Words by Bay Nature staff; illustrations by Jane Kim.
Night Sky: Flaming dust
The Ohlone and Pomo believed that meteors were objects of fire, dropping from heaven, according to notes by ethnologist J.P. Harrington. When you strip away all that humans have learned in the last century about meteors, fire dropping from heaven is still a pretty good summation of a meteor shower. And one of the year’s finest happens in summer. When Earth swings around through a trail of floating debris left by the chunky, 16-mile-wide comet Swift-Tuttle, we watch the Perseid meteor shower pour from the dark night. These abandoned bits of dust fly through our atmosphere at 133,000 mph, heat up to 3,000 degrees, and vaporize. What we see is the light from that heat, some 50 to 100 times per hour.
The show of fiery meteors peaks on August 12 and 13 and will be most visible after the waxing moon sets, between midnight and dawn.
Cute coat
It’s hard for a puppy-eyed Pacific harbor seal (Phoca vitulina richardii) to be anything other than adorable. Except maybe when it is molting. June and July are the peak months for harbor seals along Bay Area shores to shed large strips of fur to reveal a sleek new coat underneath. The process can look a little troubling—ragged patches of sometimes bronzy-colored fur overlaying silvery gray. But the seals are all good. They just ask for extra privacy and distance while they make the annual, energy-intensive wardrobe change.
Slow food
A paragon of patience, that’s what the Western wood-pewee (Contopus sordidulus) is. Perched on a high and open branch, this small flycatcher waits and waits until its prey—perhaps a crane fly, beetle, or moth—sails by. Then the bird darts out, snags a meal, and usually returns to the same spot to eat. The behavior is recognizable, so if you too are the patient type, look for wood-pewees in Bay Area forests this summer. They’ll be here raising their chicks before heading to South America in the fall, exactly where no one knows.
Oversized sunnies
We don’t body-shame at Bay Nature, but it’s hard to write about an ocean sunfish (Mola mola) without noting that it appears to lack a body, which is really alarming the first time you see this ocean colossus. Measuring up to 10 feet and weighing up to 5,000 pounds, this all-head creature is arguably one of the heaviest bony fish in the sea, and it can be found off Bay Area shores and beyond year-round. In summer, these fish bask and warm themselves at the water’s surface in Monterey Bay, or hang out around floating kelp paddies.
Tree fog
While sitting in the shade of a coast redwood (Sequoia sempervirens) during summer, consider this fascinating plant process: The redwood is emitting terpenes, compounds that contain the odor of the redwood. When the terpenes react with the air, they form tiny particles that can become the condensation nuclei, or seed, for fog, according to chemist and environmental scientist Allen Goldstein, a professor at UC Berkeley. Most of the fog in redwood forests exists thanks to the temperature difference between the ocean and the land, but the redwoods can contribute a little bit too.
Summer romance
On a warm, late-summer evening in the Bay Area, listen for a metronomic tsip, tsip, tsip and a more rapid ticking, like two pebbles tapped together. Made by the male angular-winged katydid (Microcentrum rhombifolium), the first sound may be an advertisement to the ladies. Once a female hears him through the ears on her front legs, she’ll call back with a lower-intensity ticking. The male responds with tick-tick-tick, making his way to her amid the tree canopy. All this so that he can pass her a packet of sperm during copulation, which may remain attached to her after mating. So many ways to love.
