface. Exactly, yeah. And I think we're
going to see it. We have to keep pushing. We
really need to develop a workforce to be able
to do this kind of work. And so I think training
people to be able to go into the forest and know
what to do and have the skills and the support,
financial support, the tools to get the work
done is really key. And, you know, it's great
work. And I think, you know, having young people
trained about how to go out and work in the forest
and improve the health and the wildlife and the
water quality and all that, it's beneficial.
And I think people will get a lot out of it.
On the flip side, I brought out another classic
interview question. What is the biggest challenge
of managing Pepperwood as a reserve and an organization?
Well, I think the financial part of it is always
a struggle. You know, none of this stuff happens
for free. And so we have to raise the money to
take care of the land and to run the programs
that we have. So it's always a constant effort
to be raising the money. And so most of our funding
comes through donations from donors who want
to see this kind of work get done and support
what we're doing. And we write a lot of grants
and get money both from private foundations,
family foundations, as well as agencies, state
and federal agencies. support what we're doing.
So it's a constant effort and probably the most
challenging part of my job. Those thoughts led
us directly to the question, what's the best
way to support Pepperwood as a member of the
community? Well, I mentioned our challenge with
fundraising, so helping us out financially is
a really big... piece of the pie to make things
work you know and it's hard to ask for money
but it's just critical to making things work
here so the nature of a non -profit is that we
need that support absolutely to get to get these
to get all this good work done absolutely and
then you can come and volunteer here there's
lots of opportunities the the best way to get
started is to come to our volunteer work days
that are the first saturday of every month and
they've actually are almost competitive now because
people love coming to them it's just a great
opportunity to have a sense of community and
doing good positive work together and you know
we come we work really hard together for three
hours that morning and we organize our activities
really well so they're productive and people
come and they you get stuff done and then For
three hours, you get tired and you're done. And
then we really found early on that feeding people
makes all the difference in the world. So a couple
of our volunteers cook a hot meal for lunch.
And I understand there's lots of cookies available.
And there's lots of cookies. Yes, Flora is the
cookie lady. So she's always got great diversity
of cookies for everybody. So her legend tells.
Yes, yes. finally turning our attention back
to nature itself. With his 30 years of time spent
in Pepperwood's lovely habitats and among its
many furred and scaled and feathered denizens,
I just had to ask. What's your favorite species
that lives on the property, Michael? Oh, geez,
that's a hard one. I know. I mean, I like seeing
the big carnivores, but they're... Rare to see.
I've only seen one mountain lion since I've been
here. One mountain lion sighting in 30 years.
That is rare. Yeah. And our cameras, you know,
we have wildlife motion activated cameras out
there and they see them all the time. But it's
rare for us. They probably know you. They say,
yeah, that's Michael. I wondered how many times
they've watched me. So seeing bears, you know,
I've seen a couple of bears here over the time.
But I think, you know. A lot of the smaller critters,
I'm kind of partial to snakes, and I had a great
interaction with a spotted owl once that I was
walking through a really dense bottom of a ravine,
and I was kind of making my way through the vegetation,
and all of a sudden there was a bunch of flapping
right at my head, and I was kind of like, what
is all that? The bird landed on a tree that was
just like six feet away from me, but on the backside
of the tree. And I'm looking there and it peeks
its head around from the side of the tree to
look at me, you know, and we're both standing
there looking at each other. And then it flies
to a branch just a few feet away from me and
just sits there. And we just contemplated each
other for a long time and talked back and forth
a little bit. I started looking around on the
ground like did it have something that it had
caught that was eating and that's why it wasn't
leaving and I didn't see anything and it we must
have been there for 20 minutes just staring each
other you know like six or eight feet apart and
I finally thought okay well you know it's been
fun I'm gonna go now and I walked away it was
such a wonderful little That's beautiful. You
got to just accept each other there in that moment.
Yeah, exactly. Wonderful. Well, Michael, thank
you so much for taking the time to talk to me
today. This has been not just informative, but
an absolute delight. So thank you very much.
