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Calling all outdoor enthusiasts: University of California Press is conducting a survey. Your anonymous responses will enable University of California Press to advance its offerings for those The survey should take about 15 minutes. Go to the survey Thanks for your participation!  Planning a hike this weekend? The following resources can help you identify and learn more about the flora you might see on the trail. For Beginning and Intermediate Naturalists If you want to do some reading before your hike, we recommend Introduction to California Plant Life by Robert Ornduff, Phyllis M. Faber, and Todd Keeler-Wolf [more...] A hike in Del Valle Regional Park in Livermore sent one of my colleagues to Raptors of California by Hans Peeters and Pam Peeters to learn more about the Osprey. With their conspicuous nests and distinctive features, Ospreys are fairly distinctive. Less easy to discover are some of the secrets of the raptor Pandion haliaeetus. Like [more...] You don’t see them very often, but California has more kinds of owls than you might realize. Fifteen species in fact, give or take a few. This uncertainty makes a lot of sense when you consider that owls often live in remote areas and are mainly active at night, when most of us are [more...] Butterflies are such a common sight that we can be excused for thinking we understand these beautiful insects. They fly around on big floppy wings, visit flowers, and their larvae are called caterpillars. It’s all pretty simple, right? The truth is that the lives of butterflies are far more interesting and complex than this. Even our [more...] Galls are something you can be forgiven for overlooking, but they’re an important and surprisingly common feature of the natural world. In fact, gall expert Ron Russo has found as many as 30 species of galls on a single blue oak, and even casual observers may run across giant ones nicknamed “oak apples” that [more...] Winter is a special time in one of California’s most distinctive and widespread plant communities. Whether you travel to the dusty hillsides of southern California, to the fog drenched slopes of the northern California coast, or to almost anywhere in the Sierra Nevada, you will encounter chaparral. This plant community is comprised of different [more...] Beetles may be California’s most exuberant expression of life. Over 7000 species have been discovered in California and many more await discovery. Beetles are fascinating to study because they have so many different colors, forms, and lifestyles. And there is no better time to explore the world of beetles than in the summer. You may be startled, [more...] The deserts of Southern California are dusty and strewn with cacti, blisteringly hot in summer and utterly devoid of rainfall for months at a stretch. Who would think that amphibians would be able to find a home here? But salamanders, frogs, and toads all find a way to survive, whether sleeping deep underground or congregating [more...] There are few events in nature more exhilarating then standing on an ocean beach in the brisk winds of autumn as flocks of shorebirds mill about at the water’s edge. The wind may be so strong you have to lean into it to hear the soft peeping cries of the eagerly feeding birds. And [more...] |
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