Brandt’s cormorants (Phalacrocorax penicillatus) are back on the sea cliff just west of Natural Bridges State Beach in Santa Cruz. They started using this ledge in...
The California buckeye (Aesculus californica) is the smart spring bride of the dry canyons of the central coast ranges and Sierra Nevada mountains to about 4,000 feet. Sh...
The Pogonip is a beautiful city greenbelt located in Santa Cruz, California, on the eastern edge of the University of California Santa Cruz (UCSC) campus. It contains a v...
Jekyll Island is a spot frequented by tourists on the barrier islands off the coast of Georgia and home to a picturesque boneyard beach. Barrier islands are long, thin, a...
South of San Francisco, about 20 miles north of Santa Cruz along Highway 1, lies a beach hidden behind sand dunes covered in an undulating meadow of native grasses. From...
Ancient peoples might have managed the landscape around Santa Cruz, California through fire, but we can also see current small-scale land management practices along Pilki...
We wrote a post a few weeks ago about the hills “yellowing up” with wild mustard. Indeed they are, but there has been some confusion about distinguishing wild...
What will people hundreds of years from now think of American culture when they rummage through our trash? Especially in the absence of written records, a culture’s trash...
Although it is easy to spot many different plants growing along Pilkington Creek in Santa Cruz, California, it’s harder to spot animals, especially large ones. When the n...
Thanks to the plentiful El Niño rains, the hills of California are greening up. But in many places, they are yellowing up, too. This is thanks to wild mustard, whi...
