Story

On a bright, brisk July morning, the sand dunes at North Beach in Point Reyes National Seashore look empty at first glance—just wind-etched hills of sand, blown beachgrass, and the steady roar of the Pacific. But if you know what to look for, as Ryan DiGaudio does, signs of life start to appear. “There,” he […]

It is winter now in the Hamilton Wetlands, with enormous King Tides muscling deep into the marshes and ebbing again to reveal shining expanses of mudflats where Black-Necked Stilts parade on long legs and American Avocets probe the shallows with elegant upturned bills. A briny smell rises in the damp air, and pickleweed sprawls across

As I write this, I’m far from the “shadow of the bridge,” sitting on the opposite side of the country as San Francisco Bay. Windows open, I can hear the Atlantic lapping at the shore of Brighton Beach, and a lone Osprey is riding the wind among a flock of urban paragliders. But tonight—a colorful

The first sign came in the darkness, long after sunset on a cool evening in early September. I lay in my Berkeley home, windows open to catch the bay breeze, when I heard them—the shrill, rattling cries of Elegant Terns cutting through the night air. Kree-eek, kree-eek—they called as they swarmed overhead, invisible messengers announcing

In a photo that Dick Evans recently snapped, a Black Phoebe swoops low over a pond at Las Gallinas. The green surface of the water is dimpled from the movement of the bird’s wings; the phoebe’s feathers splay out in a translucent fan. A single bead of flung water is suspended in the image—all of

When Dick Evans and I emerged from the Ornithology Collection on our research visit to the California Academy of Sciences, we found ourselves wandering the halls of the academy, reluctant to leave, our heads buzzing with new information. We ducked into an exhibit in a side room, where bright displays shone in luminous cases along

Before dawn on a cold February morning, we climb into the Point Blue survey boat and push off under a starry sky. Petaluma Marsh is quiet but not still. Our puffy jackets rustle in the icy breeze. A slow-rising tide seeps among the pickleweed. Somewhere out in the brackish channels of the marsh, a Ridgway’s

At the edge of the continent, where the Pacific Ocean meets the wooded ridges of Bolinas, morning fog clings to the coyote brush and thrush songs filter through the Douglas firs. Here, the apprentices have begun their morning circuit at the Palomarin Field station. The nets are set before first light, stretching like silk threads

As we approached aboard the Salty Lady, the Farallon Islands rose like ghosts out of the Pacific: jagged, fog-bound sentinels. Their granite flanks were streaked white with guano, and the wind carried the sharp cry of seabirds over the swell. With no dock or landing beach, we loaded onto a small skiff and were hoisted