Natural History Journal

The kitchen is often referred to as the heart of the home, but the true fact is that the kitchen is more accurately the heart of household waste production.  But this hasn't always been the case.  We can apply some of the valuable skills dear to our grandparents (like composting kitchen scraps) and combine them with a few new innovative ideas (like reusable sandwich bags) to create an efficient, cost effective, healthy kitchen... that produces much less waste. Below is a list of practices that we follow in our kitchen to ensure our waste production and resource consumption are both minimal.  I promise these practices are all completely feasible, with very minimal cost and effort.  In short, these are not just nice ideas; they are rules that work very well in everyday life.  The kitchen toolbox for reducing waste.  Clockwise, from top left: Reusable lunch bag, reusable water bottles and thermos, reusable sandwich bags an...

Yosemite National Park is, for a naturalist, almost too much to describe!  Where to even begin??  There are so many facets of this iconic place, the birthplace of the national park concept.  It is rich in history, and one could easily write about the native people who called this beautiful place home, or John Muir, who immortalized the valley in his poetry-like writings and fought so hard for its protection.  Iconic Half Dome Fire, controlled and wild, has its place in the park; the discussion of fire management continues in the wake of the Rim Fire.  The topic of climate change might be explored, or the effects of California's drought.  Swaths of reddish brown conifers, standing dead trees that have been ravaged by the bark beetle have been a common topic recently.  Water is a perennial topic of conversation and debate all across California, including within Yosemite National Park. Merced River, reflecti...

I know even less about astronomy than I do about geology.  But here and there, I pick up tidbits of information, reading an article in National Geographic, flipping through a book, or, quite honestly just using Google at times! Last night was a "Supermoon," occurring as the full moon coincided with the closest the moon has been to earth since 1948.  (Yup, I Googled that.  Not very scientific of me!)  Basically, the supermoon gave me a chance to try out some lunar photography (new to me) and check out some maps of the surface of the moon.  At least I used a book for that! In the photo above, the lunar crater Tycho can be seen in the lower right.  The darker areas are "seas," called maria.  The largest sea on the Moon is on the western (left) half, called Oceanus Procellarum.  The two most obvious craters within this area are Copernicus, which is slightly larger, and Kepler, to the lower left of Copernicus....

Over the last several weeks, an incredible phenomenon has been taking place in California's Great Central Valley: the fall salmon run.  Chinook salmon ( Oncorhynchus tshawytscha ) have been traveling many miles from the Pacific Ocean upstream to their spawning grounds in freshwater rivers, like the Stanislaus.  This weekend, the salmon were celebrated at the annual Knight's Ferry Salmon Festival. Female Chinook Salmon Something about watching these large fish, this magnificent keystone species, swim slowly up-river to suitable gravel spawning grounds is captivating, mesmerizing even, as you realize you are witnessing a timeless dance in the circle of life, an event that has taken place in our local rivers for thousands of years.  And these days, many of us have very little idea of the fascinating and intricate circle of events playing out in our nearby streams.  It almost seems like a miracle that in this ag...

The Acorn Woodpeckers ( Melanerpes formicivorus ) that live along the rivers in our area are busy this time of year!  Acorns are ripe and ready for collecting, and these busy woodpeckers are capitalizing on an abundant crop. Male Acorn Woodpecker ( Melanerpes formicivorus ) dining on a favorite: a flying insect. Acorn woodpeckers are a rather rowdy bunch, living and breeding in large community groups.  Though famous for their acorn gathering, they also feed on sap, fruit, grass seeds and other nuts, as well as flying insects when they are abundant during the warm season.  They may stash uneaten insects in crevices.  Acorns are stored in communal granary trees, thousands at a time.  According to Cornell's All About Birds site, acorn woodpeckers can store up to 50,000 acorns in one granary tree, each snuggly wedged in its own hole.  Granary Tree I've read that when stashing an acorn, a woodp...

Several times this year I have been lucky enough to see North American River Otters ( Lontra canadensis ) in both the San Joaquin and Tuolumne Rivers.  They have been too leery of me to allow for any great National Geographic quality photos (let's be honest, that's not entirely the otters' fault!) but I have gotten a few shots in which they are at least recognizable as river otters, not just obscure brown blobs on the riverbank! River Otter along the banks of the Tuolumne River. The presence of otters in our rivers is a wonderful thing.  As a top predator species in the ecosystem, river otters are often heralded as indicators of the health of the entire watershed.   Like their seafaring counterpart, California's Southern Sea Otter ( Enhydra lutris nereis ), the North American River Otter was once hunted extensively for its thick pelt.  Where otters once thrived, over hunting, followed closely by habitat loss and degradation, has taken...

And now for something completely different... Well, not completely.  It is entirely in keeping with a main theme of this blog, conservation, which is a favorite topic of mine.  In posts titled "At Home With A Naturalist," I will endeavor to give a brief glimpse into the day-to-day lifestyle of a naturalist or conservationist, since naturalists ought to be, by definition, environmentally conscious, green-living individuals.  It think it's necessary and important to set a good example through our actions, and it would be hypocritical of me to write about the beauty and grandeur of nature, as well as the harsh reality of environmental issues, but not live accordingly.  No one wants to see a "naturalist" drinking from a plastic water bottle!! (At least I sure don't!) These posts will address issues related to environmental degradation, especially those brought on by our general over-consumption as a society, and w...