San Francisco native David Carroll just embarked on a six-month sojourn in the Galapagos Islands.
Neptune’s Ark: From Ichthyosaurs to Orcas, by David Rains Wallace, UC Press, 2007, 313 pages, $27.50 www.ucpress.edu The thin continental margin that is today the Pacific coast of North America has changed quite a bit over the last half billion … Read more
As we report in The Checkerspot Comes Home, Coyote Ridge southeast of San Jose is one of the last refuges for the endangered bay checkerspot butterfly. A good deal of that habitat is protected, but the checkerspots here should keep … Read more
Field Guide to Plant Galls of California and Other Western States, by Ron Russo, UC Press, 2007, 400 pages, $24.95 www.ucpress.edu Many authors would be hard-pressed to write a guide to plant galls that is not also an industrial-strength sleeping … Read more
The 19th-century cattle baron Henry Miller (not the noted California author of the same name), who once had an estate on Mount Madonna (the subject of our July-September 2007 On the Trail feature) is not generally remembered for his conservation … Read more
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 … Read more
Despite covering a large area that has abundant wildlife, the San Pablo Baylands offer few public access points, among them the following sites (listed roughly from east to west): Ponds 1/1a: These former salt evaporation ponds are now owned and … Read more
With the heat of summer not yet upon us, now is the best time to take stock of ponds all over the Bay Area. In every part of the Bay Area, there are great hikes that take you to a … Read more
Richmond isn’t the only place where the Bay Trail is coming together. In fact, one of the longest continuous segments of Bay Trail will open later this year at the Eden Landing Ecological Reserve. A three-mile section now under construction … Read more
Independent, nonprofit environmental journalism connecting people with nature in the San Francisco Bay Area.
