Interior Chaparral and Woodlands

Chaparral is a bioregion consisting of scrubland found on dry slopes. The Kern River Valley is surrounded by chaparral covered slopes. Manzanita, a  beautiful red barked tree-shrub species, is the most recognizable representative of this habitat. California interior chaparral and woodlands are found along the foothills of all Kern mountains. The ecoregion ranges in elevation from 1,000 to 3,000 feet. Within this ecoregion are many species of oaks: blue, scrub, coast live, canyon live, golden-cup, valley, and interior live. Several small areas serpentine rock are found nestled within woodland and chaparral. Serpentine is a highly corrosive type of rock which supports unique endemics.

Acorn woodpeckers are oak savannah inhabitants. Known as the clown woodpeckers, not only do they have a funny laughing sort of call they also have an amazing strategy for storing food. If you see a tree or telephone pole with hundreds of acorn stuffed holes drilled into the bark, it is most likely an acorn woodpecker cache. The birds chip out holes in the wood with their bills and pound an acorn into each one.

Mammals are diverse in this area. Merriam's chipmunks, ornate shrews, western harvest mice, and many species of kangaroo rat all call the area home. Phainopeplas, Lewis' Woodpeckers, Acorn Woodpeckers, and Wrentits are four of 100 species of birds that live in woodland and chaparral.

This ecoregion supports many species of plants other than trees. This is probably due to the fact that the area is a mosaic of grasslands, chaparral shrublands, open oak savannas, oak woodlands, serpentine communities, closed-cone pine forests, pockets of montane conifer forests, wetlands, salt marshes, and riparian forests. Oak woodland and chaparral are the most common plant communities at this altitude. In the ecoregion's valleys you will find gray pines, California buckeye, manzanita, redbud, and chamise.

Much of the original ecoregion remains intact in Kern County, but development plans for the 250,00-acre+ Tejon Ranch will destroy a large portion of this unique and valuable ecosystem. The only extensive Valley oak savannas and woodlands within the county are on this private ranch.

The building of roads, golf courses, and housing developments breaks the habitat into small pieces causing genetic isolation of species. Agribusiness moves out into wildlands as development of prime farmlands is more profitable, reducing the number of acres of natural land left to the detriment of wildlife and plants that exclusively rely on this chaparral and oak woodland habitat.

Because few of the natural predators of the area are left, increased native deer and rodent populations, as well as sheep and cattle, denude the vegetation not bulldozed by developers. The region's trees are cut for firewood and to make room for pasture. Introduced species are also a problem because they often out-compete native species. This ecoregion has many introduced species comprising at least one/third of the plants within the region --a sad claim to fame and the highest of any ecoregion in the United States or Canada.