SF County Fair Building 1199 9th Avenue, San Francisco, CA 94122
Join us for Orchids in the Park — the San Francisco Orchid Society’s beloved summer sale. Explore orchid displays, shop rare plants from top local and international vendors, attend hands-on workshops, and connect with fellow enthusiasts. A perfect outing for the whole family.
Weekend Pass: $10advance → $15 at door
Save $5 — buy advance before Jul 25
SF Gate reported
While the U.S. hits international visitors with additional fees to enter national parks this year, our neighbors to the north are trying a different approach: Canada’s national parks will be free to enter during the peak summer travel season.
The Canada Strong Pass, available to Canadians and international visitors, allows anyone to visit any of the country’s 48 national parks free of charge between June 19 and Sept. 7. The program also provides a 25% discount on camping fees, discounts for young adults at national museums and reduced fares on the cross-country VIA Rail.
Read more at As U.S. national parks hike fees for international visitors, Canada is letting them in free
Posted in Park | Tags: Canada waives national park fees
Giant Sequoia Lands Coalition reports
Only 26% of giant sequoia range shows high resistance to extreme wildfires; Roughly 13% of the range at risk of local extinction.A new scientific study from the Giant Sequoia Lands Coalition (GSLC) reveals the current state of California’s giant sequoia range and quantifies the alarming extent of damage caused by extreme wildfires over the last decade. More than 17% of all mature giant sequoias have been killed by wildfire since 2015, while less than 1% perished in the 30 prior years. Most of the losses since 2015 occurred during the megafires of 2020 and 2021.
Posted in Wildflowers and Other Plants | Tags: Giant Sequois
SF Gate reported
The female wolf’s location has been tracked for hundreds of miles across California, and she remains in Sequoia National Park as of Tuesday.
Read on www.sfgate.com/national-parks/article/gray-wolf-sequoia-22264959.php
Posted in Animals, Park | Tags: Gray Wolf enters Sequoia National Park
SF Gate reported
The project would devastate an iconic piece of scenery near Mammoth Lakes, advocates said
— Read on www.sfgate.com/california-parks/article/hot-creek-mine-mammoth-22259880.php
Posted in Environment | Tags: Gold Mining Pollution
from the Xerces Society
Re-thinking the American lawn can take a variety of forms from mowing less often to converting lawn to a more diverse and natural landscape. If 10% of lawns in the US were replaced with pollinator-friendly native plants, we would add 4 million acres of pollinator habitat!
Posted in Environment | Tags: Mowing
SF Gate reported
A wildfire on the second-largest island in California’s Channel Islands National Park had burned over 10,000 acres Sunday night, destroying two historic structures and threatening rare plant species, with zero containment.
The Santa Rosa Island Fire was burning in the rugged and remote southern and eastern sides of 53,000-acre Santa Rosa Island. Eleven National Park Service employees were rescued from their housing Sunday with no injuries, the Santa Barbara County Fire Department said.
Read more at Nearly one-fifth of Calif. national park island has burned in human-caused fire
Posted in Park | Tags: Channel Island National Park, Santa Rosa Island Fire
UC Berkeley News reported
An analysis of 20 urine samples from chimpanzees in Uganda found byproducts of ethanol in at least 17 samples, indicating that apes ingest significant alcohol from the fermented fruit in their diet.
Read more at Urine tests confirm alcohol consumption in wild African chimps
Posted in Animals | Tags: Alcohol Consumption by Chimps
Photographed in the East Bay Regional Parks Botanic Garden in Tilden Park in Berkeley, CA on May 17, 2026.
The Regional Parks Botanic Garden is a California native plant garden. It is located within Tilden Park in the hills above Berkeley, California, It is a 10-acre garden includes many of the state’s rare and endangered plants and a place for visitors to wander among trees, shrubs, flowers, and grasses from plant communities throughout the state. There are free weekend and holiday tours. Admission and parking are free. For more information about the garden visit the Friends of the Regional Parks Botanic Garden.
Anza Borrego Foundation Reported
A massive new transmission line is being planned through the heart of Anza-Borrego Desert State Park — and right now, the public has a meaningful opportunity to help inform the process. The Golden Pacific Powerlink is a proposed 500-kilovolt (kV) high-voltage transmission line that would run approximately 135 miles from the Imperial Valley Substation in southern Imperial County to the border of San Diego and Orange Counties, near the decommissioned San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station. If built along its currently a
Read on theabf.org/park-threat/
Posted in Desert, Park | Tags: Anza-Borrego Desert State Park
NPR reported
Nature clearly benefits human health. Research shows how trees clear the air, wetlands filter water and insects pollinate food.
But moving beyond these generalities to specifics is hard, says Thomas Timberlake, an ecologist at the University of York. Figuring out which parts of an ecosystem are most important, and how much they bolster the health of people and communities is difficult to quantify.
Read more Preserving pollinators is good for health — and income
Posted in Uncategorized
The Guardian reported
After record losses last year, beekeepers report a warm winter has led to bees ‘waking up earlier’ this year
Read on www.theguardian.com/environment/2026/may/17/north-america-bees-early-swarm-season
Posted in Animals, Environment | Tags: Bees, Climate change
Monga Bay reported
Read moe at A 10-year whale shark satellite study helps create new protected area in Indonesia
Posted in Animals | Tags: White Sharks
SF Gate
U.S. Congressman Jared Huffman his daughter took the video while aboard a ferry.
