Two councilmembers in the City of Los Angeles recently put forward a resolution that would request that California law be amended so that the Mountains Recreation and Conservation Authority, a local joint powers agencies that owns land in and adjacent to the City of LA, be required to “clear brush” on their lands to 700 … Continue reading Los Angeles does not need 700 feet of defensible space
For several years running, the Oak Titmice nested in a nest box on the front of our little house in a canyon near UCLA, fledging clutches of young each year. They had started building a new nest this year, which I knew because we clean out the box each year to reduce the potential build-up … Continue reading A Buzz for the Season
Reprinted from The Glenite [newsletter of the Residents of Beverly Glen], Spring 2024, p. 6 One of the delights of the Glen is the abundance of Coast Live Oak trees. They are part of the indigenous vegetation that would have been found along the canyon bottom, which this winter has forcefully reminded us is a … Continue reading Oak Titmouse: Royalty in the Canopy
One of the ways to reduce the adverse impacts of light at night is to adjust the spectrum of the lights, but let me say at the outset of talking about this new paper that it is more important to reduce the intensity, control the direction, and reduce the duration of lights first, and then … Continue reading New Paper: A Compendium of Photopigments and Visual Spectral Response Curves
I’ll be giving an online presentation sponsored by the Science Institute at the California Department of Fish and Wildlife. If you didn’t know they had a Science Institute, now you do! Here’s the invite: Please join us for the next installment of the CDFW Conservation Lecture Series on Thursday, November 30, from 2:00 p.m. – … Continue reading Nov 30: California Department of Fish and Wildlife Conservation Lecture Series
Reprinted from The Glenite [newsletter of the Residents of Beverly Glen], Summer 2023, p. 6 Of all the nocturnal bird calls in our canyon, the most frequently heard is that of the Great Horned Owl, with a higher and lower stuttering call of hoo-h’HOO-hoo-hoo. But during spring evenings in the Glen [Beverly Glen, eastern Santa … Continue reading Encounter with a Common Poorwill
Reprinted from The Western Tanager 89(4):1-3. A fact that has stuck with me from the research for the Los Angeles County Breeding Bird Atlas in the 1990s is that there was not a single neighborhood in the county that did not have at least ten breeding bird species. Residents can enjoy birds wherever they live. … Continue reading An Urban Forest for the Birds
Conservation Conversation Reprinted from The Western Tanager, 89(3): 9–11 (January/February 2023). Farewell, P-22 P-22’s reign as the biggest cat in Griffith Park has come to an end. The news was front page, not just in Los Angeles but farther afield, to those who found inspiration in a mountain lion living in the midst of the … Continue reading Wildness in Our City
Sometimes nature outreach opportunities come when you least expect. For those watching the baseball playoffs — I wasn’t — the Dodgers-Padres game got a little nutty when a goose settled in on the field round about the 8th inning Wednesday night. It was no local, bread-fed, domesticated park dweller but a bona fide wild Greater … Continue reading Goose in the Lights
Reprinted from Western Tanager 88(6):22-24. The challenges faced by the Western Snowy Plover (Charadrius nivosus nivosus) are many as it winters and breeds along the coast of southern California. Beach grooming by heavy equipment perpetually remove valuable habitat and flatten out once-undulating dunes. Beachgoers and their pets use the land where they once nested. Predators … Continue reading Darkness as Refuge
Travis Longcore 