Posts Tagged ‘Conservation’
Monthly Program: Audubon Starr Ranch Sanctuary: Protecting and Promoting Southern California Wildlands with Sandy DeSimone
The National Audubon Society’s Starr Ranch Sanctuary, located in Southern Orange County, is one of the few places in Southern California that still looks as it did hundreds of years ago. Containing coastal sage scrub, native grasslands, oak woodlands, chaparral, and riparian woodlands, the land was purchased in 1927 by millionaire Eugene Grant Starr to…
Read MoreWhat’s so Special about Monarch Butterflies? with Bob Allen
The monarch butterfly is an incredible species with a unique natural history. Its population has been declining at great speed in recent years due to a variety of factors, including habitat loss, diminishing availability of native milkweed, disease, and pesticide use. At this Zoom presentation, hear Bob Allen (aka BugBob) talk about the fascinating life…
Read MoreMonthly Program: Saving Jemima: Life and Love with a Hard-Luck Jay with author Julie Zickefoose
Naturalist/artist/writer Julie Zickefoose thinks of herself as an unsung, minor, rather dirty superhero. Her superpower— saving small, economically worthless wildlife that would otherwise perish. An orphaned jay named Jemima was one such foundling. Spending nearly a year healing, studying, and raising the young blue jay for release opened the door to their world for Julie.…
Read MoreThe Cuckoo in the Coal Mine
Yellow-billed Cuckoos (Coccyzus americanus) are fairly common in the eastern U.S. But in the last half-century, they have become rare in the West. Over the past 10 years in San Diego County, eBird shows unique sightings only 15 times—almost always a single bird in June or July, at Lake Henshaw, Lake Hodges, the Anza Borrego…
Read MoreEndangered Species Day- CANCELLED & POSTPONED FOR A FUTURE DATE
More info TBA
Read MoreLeConte’s Thrasher: A Desert Specialist on the Edge? – Monthly General Meeting
Living only in sandy washes and dunes in the Southwest, LeConte’s Thrasher is perhaps more specialized for life in the desert than any other bird of North America. Yet it faces serious conservation challenges. For decades, it was best known in California as a resident of the Coachella Valley. Few, if any, now survive there.…
Read MoreWorkshop: The Resilient California Native Garden
Join the California Native Plant Society-San Diego Chapter for a special day of speaker presentations from experts in the field of California native gardening. Their Garden Tour this past April presented numerous examples of long-established California native gardens and other gardens that were in-the-making. Whether you have been inspired to plant your first native garden…
Read MoreSaving America’s Wild Birds (David Younkman) – Monthly General Meeting
The American Bird Conservancy (ABC) is a leading bird conservation organization that works throughout the Western Hemisphere to protect rare and endangered bird species, conserve habitat, and address threats that affect all birds. Across the Americas, more than 500 native bird species are threatened with extinction — 12 percent of 4,230 species. In the United…
Read MoreYes on Y/SOAR (Save Open Space and Agricultural Resources)
Measure Y (SOAR), a proposition on the November City of Oceanside ballot, simply requires that before agricultural, open space, or parkland can be rezoned to other uses such as dense housing or commercial, the people of Oceanside have a right to vote on the change. We all pay the costs of sprawl development – traffic…
Read MoreMonthly General Meeting – Tricolored Blackbirds
Four and twenty blackbirds baked in a pie. It was downhill from there. Glossy black with epaulets of red and white, the Tricolored Blackbird once abounded. In the 19th century, one author stated they were “the most abundant species in San Diego and Los Angeles counties.” Estimates set some colonies at more than a…
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