Read on http://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/swimming-deer-sf-bay-22261362.php
Posted in Animals | Tags: Deer Swimming in S. F. Bay
See All Upcoming Tejon Ranch Events at Events
Posted in Walks & Hikes | Tags: Tejon Ranch activities
DNYUZ reported
Read more Rainforests Can Bounce Back Much Faster Than Thought, Researchers Say – DNYUZScientists once thought it would take a century or more for animals to return to deforested land in the tropics. Now, new research has found ecosystems can recover in mere decades.
Posted in Environment
The Race to Save Birds Challenge returns to raise over £13,000 for global conservation and help break another record of 8,023 bird species seen worldwide.
— Read on www.birdlife.org/news/2026/05/15/8023-bird-species-seen-on-record-breaking-day/
Posted in Birds | Tags: 8023 bird species in one day, BirdLife
Anza-Borrego Foundation hosts a variety of events and educational programs, including hikes, botany walks, photography workshops, and more. See the schedule at Events | Anza-Borrego Foundation
Posted in Talks, Walks & Hikes | Tags: Anza-Borrego Foundation Events
Bay Nature reported
Among life’s small, durable joys is the discovery of a bird’s nest: perhaps in the shape of a bowl, woven from grasses and stems with a skill that seems inexplicable. How could a creature with such a small brain, equipped only with beak, feet, and wings, create something so exquisite, so far beyond my own capacities
Posted in Birds | Tags: Bird Intelligence, Bird Nests
NBC Bay Area reported
Three people were hospitalized in Napa County over the weekend after eating mushrooms.
Read on www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/napa-mushrooms-poison-california-22257807.php
Posted in Mushrooms | Tags: Mushroom Poisonings
Discover
Learn how cockatoos figure out what’s safe to eat by watching each other, and how that knowledge moves through a flock in just days.
Read more This Wild Parrot Species Copies Its Peers to Figure Out What Food Is Safe to Eat | Discover Magazine
Posted in Birds | Tags: Bird Communication, Bird Learning, Cockatoos, Wild Parrots
Check out the latest events and news for Sonoma Land Trust at OUTINGS & EVENTS
Posted in Talks, Walks & Hikes
Discover Wildlife
The researchers discovered a hidden world of life among the roots of Chile’s ancient alerce trees. Here’s why that’s important.
The towering conifers of Chile’s southern rainforests do far more than shape the skyline. Research in Biodiversity and Conservationreveals that these ancient trees are hubs of hidden biodiversity, highlighting their crucial role in the forest ecosystem.
Read more Scientists looked beneath one of oldest trees on Earth. What they found is astounding
Posted in Environment, Wildflowers and Other Plants | Tags: Hidden Biodiversity
Posted in Garden, Photos (Sandy's) | Tags: Flowers, Garden Photos
The three high-school birders, dubbed The Pete Dunnelins, have one day to count as many bird species across the state of New Jersey as physically possible. Here’s what it takes.
— Read on www.npr.org/2026/05/12/nx-s1-5801539/world-series-of-birding-new-jersey
Posted in Birds | Tags: Teenager Birding
From Golden Gate Bird Alliance
Read more How to Create a Bird-Safe Backyard – Golden Gate Bird AllianceAs spring rolls in, bird migration ramps up, and birds begin flying north through one of themost important migration corridors, the Pacific Flyway. Each spring and fall, roughly 1 billion birds travel through this route, passing through our homes and making the greater San Francisco Bay Area an important stop along the way.
On their journey north, migrating shorebirds and waterfowl move through our neighborhoods and local environments each year. The San Francisco Bay Area is recognized as an international biodiversity hotspot, providing these migrating birds with critical habitats. As a stop along the Pacific Flyway, the greater Bay Area serves as a crucial resting point where birds can fuel up and prepare for the long journey ahead. However, as California continues to grow, urban development unintentionally harms birds by removing native plants and disrupting the local biodiversity they depend on year-round.
While your backyard may seem like an insignificant stop, creating a bird-friendly space can help rebuild our ecosystem and support local environments by providing food and shelter for migrating birds.
Posted in Birds
NPR reported
Read more To save salmon, a tribe near Seattle is flooding farmland : NPRThis flood-prone river mouth north of Seattle changed dramatically in October when the Stillaguamish Tribe removed two miles of earthen levee. The ridge of dirt kept the river and the tides from spreading onto nearby farmland. Once a giant excavator bit into the levee to breach it, the tribe welcomed tidewater onto the land for the first time in over a century.
“Before, it was a dairy operation, and now it’s a big tidal marsh,” Boyd, a Stillaguamish tribal member and fisheries manager, says while looking out at the new 230-acre wetland.
Posted in Environment | Tags: Wetland Restoration
See upcoming events calendar of hikes and programs at https://www.abdnha.org/calendar1.htm.
ScienceDaily reported
Plants make chemical weapons to protect themselves, and many of these compounds have become vital to human medicine. Researchers found that one powerful plant chemical is produced using a gene that looks surprisingly bacterial. This suggests plants reuse microbial tools to invent new chemistry. The insight could help scientists discover new drugs and produce them more sustainably.
Read on www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2026/02/260203030546.htm
Posted in Wildflowers and Other Plants | Tags: Microbial Tools
Los Padres ForestWatch, one of the premier land and wildlife advocacy organizations along California’s central coast, is seeking a Land Stewardship Manager. The role is responsible for overseeing our 157-acre nature preserve and working with partners and volunteers to plan and execute habitat restoration and other field work throughout Los Padres National Forest. This full-time exempt position is based in Santa Barbara, California with a substantial amount of field work coupled with a flexible combination of remote and office work.
See the full job description and how to apply at https://forestwatch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/05/LPFW_LandSteward2026.pdf
Posted in Job Openings | Tags: Job Opening
Natural History Wanderings 