Wonders of the Oak Woodlands: Emandal in Fall

Kate Marianchild

September 10-14, 2025

As temperatures cool and leaves turn to red and gold, we’ll wander through Emandal’s oak and riparian woodlands, rarely walking more than a mile at a time. We’ll learn about the monarch butterflies, hoverflies, and native bees who will be flitting among the flowers. We’ll examine and discuss the fruits, seeds, and/or colorful galls that will be adorning oaks, buckeyes and mountain mahogany. We’ll watch ground squirrels race from burrow to burrow near an oracle oak, and we’ll see a magnificent woodrat mansion whose inhabitant will be quietly resting inside until dark.

With close-focus binoculars, we’ll experience exquisite views of flowers, insects, lizards... Dragonflies and damselflies will patrol and forage among the tules of Rainbow Lake while golden hairstreaks flutter in nearby canyon live oaks. Acorn woodpeckers will be pounding nuts into trees, getting a head start on their winter food supply. Bald eagles will make stately flights up and down the river as beaver, mink, otter, mergansers, and/or dippers ply the Eel’s lovely pools. During the day we might see foxes, coyotes, bobcats, or bears and at night crickets will play symphonies under a dark sky speckled with a zillion stars.

Most mornings before breakfast we’ll take a bird walk at 8 am. After breakfast, we’ll wander and wonder, pacing ourselves to meet everyone’s needs until we stop for lunch at the river or in a shady grove. After lunch we'll have free time to swim in the Eel’s luscious pools, and/or nap, hike, read, socialize, or gather at our shaded table to look up answers to the day’s mysteries. If it is hot, we will time our walks to beat the heat.

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Kate Marianchild is the author of the best-selling book, Secrets of the Oak Woodlands: Plants and Animals among California’s Oaks. She has been leading guided nature walks and giving talks throughout California since 2008 and has taught multi-day residential nature workshops at Emandal since 2018 and at the Sierra Nevada Field Campus since 2024.