By Maggie Chen So you’ve been indoors the whole day and decided to go out to get some fresh air. The coast is on one side of you and along the trail you see a beautiful evergreen oak, extremely twisted, enormous, and gnarled. If the leaves are dark green and spiny-toothed along the edge, then it’s likely a Coast Live Oak! This native evergreen tree is one of the only California oak trees that flourishes near the coast, though you actually wouldn’t often find it right next to the shore. It can grow up to 100 feet tall and typically has a short trunk and enormous crooked branches that …
Search Results for: what in your watershed
What’s In Your Watershed: Cooper’s Hawk
By Dan Kirk I’ve been noticing birds of prey lately, most notably a few bald eagles, one in the Crockett hills and another in Tomales Bay (I had never seen a bald eagle in California until this year!). Also, many hawks - when I’m driving out of the city, usually next to farmlands with fences next to the highway, I’ve typically been seeing hawks perched on the fence posts, gazing at the fields. I imagine they are hunting, but not sure. While bald eagles are easy to identify, certain hawks can be more challenging to identify from other hawks because of their similar physical …
What’s in your Watershed? | Casper: The Friendly Risso’s Dolphin
By Audrey Matusich One of my favorite things about growing up in the South Bay is its proximity to several amazing places. Whether I’m in the mood to go wine tasting in Napa, become a tourist for the day in San Francisco, lounge on the beach in Santa Cruz, or explore the tide pools in Monterey, any of these excursions can be accomplished in a day. As a self-designated “land mermaid,” any trip to the ocean growing up amounted to a perfect day, and one of my favorite places is Monterey. On my last trip to Monterey, I decided to go on a morning whale watching tour. The sky was clear, …
The Watershed Project is celebrating a big birthday in 2022–we’re turning 25! Please help us mark the occasion by sharing your favorite memories with us.
Over the years we’ve interacted with thousands of Bay Area residents from all walks of life. Whether you were a volunteer at a workday or cleanup event, attended a teacher training workshop, came with us on a field trip to a park, worked with us as an intern, Green Collar Corps, or staff member, or participated in a planning workshop to improve your community, we want to hear from you! Share your story of how The Watershed Project impacted your life. It can be as simple as sending us a photo with a caption, mailing us a handwritten note, or sending a video sharing a memory of a time you …
What’s in your Watershed: California Wild Grape
By Dan Kirk I don’t know much about the process of wine making, but based on observation, it seems as though it’s the season to harvest grapes and begin the process. My observations include: seeing lots of grapes at the farmers market, walking under a grapevine at an entryway and picking grapes and eating them, and having a conversation with a friend who recently harvested grapes to make wine. Okay the last one isn’t really an observation, but our conversation did inspire me to think about grapes native to California. As it turns out, Vitis californica, or California wild grape, is …
What’s In Your Watershed: California Mussels
By Charlotte Pitt Sprawled across the San Francisco Bay in habitats known as shellfish beds reside a multitude of species sensitive to the quality of water, such as oysters, mussels, and clams. These shellfish were once a popular food source for the residents of the San Francisco Bay area, however in modern times pollution runoff from industry and agriculture is too high to consume any shellfish from the bay. The most abundant of these species, the native Olympia oyster (Ostrea lurida), has been a primary focus of restoration efforts, as pollution and loss of habitat have caused the …
What’s in Your Watershed: Milkweed: Much More Than a Weed
By Charlotte Pitt Names are often deceiving, and that is certainly the case for the flowering plant commonly known as Milkweed. Plants are considered to be weeds when they are unwanted, but Milkweed is definitely a plant you want to keep around! There are nineteen species of Milkweed native to California, and they are both a beautiful plant that makes an eye-catching addition to any garden and an important habitat and food plant for caterpillars, particularly the caterpillars of the Monarch butterfly. Nine species of Milkweed act as the only food source for the Monarch caterpillars, so …
What’s in Your Watershed: Opossums Demystified
By Calvin Abbott There are probably few people in the Bay Area who aren’t aware of opossums, but in talking to people recently I realized there are also few people who know much more than what they look like, or that they like to be in trees. Where I live in Richmond, opossums are in a category I like to think of as uncommon and omnipresent. I never see a lot of opossums at once, I don’t see them every day or even every week, but it is also not surprising when one does show up in one of my fruit trees, or curled up in the hay in my garden. What was surprising, however, was when my cat …
