Allergies are on the rise for many Californians as spring has sprung. But while our eyes may be itchy, the pollinators are loving it! Many species are closely tied to the sneeze-bringing flowers that you may have seen recently blooming. In today’s throwback to Rebecca Nelson’s Field Notes article from 2021, we take a dive…
Category: California Natives
Creature Feature: Death Valley Pupfish
An unlikely creature for the hottest place on Earth
Field Frame Friday: A Temporary Grouse House
Biologist Nicole Lindenauer developed an automated two-stage pen to gently release Greater Sage-Grouse families into the wild, which will help aid a struggling population’s genetic diversity.
Field Frame Friday: Rural Raccoons
Raccoons are versatile mammals that can adapt to both city and wilderness settings. Contrary to their “trash panda” perception, rural raccoons are cunning foragers, seeking out seasonal diets of worms and insects in the spring, and fruits and nuts in the fall. Encounters with them are invariably special.
Field Frame Friday: Foxes and Food
Island Foxes (Urocyon littoralis) inhabit the California Channel Islands. Over the course of the last 150 years or so, the ecology of each island has changed substantially, leading to different outcomes for different fox populations. The fox above is from Santa Cruz Island, where the population is currently healthy, although the foxes there are famous…
Field Frame Friday: Salmon Salutations
To recreate natural conditions for rearing fish, salmon can be kept in cages deployed in streams within their native habitat. When setting out to check on the fish and cages, researchers load their equipment onto a jon boat and get their daily exercise by paddling up and down the river. [Photo by Ken Zillig][Caption by…
Field Frame Friday: Nestling Checkup
Nestling birds are adorable but also shockingly tough! They grow up facing many challenges, including intense temperatures, sneaky predators and constant hunger. Here, two members of the Project Phoebe research team use an extension ladder to check on the Black Phoebe nestlings shown above who grew up in a mud nest built under a road….
Field Notes: From Predator to Plastics: Raising Awareness and Knowledge of Sharks in the Pacific Northwest
In the Field “There aren’t any sharks out there” is something I commonly hear from people in Oregon and Washington. Truth is—there are definitely sharks out there. We just don’t know anything about them, or the role that they play in the Pacific Northwest’s ecologically, economically, and culturally important ecosystems. That’s what the research in…
Field Frame Friday: Sea Turtle Meets Sea Cube
A curious turtle inspects a calibration cube used to reconstruct the 3D view that two GoPros capture in stereo. The videos are used to record fish swimming behaviors in the field. This work was done in Bonaire in April 2023 by Darien Satterfield. [Photo and caption by Darien Satterfield] [Edited by Ian Ramshorn Haliburton]
Field Notes: Amped Amphibians
Growing up, I had a friend who was extremely outgoing, had boundless energy, and liked to take more risks than most other people I knew. I remember asking myself, “Where does all that energy come from? What gives this person such a confident personality?” Bold, confident personalities in people can make them seem like ‘go-getters,’…