A Bit of the Boreal Forest in Northern California
Earlier this January, we spent several days exploring the lush, ferny redwood groves and mossy Sitka spruce forests of northwestern California, and while hiking though this enchanting habitat, observing the plants, birds and other wildlife, it occurred to me that in a sense, winter in California's Humboldt and Del Norte counties is a little bit like summer in North America's vast boreal forests. Varied Thrush Also called taiga, the world's boreal forests form a lush, green ring around the top of our planet, covering much of Alaska, Canada, Scandinavia and Russia. These dense forests are comprised largely of coniferous trees, particularly pine, fir, and most notably, spruce. At such high latitudes, long, cold winters are characteristic of the boreal forest, but even so, these often-snowy forests are vital to the health of our planet. Boreal forests are massively important on a global ecological scale, as they hold more surface freshwater than any other biome...
