Goat Rock State Beach
The Pacific Coast north of San Francisco is justly renowned for its scenic beauty. It is also geology writ large, where evidence of powerful forces still at work on our...
Science and Nature
Mastadons in Our Midst
The Blackhawk Quarry in Danville points to a time, nine million years ago, when the Bay Area was inhabited by elephant-like browsers, herds of three-toed horses, packs of bone-crunching dogs,...
California Quail Named Official Bird of City of San Francisco
Best known for its topknot and characteristic call—”chi-ca-go”—our state bird, the California quail, was recently named “Official Bird of the City of San Francisco.” Once abundant and an important food...
Shadows in Flight
Rarely seen and, until recently, poorly understood, bats are a significant component of the Bay Area's natural environment. Now, researchers are filling in the gaps by studying several of the...
Taxonomy 101
Over 200 years ago, Swedish naturalist Karl von Linne (or, as he Latinized the name, Carolus Linneaus) devised a system for classifying all living things based on anatomical structures. Although...
Trees of Golden Gate Park and San Francisco Book Review
After reading The Trees of Golden Gate Park and San Francisco, it’s difficult to know which is more significant—that Golden Gate Park exists at all, or that in today’s world...
Sixth Annual Watershed Environmental Poetry Festival
Words have always helped humans connect with nature, and the Sixth Annual Watershed Environmental Poetry Festival is all about celebrating that link. On Saturday, September 8 (11 a.m.-4 p.m.) in...
Of Hazelnuts and Adder’s Tongue
A hike on the Hazelnut Trail at Montara Mountain leads you through several scrub communities and straight into a botanical puzzle.
Old Hills, New Economies
The vast expanse of rugged country east of high-tech Santa Clara Valley, crowned by the Bay Area's highest peak, has been a refuge for wild species—humans included—for a very long...
Out of an Ancient Sea
The oak-dotted, rounded hills of Contra Costa and eastern Alameda counties are a familiar sight, but do you know how they got to be that way?
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