San Francisco Natural History Series

02/10/2021

Oil spill off Richmond today :-(

The city issued a public health advisory after an apparent oil spill in bay waters near the Chevron Refinery, authorities said.

08/12/2020

One of my favorite naturalist rapping about all the amazing flies...

06/19/2020

Thousands of Sooty Shearwater massing off Ocean Beach yesterday, a feeding frenzy. (Wish I coukd have been there to see it!)

Tonight off Ocean Beach in San Francisco

04/29/2020

Some amazing underwater footage from SF's Mountain Lake (or maybe an aquarium simulating Mountain Lake?). The article also worth a read.

The California floater mussel does a surprising amount of travel - for a bivalve. First it gets ejected from its parent's shell into the wide watery wilderness. Then it leads a nomad's life clamped on the fins or gills of a fish. Once it's all grown up, the mussel goes to work filtering the water, k...

03/10/2020

New CA Naturalist Certificate program being offered through CCSF April-June... The CA Naturalist program is a state wide program talking about California Ecology through the lens of the local.

Wild SF! California Naturalist Certification Course is a program developed by the University of California Cooperative Extension with CCSF to foster eco-literacy, focusing on both the urban and wild ecology of the San Francisco Bay Area. Upon completion of the course, students will acquire skills in...

02/07/2020

I have a great seat at work that keeps me looking towards Berkeley and the East Bay Hills. Every now and again a Red-tailed Hawk like the one in the photo gyres by to my delight. Last week I'd been thinking I'd not seen a Peregrine in a while -- and today out of the corner of my eye I noticed a bird flying the right way (glide - flap, flap, flap - glide), and sure enough a Peregrine zoomed by the building -- too fast for my camera that one.

02/04/2020

Greg Gaar speaking this Thursday night at the San Francisco County Fair Building -- sadly can't make it myself!
https://www.eventbrite.com/e/san-franciscos-changing-landscape-a-picture-history-tickets-87842151239

The slide presentation will show the evolution of San Francisco's landscape with historic photos of the dunes, grasslands, trees, and creeks

01/02/2020

Fun challenge for the new year. How many of these have you seen in the past?

Californians like to complain about missing true “seasons.” But expand your definition beyond humid summer nights and winter sleet and you’ll find nature all around us responding to seasonal change. Here are some of our suggestions of seasonal favorites to … Read more

08/02/2019

Awesome pics of our local wild neighbors

As our city grows more crowded, Jouko van der Kruijssen wants his urban wildlife pictures to educate and inspire. But sometimes he still…

07/24/2019

The Heritage Center seems worthy of support!

The Mare Island Shoreline Heritage Preserve’s unique blend of arts and outdoors uses is at risk.

07/15/2019

If you hadn’t seen this yet already! They needed a bigger boat :-)

It looks like the recent great white shark migration into the Bay Area is very real, and at least one came into San Francisco Bay on Saturday where it got hooked on a fisherman's line and proceeded to tow the fishing boat around for about two miles.