Pioneering Women Naturalists of the Bay Area
From a modern perspective, it is difficult to imagine the time when women in this country were discouraged from seriously pursuing vocations in science and natural history. But until the...
History
First Encounters
When European explorers and naturalists began coming to California a few centuries ago, most sailed right past the fog-shrouded Golden Gate. But those few who did stop here, including the...
Vasco Regional Preserve Open for Public Tours
At Vasco Regional Preserve, stone balls the size of dinosaur eggs litter the landscape, the winds burrow into stone, and cup-sized pools tucked into sandstone outcrops teem with fairies (of...
West Marin
Driving out to the coast among the seemingly endless ranks of Marin County hills, studded with rock outcrops and spotted with grazing cows, you can feel the calmness that flows...
Stone-Boiled Coffee and Other Old Ways
We all have moments on hikes when we dream of being able to live directly off the land, plants, and animals around us. Norm Kidder, the recently retired supervising naturalist...
Wild Gardens
A visit to remnant native grasslands in Richmond or diverse oak woodlands in eastern Alameda County gives a taste of our region’s native habitats. But few of us are aware...
Eastshore Park, Two Decades in the Making
Eastshore State Park, an 8.5-mile-long ribbon of East Bay shoreline between the Bay Bridge and Richmond’s Marina Bay, is proof that many good things don’t come easily. The park is...
New Life For The Laguna
Thirty years ago, few people gave a second thought to the Laguna de Santa Rosa, the North Coast’s largest freshwater wetland. The once-teeming marshland had become a dumping ground. But...
Getting Burned
Fire dwells deep in the human psyche. It is among the oldest of words, the most elemental of tools, and the primary means by which early man projected himself onto...
Wallace Stegner Exhibit in Los Altos
In 1962, community activists on the Peninsula banded together in an effort to save the area’s wild places from development. They named themselves the Committee for Green Foothills (www.greenfoothills.org), and...
