Wild Valley

Teri Shore is a long-time environmentalist and journalist who has lived in Sonoma Valley for more than three decades. She is an avid hiker, backpacker, and wilderness advocate. As an environmental campaigner, she championed winning campaigns to preserve greenbelts and open space, create safe havens for endangered species, and clean up marine pollution for nonprofit advocacy groups.

A stroll around Lake Suttonfield

On a recent morning, I strolled l around Lake Suttonfield at the former Sonoma Developmental Center. It is in the heart of the wildlife corridor where I’ve walked for decades. I was dazzled by the wildflowers and birds that I might have missed had I... Continue

Wild over wildflowers

Wildflowers enthrall me. Over the past three years, since I lost Stan and stopped working, I’ve become enchanted by the native wildflowers that brighten our hillsides once everything’s turned green. And now I’m learning when and where to find them! For a long time I... Continue

The joy of tracking

Now that the rain is here and the ground is muddy, it is the best time of year for animal tracking in Sonoma Valley. While our local coyotes, bobcats, fox and other wild creatures live here year-round, finding their tracks is much harder when everything... Continue

Beavers are an ecosystem

The beaver dam is back on Sonoma Creek in Maxwell Farms Regional Park. It was washed away during last season’s storms. Last time I looked, the intertwined limbs and branches were holding back the low water flows as summer turned to fall. I also found... Continue

Beating the heat

When squirrels lay flat on tree limbs and ravens pant through their beaks, you know it is unbearably hot. I mean it’s been dangerously hot this summer for beast and man as well as for plants, soil, creeks, and the ocean. Indeed, the summer of... Continue

The sly, beautiful trickster

On the evening of the Summer Solstice, after walking my dog and watching the sunset, I spotted a coyote trotting along the fence line between the Montini property and open space. To watch, I pulled over next to the pasture where cows were settling down... Continue

The Mayacamas

The sun set and the moon rose as we danced and gazed up at the rusty face of Hood Mountain and the rugged Mayacamas range. Honestly, it felt like paradise for us boomers as we boogied with others young and old at this season’s first... Continue

Rattlesnakes alive!

I recently had a “Full Monty” encounter with a big ol’ rattlesnake. I was hiking above Fern Lake on Sonoma Developmental Center open space lands when I turned onto an asphalt path at Camp Via. Shocked to a standstill by shrill rattling and hissing, I... Continue

Lions and life

Mountain lions changed my life. In the late 1990s, a measure was put on the ballot to reverse the ban on trophy hunting of mountain lions in California. I’m not against legal hunting of ducks, deer and other prey animals, but using dogs and trackers... Continue

When robins abound

Everyone is seeing robins everywhere this year! Impressive flocks of the familiar rusty-breasted all-American bird are feeding on berries and searching the ground for worms all over Sonoma Valley. I’ve spotted robins along the bike path, at Maxwell Park, at the Sonoma Valley Regional Park,... Continue