The full moon rose over the redwood forests of the Eel River valley, bathing the hillsides in its stark light. It flashed through the redwood tree branches beside me as I drove along the Avenue of the Giants, snaking along the river in and out of great stands of the giant trees. It was after […]
nature
Posted inNews
HumLook: Cows, Elk and a War Moth
Local photographer Jose Quezada has launched a pair of new websites, HumSport and HumLook, showcasing the work of a team of local photographers. Photographers will be uploading galleries of photos on both sites regularly, showcasing their best images of local sports, cultural events and landscapes. High-resolution downloads of the images are also available for $5 apiece. […]
Posted inPerfect Trips
Perfect Winter Trips
The North Coast doesn’t really do seasons the way the rest of the world does. We don’t believe in dividing the year into four neat periods, each with their own weather. Instead, mix up our rain and fog, darkness and light in varying quantities and distribute it in ever surprising ways throughout the seasons. Our […]
Posted inNews
HumBug: Ticks
As the song says, “Spring is in the air.” It fills my mind with visions of birds migrating, flowers blooming and ticks! I was reminded of this today taking a photo of a local alligator lizard in my back yard. I am not a person who says, “There is room for every living thing in […]
Posted inNews
Bunting Hunting
A diminutive, pudgy, winged visitor has set Humboldt County’s birding community all atwitter. The little bunting has decided to show its beak in the fields of McKinleyville, and, according to a Godwit Days mailer, “hundreds of birders in California and — even from the East Coast and other states — have changed their weekend plans […]
Posted inLife + Outdoors
Down for the Count
Normal people look forward to the holidays as a time to indulge in creature comforts that take a back seat the rest of the year. Birders, seldom mistaken for normal people, anticipate the three weeks around Christmas and New Year’s as an endurance test of predawn-to-dusk forays into the outdoors, whatever the weather, in search […]
Posted inLife + Outdoors
In a World Without Humans
I’ve been intrigued by the tiny primates we call “tarsiers” ever since reading, long ago, a speculative essay in the now-defunct popular science magazine Omni that posed the question, “If humans hadn’t evolved, what other animal might have taken our ‘lords of the Earth’ top billing?” After considering the usual suspects — dolphins, bonobos, octopi […]
Posted inNews
Stone Lagoon breached!
It doesn’t happen often — maybe every few years — but when the spit at Stone Lagoon is breached the site is spectacular: ocean rushing in, McDonald Creek-fed lagoon waters flowing out, white riffles fluttering in the mouth temporarily opened to facilitate the exchange. Perhaps, if the timing is right, some lagoon-trapped creatures venture oceanforth […]
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Eclipsed in Kneeland
Eclipsers mobbed Kneeland Airport and the surrounding bucolic countryside Sunday evening to watch the annular eclipse. Meadowlarks sang and the people sprawled their picnicking selves all over the rolling green goodness. On the tarmac, the fabulous Astronomers of Humboldt and assorted other sky nerds — bless them! — brought assorted contraptions for viewing the annular […]
Posted inNews
Captivatin’ Cultivatin’
Think of outlaws, gardens and Humboldt, and just one plant might pop into your mind. Well, weed that mental image out of your thoughts, and conjure up instead deep yellow black-eyed Susans, dusky purple smoke bushes, and an exotic Australian pine that’s not a pine. Many of the flowers and trees flourishing at the Humboldt […]
Posted inNews
His Beak Can Hold More Than Your Kayak Can
Barry Evans, our master of Field Notes, sent us this note-and-photos e-mail package today. Speaks — er, beaks for itself: When our kayak group was paddling during the low tide in Trinidad Bay this morning (Sunday), we were graced by this brown pelican, which perched on Mark Sommer’s boat for about 15 minutes, showing no […]