Matthew Bettelheim is a freelance writer and a wildlife biologist with AECOM.
Firescaping: Creating Fire-Resistant Landscapes, Gardens, and Properties in California’s Diverse Environments, by Douglas Kent, Wilderness Press, 2005, 149 pages, $18.95 Given the propensity for California’s wildlands to ignite, Douglas Kent’s...
Introduction to California Birdlife, by Jules Evens and Ian Tait, University of California Press, 2005, 382 pages, $16.95 paperback, $45.00 hardcover Don’t reach for this book hoping to immediately identify...
Organizations Several local nonprofit organizations work to protect open space on and around Mount Diablo and to inform the public about the natural and cultural history of the area. Save...
Organizations The California Fire Safe Council (CFSC) fosters the creation of local and county Fire Safe councils; they provide information and resources to help protect communities from wildfires. The CFSC...
Beginning in 1860, botanist William H. Brewer accompanied state geologist Josiah Dwight Whitney on an expedition to perform “an accurate and complete Geological Survey” of California’s rocks, fossils, soils, minerals,...
The old adage says the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree, but that’s really just the beginning of the story from the tree’s point of view. The real excitement...
Too much homework? Bully picking on you at school? Perhaps not, but have you stopped to wonder if your children are yearning for a breath of fresh air? Sometimes, even...
Some threatened and endangered amphibians and reptiles are content to share habitat with cattle, as we reported in our April 2007 feature Islands in a Sea of Grass. Others, it...
The tafoni weathering formation featured at El Corte de Madera Creek Preserve is a particularly accessible example of an uncommon phenomenon, but there are several other places to see tafoni...
California’s Frontier Naturalists, by Richard G. Beidleman, UC Press, 2006, 484 pages, $39.95 www.ucpress.edu If you’ve ever taken a moment to imagine California’s landscape in its youth, you might have...
Independent, nonprofit environmental journalism connecting people with nature in the San Francisco Bay Area.
