From the monthly archives:

May 2009

Protect California State Parks: Schwarzenegger’s Proposed Cuts Could Close More Than 200

May 29, 2009 Laws & Policy

Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger has proposed a cut to California State Parks that threatens to close more than 200 — or 80 percent — of our park lands. This post contains links to the potential closings as well as information on the California State Parks Foundation’s efforts to save our parks from budget cutbacks and closures.

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R.I.P. “Hi” – San Francisco’s Young Peregrine Falcon

May 28, 2009 Baby Animals

This video compresses days 20 to 32 in the lives of three Peregrine Falcon eyasses (chicks) nesting in the PG&E building in downtown San Francisco. See photos and visual logs of the young San Francisco Peregrines in local photographer Glenn Nevill’s Raptor Galleries. And learn more about the Peregrine Falcon research at the website of [...]

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Bay Area Goats Fight Fires

May 24, 2009 Disasters

Photo ©ingrid Well, he’s a yawning goat, I must confess. But the photo begs for an alternate characterization. Who needs Smokey Bear when you’ve got a hungry goat? These animals deserve some atta boys (and girls) for their hard labor in fire prevention. In the Oakland and Berkeley Hills you’ll find agile bucks and does [...]

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Checkerspot Anonymity

May 21, 2009 Bay Area

These are checkerspot butterflies for sure. But when I originally posted the possibility of “Bay” checkerspot on the first photo (taken at Sibley), an astute commenter at Flickr corrected my ID: “Unfortunately that is not a Bay checkerspot butterfly.” Simple as that. Got it. Endangered, not likely. If it had been a Bay checkerspot, it [...]

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Canada Goslings Getting No Respect

May 19, 2009 Baby Animals

If you’re a Canada Goose gosling in a public park, don’t count on too much respect. On this day, I stopped by one of my favorite bay-side walking spots and saw before me a flock of goslings. It was an enormous flock of babies interspersed with adults — like a National Geographic image of a giant penguin colony . . .

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The Short Story of the California Red-Backed Jumping Spider

May 11, 2009 Arachnids/Spiders

Phidippus johnsoni – Red-Backed Jumping Spider I found this little Mr. (or Ms.) on the kitchen ceiling a few days ago. Before I could grab my telephoto to see precisely what type of venomous spider might be parachuting onto my head during dinner, he (or she) disappeared. Today, I saw the black splotch in my [...]

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Buddha at Crown Beach

May 8, 2009 East Bay

The Awakened One, catching the last rays of light at Elsie Roemer Bird Sanctuary in Alameda. (See this short piece for symbolic insight: Buddha Statues Have Meaning Head to Toe). ©ingrid Taped to the statue: Today is absolutely today Today is not yesterday Today is not tomorrow ~ Ogui ©ingrid

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Bald Eagle Recovery Story

May 7, 2009 Endangered Species

I just read this piece by British Columbia wildlife biologist David Hancock. It’s posted at the Hancock Wildlife Foundation website, a site I found by way of their Bald Eagle cam at Sidney, B.C. Hancock’s account traces the eagle’s trajectory from pre-1950s “vermin” status to today’s recovery of populations in both urban and wild settings. [...]

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Wildlife & Nature Photography Ethics

May 7, 2009 Ethics

I saw a clip recently on You Tube where the videographer approached a grebe resting on the beach. He kept moving in until the stressed animal lunged away from him toward the water. A diving bird like a grebe has a difficult time moving on land. Its back legs are set far back on its [...]

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Good News for Seal Pups: EU Bans Seal Product Imports

May 6, 2009 Birds

The European Union voted to ban trade in seal products, joining the United States (which banned seal products in 1972) and Mexico and Croatia (which ended the trade in 1996). As reported by the Humane Society’s Protect Seals campaign, this could be the decisive blow needed to end the barbaric seal pup hunt which occurs [...]

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More Alameda Terns: Caspian, Forster’s, Least Terns

May 5, 2009 East Bay

Take a look at this image of terns — not because it’s anything spectacular. In fact, those terns were but specks on my visual horizon, so this is a dramatic crop to show just one thing: the size differential between the Caspian Terns and the Forster’s Terns I wrote about in a previous post. The [...]

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Candid Falcon-Cam in San Francisco

May 4, 2009 Baby Animals

If you tune into UCSC’s Peregrine Nest Cam while the youngsters are stumbling over themselves, it might be tough to connect these awkward chicks to their agile parents — who happen to be the fastest birds in the skies. Peregrine Falcons are also the speediest creatures on the planet. Their stoop (diving) speeds can exceed [...]

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Video: California Condor Released After Gunshot Wounds & Lead Poisoning

May 2, 2009 Endangered Species

Update May 13, 2009: Sadly, the second bird, Condor 286 did not recover from lead poisoning, and died at the LA Zoo on Monday, May 11. The full story is here at the Ventura County Star. California Condor 375 was released back into the wild on May 1, 2009. She was one of two condors [...]

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Helping the Carrion Eaters (or, Avoiding Secondary Road Kill)

May 1, 2009 Raptors

Years ago, Hugh and I were coming home from a late show and noticed a crew of stray cats feeding in the middle of the road. We slowed down and saw that someone had dumped a load of meat parts in the middle of a normally busy street. The strays were simply taking advantage of [...]

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