Carquinez Breakthrough

September 30, 2006 •  by

The open hills along the Carquinez Strait are home to working ranches and open space preserves that are meeting places for native species from both the coast and the Central Valley. Today’s quiet pastoral landscape makes it hard to envision the violent formative flood that may have cut this critical waterway between the Bay and the Central Valley some half a million years ago.

Beachfront Property

July 1, 2006 •  by

San Francisco’s Fort Funston is perhaps best known for dogs and hang gliders, but its cliffs also host a thriving coastal bank swallow colony.

Betting on Point Molate

July 1, 2006 •  by

With stunning views of the Bay and Marin, Richmond’s Point Molate has seen a lot of changes: It’s been a shrimp camp, a huge winery, and a Navy fuel depot. Now the site of a controversial casino proposal, this modest point of land is home to diverse wildlife and some of the East Bay’s last native coastal prairie.

Don’t Call Them Bugs

July 1, 2006 •  by

Edward Ross has visited every continent except Antarctica in pursuit of his passion for studying, collecting, dissecting, classifying, naming, photographing, and deeply appreciating insects. In between his globe-trotting adventures, the 89-year old curator emeritus of entomology at the California Academy … Read more

Invasive Weeds Awareness Week

July 1, 2006 •  by

One of the challenges faced by rare native plants like the buckwheat is the spread of invasive nonnative plants. July 18 to 24 is Invasive Weeds Awareness Week, and weed groups across the state will be spreading the word on … Read more

Rediscovery of Mount Diablo Buckwheat

July 1, 2006 •  by

It’s rare that a species gets taken off what seems an ever-growing list of extinctions, but that’s exactly what happened in May, when Berkeley-based botanist Michael Park found about a dozen Mount Diablo buckwheat flowers (Eriogonom truncatum) growing in a … Read more

From an Entomologist’s Backyard

July 1, 2006 •  by

The sticky monkey flower, common on sunny Bay Area hillsides, hosts an array of insect visitors. Edward Ross’s intimate photos of these visits are but a small sample of the thousands he’s taken over six decades of studying insects near and far.

Letter from the Publisher

July 1, 2006 •  by

When I moved out to San Francisco from New York City in late 1973, it was mostly for love. But not for a person. I had fallen in love, pretty much at first sight, with the Bay Area. There was … Read more

Ubiquitous Eucalyptus

July 1, 2006 •  by

Some folks love their scent and shade; others resent them for crowding out natives; most of us know they came from Australia and found a niche here. But few know that the East Bay’s eucalypts owe their presence to one entrepreneur who thought the trees would make him rich. They didn’t, but now, love them or hate them, the trees are here to stay. Fortunately, some animals have profited from Mr. Havens’s mistake.