Unlike most slugs, which come out only at night or during damp days, those in redwood forests feed during most days of the wet season. Leaving telltale trails of slime, banana slugs slither about in search of herbaceous leaves and decaying vegetation. Banana slugs can be found in redwood forests from Big Sur to the Oregon border. When water evaporating from the soaked ground rises to meet cold air it condenses into thick mats of tule fog seen throughout the tule-reed covered Central Valley wetlands. In summer ferns become brittle and withered.
First rains bring their rejuvenation.
Types include western chain, five-finger, deer, and sword fern. Check out Fern Canyon in Point Reyes National Seashore, and the Fern Canyon Trail in Van Damme State Park near Mendocino. Each year over 50,000 birders participate in the National Audubon Society's Christmas Bird Count . This contrasted with the tradition of hunters getting together on Christmas Day to compete for the biggest bag of dead birds. An estimated one hundred million monarch butterflies overwinter from October to March in about 100 California roosting sites extending from Sonoma County in the north to San Luis Obispo County in the south.