It’s been an unusually good year for birds in our little corner of Southern California. The huge winds of the Christmas season, which tore open our porch, encouraged birds to fly in and out, and one pair (of dark-eyed juncos, I think) moved right in and built a nest. Three little birds charmed us withContinue reading “Sunday Morning on the Planet: Baby Birds”
Category Archives: the land
Sunday Morning on the Planet: A New Bird, Maybe
We live at Oak Creek, in Ventura County, California, and usually this year when we step outside the sound we hear is the sound of the creek, Sisar Creek, on its long journey down from the Topa Topa range, at 6400 feet, to the sea. This year we never did get the ten inches ofContinue reading “Sunday Morning on the Planet: A New Bird, Maybe”
File Under: Ulp!
It’s been lovely lately. For three or four days we actually had the perfect average temp: 68 degrees. Even here at Oak Creek, California, elevation about 1468, about ten miles from the coast, the late-night incursion of the marine layer has brought us what my aunt Ruth from back East used to call "coolth." WithContinue reading “File Under: Ulp!”
Climbing the World’s Tallest Tree
Pretty amazing: the adventurous aspect of science. Seeing this, who wouldn’t want to be a "forest canopy scientist?" Hat Tip: Jim Levett
Sunday Morning on the Planet: A Yucca Survives the Day Fire
Last weekend with friends we went to the Sespe, in Ventura County’s backcountry wilderness. Much of the chaparral on the northern side of the river is gone (although regrowing from the roots), but even there, survivors remain, including this yucca, which lost many of its longer fronds, but now in its flowering looks virtually unscathed…
Full Moon over Ojai
Nice pic by Raymond Powers, published last week in the popular Ojai Post.
The Power of Beauty: Sunday Morning on the Planet
This month Sierra magazine features a photographer named Elizabeth Carmel. She’s a little different from the usual nature photographer, in that she uses digital technology, and freely works "to make images that match her memories." Some of her images are so spectacular they seem a little unreal, or "dreamlike," as the story puts it, butContinue reading “The Power of Beauty: Sunday Morning on the Planet”
Earth Day: Remember This
A winter day in Yosemite, courtesy of a local photographer named Larry Janss, tutored by Ansel Adams:
Rain! Snow? Rain! Okay, We’ll Take Anything
A couple of months ago, the last time we had any real rain, I was dreaming of enough precipitation to get the creeks flowing again. Didn’t happen. This morning we’re getting what may be the biggest rain of the year to date…in late April! Chances of it starting the creeks in Ventura County (which takesContinue reading “Rain! Snow? Rain! Okay, We’ll Take Anything”
The Red Reef Trail
Plenty of climate change news today: John Kerry (who has run for President) and Newt Gingrich (who likely will) debated the issue live for two hours in D.C. Planet Gore-ites on the far right aren’t happy with Newt’s performance, so it must have gone well for Kerry, who for all his flaws as a candidate,Continue reading “The Red Reef Trail”
Kit Stolz 