The Smallest Sandpipers
January 15, 2013 by Joe Eaton
Our two local sandpipers are cute as buttons, hard to tell apart, and eat primordial ooze. What’s not to love?
About
Joe Eaton lives in Berkeley and writes for the San Francisco Chronicle and Estuary News.
Contributions
Planet Fungi
September 27, 2012 by Joe Eaton
It may be safely said that there are two kinds of people: those who notice mushrooms and those who don’t. …
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Bat Rays in San Francisco Bay
May 15, 2012 by Joe Eaton
What’s the cutest fish in the sea? To some biologists, it’s the bat ray, which cruises along the floor of local bays and estuaries, chomping on clams and other creatures. Maybe it’s time to make bottom-feeder a term of endearment! Springtime is breeding time for these friendly fish.
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The Color of Flight
April 01, 2011 by Joe Eaton
From migrating monarchs to giant yellow swallowtails to tiny pygmy blues, butterflies are endlessly enthralling. For folks like retired East Bay Regional Parks naturalist Jan Southworth and artist Liam O’Brien, what started as an interest in colorful insects became a passion for creating nectar gardens and protecting habitat to sustain butterfly populations in San Francisco, the East Bay, and beyond.
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A Squabble of Gulls
October 01, 2010 by Joe Eaton
Gulls don’t inspire the awe that a golden eagle or red-tailed hawk does. Or the affection we feel for hummingbirds. But the Bay Area’s dozen gull species are true survivors: Adaptable, voracious predators, they breed by the thousands in the South Bay and at the Farallones, and it takes some determined biologists to keep an eye on them.
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Rafting Time for Diving Ducks
January 01, 2010 by Joe Eaton
The great rafts of ducks on San Francisco and Tomales bays, mostly surf scoter, greater and lesser scaup, and canvasback, are a wintertime spectacle. Scoter flocks can range from many hundreds to a few thousand birds. Why do they form these aggregations?
Hayward Haven
April 01, 2009 by Joe Eaton
At Hayward Regional Shoreline, East Bay Regional Park District staff and volunteers have created new nesting habitat for the endangered California least tern. Here’s the recipe…
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A Refuge in the Harbor
April 01, 2009 by Joe Eaton
Within view of Richmond, Brooks Island today is a haven for nesting terns. That’s just its latest incarnation. A short paddle across the harbor to this island refuge takes you back centuries and “away from it all.”
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Raptor Rapture
January 01, 2009 by Joe Eaton
The Marin Headlands is justifiably renowned as a great place to see raptors. But did you know that the world’s highest density of breeding golden eagles is found near Altamont Pass? Indeed, the East Bay is a prime location for observing and studying native raptors, from prairie falcons nesting on cliffs near Mount Diablo to bald eagles fishing in local reservoirs and Cooper’s hawks snatching prey out of the air above the streets of Berkeley.
