You’re strolling around the neighborhood one morning when something odd catches your eye. You take a closer look and find a bird in the grass. It looks like a young one: Some of its feathers are stubby, others fluffy, and it hops along as if unsure how to fly. You’re worried it might end up […]
Birds
Posted inLife + Outdoors
Gardening for Caterpillars?
Here’s some good news for gardeners who are concerned about the environment: We can make an important, positive impact by the plant choices we make in our gardens. How do you choose plants? I remember that when I started gardening, I wanted flowers, flowers and more flowers, lots of color and fragrance. I think for […]
Posted inNews
California Poised to Restrict Bee-killing Pesticides
Widely used insecticides that harm bees and songbirds would face far-reaching restrictions in California under regulations proposed by the state’s pesticide agency. The new limits would be among the nation’s most extensive for agricultural use of neonicotinoids, a class of insecticides used to kill plant-damaging pests like aphids. The highly potent pesticides have been shown […]
Posted inNews
Prey-go-neesh One Step Closer to Soaring in Humboldt Skies
After nearly a century, California condors will soon once again soar over Yurok ancestral lands, the culmination of years of work by the tribe on behalf of the bird Yurok people know as prey-go-neesh. Nearly lost to extinction in the 1980s, condors are integrally connected to the Yurok Tribe and others in the region, where […]
Posted inNews
For the Birds, It’s Time to Hit Pause on Major Trimming, Vegetation Removal
For the birds, the city of Arcata is reminding residents to avoid tree trimming or other major yardwork that disturbs or removes vegetation as nesting season arrives. According to a news release, the first of the month marked the start of the early nesting season, when hummingbirds and birds of prey, including kites, hawks, owls […]
Posted inLife + Outdoors
HumBug: Worms, Ticks and Hand Sanitizer
During the damp months of the year, dozens of robins at a time visit my yard. They hop about, stopping, tilting their heads, then driving their beaks into the ground, sometimes pulling up an earthworm. This is an important component of their diet, sustaining them throughout the winter. Any comprehensive study of ecology must include […]
Posted inLife + Outdoors
HumBug: Things that Need Bugs
I didn’t expect to see a lot of insects but it was sunny today so I went for a walk along “my” stretch of the Van Duzen River. I saw exactly two flies, a lone wolf spider and some flying things too tiny and far away to identify. I did see a couple of creatures […]
Posted inNews
McGuire Hosts Offshore Wind Discussion
North Coast Sen. Mike McGuire (D-Healdsburg) hosted four panel discussions this afternoon at the Humboldt Bay Aquatic Center in Eureka about the prospect of offshore wind farms — a concept that isn’t new but still holds some mystery. Exactly when the turbines are set to be constructed depends on the multiple environmental assessments by various […]
Posted inArts + Scene
Art for the Commute
This time of year, as many of us migrate to or from our points of origin, it’s time to consider Arcata’s biggest, newest and most noteworthy piece of public art about the experience of transit: the 256-foot-long, 27-foot-tall painting by Lucas Thornton, “Marvelous Mural of Marbled Murrelets,” sweeping across two sides of the Arcata Bay […]
Posted inLife + Outdoors
HumBug: Insect Armageddon
I have had a lifelong interest in insects, collecting, observing, studying, and photographing them for more than 60 years. Looking back, I’ve noticed progressively fewer insects around my porch lights at night and far fewer splattered across the windshields of my various cars. While my evidence is merely anecdotal, others are making rigorous studies of […]
Posted inLife + Outdoors
Magnificent Frigate Birds
Frigate birds are a surprising study in contrasts. On the one hand, I admire them gliding effortlessly high overhead, following the updraft above a Pacific beach in southern Mexico. On the other hand, here’s a male “magnificent” frigate bird on the Galapagos, perched clumsily with his ungainly red gular pouch inflated. It’s a chick magnet: […]
Posted inNews
HumBug: No Bugs Today
Last week, for the first time in several hundred excursions along the Van Duzen River spanning over 20 years, I saw no bugs. Only the sad remnants of a few abandoned spider webs and a bit of residual leaf damage testified to their existence. Despite a lifetime of experience at picking out tiny critters and […]