And anything else that you would like the people
to know about Pepperwood? Well, I really appreciate
the opportunity to talk about my passion, which
is about... taking care of land and working with
people. Wonderful. Thanks for the opportunity.
Absolutely. Keep up the good work. Thanks again
to Michael for the conversation and for his patience
waiting for this episode to come out. If you'd
like to hear anything more about what we discussed
or if you have a follow -up question about anything
that Michael said, please email it to us at podcast
at pepperwoodpreserve .org. Thanks as always
to Stephanie Antinoro, our communication coordinator,
and to our IT firm, DeepNet, for helping us distribute
this podcast out to all of the various feeds.
We are now available almost anywhere that folks
access podcasts, so tell your friends. And now,
as always, it's time to play the Nature Sound
Guess Who Game. Some of our listeners have been
waiting for many weeks to have their curiosity
satisfied about last episode's nature sound,
so let's not dally. At the end of episode four,
we heard the dulcet tones of this local critter.
That sound was made by the... Minor Cicada. Platypedia
Minor. The full clip is about 30 seconds long.
and is accessible as part of an iNaturalist observation,
just like the clip of the gray fox we heard back
in episodes two and three. We will include a
link to the observation in our show notes. It
was recorded and shared to iNaturalist by Elliot
Smeds, a local naturalist and scientist, and
someone I am happy to call both a colleague and
a friend. On iNaturalist, Elliot is a top observer
and identifier of this species, and no doubt
several local cicada species. And he was a classmate
of mine in the Sonoma State University biology
department. We actually sat next to one another
at our undergraduate graduation in the Green
Center in May of 2017, and we both went on to
complete master's degrees at Sonoma State. So
those were some fun facts about Elliot. Now let's
have some fun facts about the miner Cicada. First...
They are not among the famous periodical cicadas.
That's seven species in the genus Magicicada,
and those are found in the eastern United States.
And they famously take either 13 or 17 years
to mature and emerge in huge reproductive cohorts
at those intervals. Other cicadas, including
the minor cicada, are still long -lived. It takes
them up to five years to reach maturity, and
they have overlapping generations, so some individuals
emerge every year, and they are therefore called
annual cicadas as opposed to periodical cicadas.
Even within the annual cicada group, the genus
Platypedia is unique in that they do not have
the stupendous sound -making organ that is so
characteristic of other cicada species. In most
cicadas, the males have a taut drum -like membrane
called a timble at the base of their abdomen,
and they use strong muscles to vibrate that membrane
and produce a powerful sound to attract mates.
When I chose this nature mystery sound for you,
I specifically avoided the really intense ear
-piercing sounds made by most cicadas. In comparison,
The minor cicada and other members of the genus
Platypedia emit these short clicking sounds that
you heard by rattling their wings together. So
maybe it's a less singular and impressive trait,
but in my humble human opinion, it is much nicer
than listening to that incredibly ear -piercing
sound. Just listen back to our minor cicada sound.
Ah. Gentle, soothing, especially compared to
other cicadas. If you would like the comparison,
we will put a link to one of Elliot's other iNaturalist
observations in the show notes, but I'm not going
to shock your ears here by reproducing it. Please
go check it out on your own. This background
information came from the National Wildlife Federation's
Field Guide to Insects and Spiders of North America
by Arthur V. Evans, and also the book California
Insects by Jerry A. Powell and Charles L. Hogue.
Thank you for playing the Nature Sound Guess
Who game. But here comes the next new sound for
you to guess and for us to reveal in our next
episode. Listen up in three, two, one. And here's
your second chance in three, two, one. Remember,
you can submit your guess of who made that sound
by emailing us at podcast at pepperwoodpreserve
.org or find the Facebook or Instagram posts
where we announce this episode and ask for your
guesses. Until next episode, thank you friends
for listening and don't forget to keep your ears
tuned into nature.