The COVID-19 pandemic has put bats in the headlines. Now’s the time to learn about their essential role in Bay Area ecology and how to live alongside them.
Tag: Sunol Regional Wilderness
Ask the Naturalist
Do Dragonflies Tease Turtles?
A reader saw a dragonfly seemingly tapping a turtle on the head in the Sunol Regional Wilderness. Any ideas what’s happening?
Wildlife
Tracking Scat with Cat
If you want to know the best places to find mountain lion tracks, what type of flower blooms on a rock outcrop during a particular month, and what coyote scat looks like at different times of the year, ask the East Bay Regional Park District’s Cat Taylor.
Winter Issue 2011
A Classroom in the Woods
The East Bay Regional Park District is not just the nation’s largest and oldest regional park district. It also has what’s likely the largest corps of professional naturalists of any local park agency. For generations of kids, that’s meant accessible opportunities for hiking, camping, getting dirty, and–most important–discovering the outdoors and getting to know our plant and animal neighbors.
Spring Issue 2010
Native Son
The Pacific Coast of North America has only one species of native turtle: the western pond turtle. Just 80 years ago, a naturalist found more than 100 of these creatures thriving along an unremarkable stretch of a local creek. Today, a similar survey turns up a fraction of that, as natives compete with plentiful escaped pet turtles and other exotics. But a new conservation plan could tip that balance, and public awareness, back in the western pond turtle’s favor.
Stewardship
Agreement Opens Way for Quarrying on Apperson Ridge
A long-running battle over a quarry proposed for Apperson Ridge adjacent to Sunol Regional Wilderness reached a new chapter last month when two environmental groups struck a deal with the quarry operator. The deal includes major funding for habitat protection and other concessions, but also clears the way for quarrying in an area that’s important habitat for tule elk and other species.
Summer Issue 2008
View from the Ground
Most folks don’t think much of snakes unless they trip over them. It turns out that a remarkable diversity of serpents lives nearby, from beautiful red-bellied ring-necked snakes hiding under logs in damp woodlands to three- or four-foot rattlers sunning themselves on rocky slopes in Sunol Regional Wilderness. Able predators, many of our local snakes have evolved fascinating strategies for subduing their prey, whether rodents, amphibians, or even other snakes.
Winter Issue 2008
Lord of the Burrows
Ask most people to name the most important species of our grassland habitats, and they’ll probably pick coyotes, golden eagles, or even rattlesnakes. But experts say that the strongest contender of all is the animal eaten by all those other ones: the lowly California ground squirrel, a true keystone of local grasslands. Belowground, the squirrels’ lengthy burrows harbor insects, snakes, owls, and even frogs and salamanders that couldn’t live in such a dry landscape without the squirrels’ help. And above-ground, they’ve evolved some unusual defenses that allow them to thrive, even as they feed so many others.
Summer Issue 2007
Nature at the Table
On summer weekends, the nearly 4,000 picnic tables of the East Bay Regional Park District are packed with families from many of the Bay Area’s diverse communities, returning year after year to their favorite spots, along with great blue herons hunting gophers, crows and ravens pillaging trash cans, and raccoons swiping meat right off the grill. All just part of the curious ecology of our local picnic areas.
Trails
Bay Area Pond Walks
With the heat of summer not yet upon us, now is the best time to take stock of ponds all over the Bay Area. In every part of the Bay Area, there are great hikes that take you to a … Read more
