What To Do with Burn Piles? Lately I’ve seen burn piles of oak limbs, bay branches, manzanita and tangled grass and leaves in parks and open space everywhere. Big tipi-shaped mounds border the trails at Sonoma Valley Regional Park, Sonoma Developmental Center and Bartholomew Park.... Continue
Wild Valley
Mushrooms seem to be everywhere right now, pushing up from the earth through damp, disintegrating leaves and mud, growing on logs and trees, or popping up in lawns and gravel landscapes. The abundance of mushrooms has attracted lots of attention from nature lovers as well... Continue
The Sonoma Coast may be an hour or so away from Sonoma Valley, but it is close to home in many ways. Sonoma Creek connects us directly as it flows into San Pablo Bay and then out the Golden Gate into the Pacific Ocean. Many... Continue
The crows are back. They arrived on time as usual, just when the black walnuts started dropping from the tree growing in front of the yellow bungalow across the street. First I hear them, croaking and clucking from atop a metal light post, wooden telephone... Continue
Don’t swat. That’s the advice. But when a yellowjacket starts buzzing around like a tiny whirling drone on a mission, all you want to do is swat. Get away from me! Primal instinct? Swatting just makes them mad. These scary yellow-and-black striped torpedoes show up... Continue
By Teri Shore According to revelations in Fossils in the Asphalt, a “Human Footprint” episode on the PBS/KQED program Unearthing LA’s Ancient Past, there is new research that prehistoric extinctions of giant creatures, such as mammoths and short-faced bears, resulted from massive wildfires across California.... Continue
While walking along Sonoma Creek in Maxwell Farms Regional Park recently, Anna and Will Pier looked down and spotted two turtles sunning themselves on the big branch of a fallen tree extending into pooling water. Pleased to see again turtles they had spotted last year,... Continue
By Teri Shore When I took the California Naturalist course with the Sonoma Ecology Center (SEC) in March 2020, it was the early days of the COVID epidemic and shutdown. All in-person meetings and field trips were suddenly canceled. While we were all a bit... Continue
Endangered spotted owls soared into the national news and tree sitters claimed the Headwaters Forest along California’s North Coast during the timber wars of the 1990s. A group of Sonoma Valley residents were among the crowds that made the trek to march in Ft. Bragg... Continue
Wildlife cameras set out in open spaces to capture images of mountain lions, bears, birds, and whatever else happens to amble by, have helped researchers, naturalists and the rest of us learn more about wildlife. Who knew that multiple mountain lions ventured from the Mayacamas... Continue