Walking along Morro Strand I hear high-pitched screeches in the sky. I turn and see a cluster of terns wheeling onto shore. Sixty or more settle their white bodies onto... read more →
Palm trees in the ocean? Surely you jest! Nope-just a different type of palm-a seaweed one. Postelsia palmaeformis, the sea palm, is a dead ringer for a land-type palm tree. It lives in the... read more →
These are one of the larger wasps in the world with females getting up to two inches in length and having large blue-black muscular bodies with bright orange wings. Quite... read more →
I’m lucky to live near Morro Strand, so most mornings find me striding along the beach, binoculars at hand ready for anything that comes into view. A few days ago... read more →
Photo by Linda Tanner The tarantulas are showing up on the central coast. From mid-July on through November you have a chance of seeing one of these large, hairy spiders... read more →
Photo by Jerry Kirkhart Have you noticed those rather large, shiny black beetles crawling around your yard? Many people call them “stink bugs,” but they aren’t the real stink bugs. ... read more →
Why, Diatom Art, of course! Each section in the photograph above is a microscopic diatom shell. Diatoms are phytoplankton, or microalgae. Their shells are made primarily of silica, which is... read more →
The Speedy Little Sand Crab The Pacific sand crab, (Emerita analoga), aka mole crab , is a small invertebrate decapod crustacean — meaning it lacks a backbone, but has five... read more →