Sensing Is Becoming
How a rootless parasitic plant blossoms in spring.
Bay Area on Track to Meet Ambitious 50×50 Conservation Goal
“There’s a story behind each and every property. There are the wins, the losses, there are the struggles,” one conservationist says. “And it’s not over.”
The Spring 2026 Issue
Volcano Baby
How the Sutter Buttes turned up, all alone, in the Central Valley.
Get Bay Nature’s Free Weekly Newsletter
LATEST STORIES
Meet a Newly Named Nudibranch With a Unique Approach to Sex
Scientists spotted Doto urak 40 years ago but are just discovering the full glory of its weirdness.
Solving the Mystery of Point Reyes’ Purple Waves
Meet the wildly complex, lilac-hued squishy that has been arriving in droves in our coastal waters.
Restoring Salt Ponds to Marshes Is a Win. Unless You’re a Snowy Plover.
Yet amid a sea of bad bird news, San Francisco Bay plovers are doing very nicely.
These Fabulous Flowers Are Spring’s Final Encore
When other plants start hunkering down, clarkias send up a dazzling array of pinks.
IN SEASON IN NORTHERN CALIFORNIA
Meet the Scientist Who Has Discovered More Than 1,000 Species of Sea Slug
Terry Gosliner, a curator at the California Academy of Sciences, looks through nudibranchs to see the world.
After 28 Years, Alameda Creek Opens Up To Fish
The last fish barrier is falling on mainstem Alameda Creek. It took almost three decades—and changed the watershed and the people who steward it.
The Gopher Underground
Years ago, in my mother’s garden, an ominous mound appeared: a volcano- or horseshoe-shaped pile of earth with an off-center hole, plugged with loose dirt. Her response, echoing the response of generations of frustrated gardeners, was to reach for a shovel and try to destroy the burrow, but a season’s…
Staff picks
Raising Hungry Sea Star Babies Is No Cinch
Scientists want to reintroduce these many-armed roombas as a great help for kelp.
The Coyotes Arrived. Now, They’re Changing Angel Island.
Deer and raccoons that once fearlessly roamed the island have become prey.
Postcards from Pescadero
True, there was no e-mail, snail mail, or even Pony Express, but somehow postcards from intrepid explorers of the San Mateo coast in days of yore have reached our mailbox. Take a unique trip through time and discover how the beach and marsh at Pescadero came to be the treasures we love to visit today.
San Pablo Bay Restoration Means New Kayaking Destinations
A kayaker explores the newly restored and now-open tidal marsh at Cullinan Ranch in the San Pablo Bay National Wildlife Refuge.
