Jan-Mar 2007
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A Hardy Californian
January 01, 2007 by Lester Rowntree
Lester Rowntree (1879-1979) was a self-taught botanist and independent spirit who spent half her life trekking up and down California …
Issue Content
Which spot in the Bay Area gets the most rainfall and which the least?
January 01, 2007 by Michael Ellis
Q: Which spot in the Bay Area gets the most yearly average rainfall and which spot gets the least? Why? …
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Botanic Magic
January 01, 2007 by Sue Rosenthal
On just ten acres in the Berkeley hills, there’s an enchanting garden that hosts much of California’s vast botanic diversity. The Regional Parks Botanic Garden—Northern California’s only public garden focused on our state’s native plants—is a center for conservation, research, and public education. Rare and endangered plants from around the state have found a refuge here. And thousands of children and adults alike have walked the garden’s paths, under the spell of our native flora.
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Duck! It’s Time for Winter Waterfowl
January 01, 2007 by Mike Koslosky
San Francisco Bay and its surrounding wetlands become a mallard mecca every winter. Mallards come by the thousands to spend …
Ballot Measure Results
January 01, 2007 by Aleta George
Last November, the Bay Area electorate headed to the polls to help decide the fate of several important land-use issues. …
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Bay Area Migrations
January 01, 2007 by Aleta George
Thanks to our mild climate and productive ecosystems, many species of animals (including people) migrate to and through the Bay …
Dredging the Port of Sonoma
January 01, 2007 by Aleta George
At first glance, the wide-open stretch of Highway 37 along San Pablo Bay between Vallejo and Novato may look like …
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Lake Merritt Improvements
January 01, 2007 by Aleta George
On the first rain-soaked day of the season, I walked around Oakland’s Lake Merritt to try to envision its coming …
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Lead Poisoning in California Condors
January 01, 2007 by Aleta George
When California condor number 307 saw biologists capturing other condors at Pinnacles National Monument last summer, she apparently spooked and …
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Purchase of Coast Dairies Land
January 01, 2007 by Aleta George
Over the years, local surfers, picnicking families, and even ravers have used the seven beaches on former dairy farm land …
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Forest Lowlife
January 01, 2007 by Glenn Keator
This winter, discover the miniature world of mosses and their kin.
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Letter from the Publisher
January 01, 2007 by David Loeb
There’s that certain moment when you first taste the arrival of a new season. (Yes, we really do have seasons …
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Making Peace with Coyote
January 01, 2007 by Clifford Agocs
Clementine is a 130-pound great Pyrenees—a white shag carpet of a dog who sleeps through the day out in the …
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Standing the Tests of Time
January 01, 2007 by Gary Brand
Walk patiently along a few ocean beaches in the Bay Area, and you just might find objects of stunning beauty that also provide clues to a lost world, fossil sand dollars that are as much as 2 million years old. These fossils, not shells but skeletons called tests, show up only near Daly City and Point Reyes, so it’s a privilege to find intact specimens that have survived the rigors of the coast for many centuries.
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The Rock in the Redwoods
January 01, 2007 by Carolyn Strange
Take a hike to a scene of otherworldly geology, hidden away in this Peninsula preserve’s forests of tanoak, Douglas-fir, and second-growth redwood.
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Valley of Water and Wine
January 01, 2007 by Glen Martin
The Napa Valley was once a place of enormous natural bounty, fed by a vibrant, healthy river teeming with salmon and steelhead. Today, the valley is more famous for its managed bounty of grapes and fine wine. The river, hemmed in by vineyards, has too often been relegated to the status of a waste canal. But now a unique alliance of growers and scientists has come together to give the Napa’s upper reach a chance to regain some of its wildness.
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What were those fins off Ocean Beach?
January 01, 2007 by Michael Ellis
Q: Off San Francisco’s Ocean Beach, I saw dorsal fins beyond the surfers. After 20 minutes, I saw two bearers …
