I almost expected Man-Thing to come crawling out of the mud this morning. The humidity evoked spirits of the bayou: moss, mosquitos, mint juleps. The only time California resembles a swamp is in the wake of a tropical storm, the same wake which pummeled us with record rains a few days ago. We did about…
Where Old Docks Go to Die
Old docks smell, this much I can tell you. You’ll catch a whiff of decomposing mussels and sea greens long before you ever see the old boards stacked, as these particular boards were, in the parking lot of the Berkeley Marina. The Marina is renovating — replacing the old A-B-C docks with improved versions. And…
Reclaimed: Las Gallinas Wildlife Ponds
Reclamation is among my favorite themes — especially as it pertains to nature. I root for the vines overtaking fire hydrants and windblown seeds germinating new habitat in former refuse sites…
Seeing the Sora
You’ll hear Soras more often than you’ll see them. But once in a while you’ll be lucky enough to experience both — when the characteristic Sora call precedes a visual of the Sora wading through the shallows. Soras are in the rail family, not rare, even if they are elusive. They share a lineage with…
Secret Digs of the Great Horned Owl
Photos of a Great Horned Owl perched in Strawberry Canyon in Berkeley.
Visiting Hours Over
A male Wild Turkey (Meleagris gallopavo) roots around just before dusk at the Nature Center in Tilden Park.
Yellow Star Thistle and the Reticular Activating System
Invasive plants and motivational seminars collide in my world. If you’ve ever attended a goal-generating seminar, you’ve probably heard the term Reticular Activating System (RAS) tossed around. It’s used in motivational circles to describe our physiological capacity to pay attention. The RAS is part of a large network in our nervous systems, controlling consciousness, sensory…
The Goldfinch and Thistle (A Pub With No Pints)
The Bay Area has a thistle problem, or so we hear, but goldfinches weren’t complaining on our hike yesterday. Here’s a photo of that Artichoke Thistle (Cynara cardunculus), taken last week in Tilden Park: And a few photos taken in Briones, where ongoing eradication has taken out bunches of the Artichoke Thistle in the grasslands:…
The Silky Wonders of Wunderlich
Picking up from my previous post — about the rare and elusive Linyphia Vaudvillea … here are a few additional spider (Araneae) observations from our walk at Wunderlich Park in Woodside. I’ve perused countless field guides and websites on California spiders but am still unable to identify the aforementioned species. Other spiders and webs are…
Puttin’ on the Ritz . . . Spider Style
I didn’t actually see the Vaudevillian face as I shot the spider image (below). Hugh and I were wandering through Wunderlich Park in Woodside (California), impressed by the miles of spider silk, strung like hammocks over the forest. Some were laid in sheets, some were funnel webs. (I’ll write a bit more on the landscape…
