Not only are snowy plovers nesting in unexpected places this year, at least one pair appears to be a bit unconventional.
Tag: Stinson Beach
Art and Design
Planets on the Sand
The universe: sparse matter, mostly vacuum. Almost every year since 2004, Dave Grossman and Pat Mundy have installed a temporary scale model of the solar system on Stinson Beach to highlight the grand emptiness of much of the universe. Grossman … Read more
Summer Issue 2012
Beachcombers Hunt Plastic, and Data
It’s early on a weekday morning, and Chris Pincetich is sifting through a small pile of debris on Stinson Beach. He’s at the high-water mark, called the wrack line. That’s where buoyant ocean flotsam gets stuck as the tide goes out. As we walk along, he stops and points out how plastic strapping looks a lot like weathered eelgrass. Pincetich isn’t your ordinary beachcomber. He’s a scientist trying to compile a local data set for a global problem: marine plastic pollution.
Summer Issue 2008
Mole Crab Decline
On sandy beaches from Alaska to Baja, you’ve likely seen plovers, sanderlings, willets, and other shorebirds foraging for food in the swash zone, where waves perpetually cover and uncover the sand. One of the creatures the shorebirds are hunting is … Read more
Summer Issue 2008
The Beach as Office
I go to the beach in January. Sometimes I bring a sweater and a hat. I go to the beach in June in work clothes and roll up the cuffs. It reminds me why I’m still in California, what my rent really includes, that I’m alive…
Summer Issue 2001
Car Free on Mount Tam
Mount Tam’s Steep Ravine and Dipsea trails take you from conifer forest to open slopes to sandy beach. And, best of all, when you take the bus and not your car, you don’t have to walk back uphill afterwards.
