This past weekend I participated for the first time in the Audubon Society’s Great Backyard Bird Count, in which ordinary folks spend at least 15 minutes observing birds in their own yards. Turns out you can also observe in other sites, but I opted to watch birds from my back deck. As my house backs…
General natural history
Even teachers need teaching
One of the best things about teaching is the opportunity to keep learning. Case in point: yesterday I attended an all-day teacher training session for the LiMPETS program, so that I can have my Ecology students participate in a big citizen science project in the rocky intertidal later this spring. In the Monterey Bay region…
Where you least expect it
Thursday is the day that our trash and recycling/green waste bins get emptied. This afternoon I was moving my green waste bin out to the curb and discovered three little creatures living under it. Two of the three guys were the same, and the third was something different. Fortunately none of them had been injured…
Seek and ye shall find
Before Christmas I was invited to speak at one of the monthly public talks hosted by the Seymour Marine Discovery Center. I’m always happy to be asked to speak to students or the public, so my default answer to these requests is “Yes!” Usually for this kind of presentation I get to choose the topic,…
Gotta getta gecko
This past weekend I was in the San Joaquin Valley to celebrate my dad’s 80th birthday. On a cold and rainy Saturday morning we gathered at my parents’ house to take care of some last-minute things before the big party later that evening. We were in the backyard when I noticed a tiny lizard on…
Wave watching
Last night the moon was new, meaning that we are now in spring tides. The spring tides occur during the new and full phases of the moon and result in the largest swings between high and low tides; in the weeks between the full and new moons we have neap tides, during which the height difference between…
A phobia that I don’t have, and a tiny phurry phriend
This morning I was teaching lab when three of my students in the back corner called me over to where they were working. “We have a problem,” one of them declared. Since they were making posters I assumed that the problem had to do with format or content or something related to the scientific papers…
Minor victories
I always find that autumn is a tough season for me, in terms of maintaining enthusiasm and fascination with the world around me. I feel, like most creatures, that autumn is a time to hunker down and take it easy until the winter solstice, after which we’ll be gaining daylight again instead of losing it….
Thar she blows!
Let’s just get this out of the way: I live in a paradise of natural beauty. Sometimes I still can’t believe that I get to call this gorgeous place my home. However did I get so lucky? Case in point. For the last week or so a juvenile humpback whale has been hanging out in…
Chasing the bloom
Having read multiple news accounts of domoic acid (DA) events up and down the Pacific coast of the U.S., I decided to do my own informal survey of the culprit that makes DA. Domoic acid is a naturally occurring toxin that is produced by some (but not all) species of the diatom Pseudo-nitzschia during a plankton bloom….