I had a mad craving for some nature journaling last week. So I took to our current “backyard” in the outskirts of Ramona in a small community called Fernbrook which is in the county of San Diego, California. Nature journaling is a super-duper way to connect with nature, at the landscape or macroscopic level. Journaling...

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Orchid hunting, bird stalking, and insect photography were just some of the endeavors husband Trevor and I did while traveling around Costa Rica from late 2021 to early 2022. This blog is a trip log of what we got up to, photographs of who we saw, and a few short stories. Instead of a short novel, which I’m prone to write, I decided to organize this blog like a Q & A, hope you enjoy…

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The gloriously lush jungles of Costa Rica. This photo is from the La Fortuna area. Walking into a tropical jungle for the first time is overwhelming. While I’ve been lucky to do so in a few countries over the last five-ish years the wonder and amazement never fades. One characteristic that puts a twinkle in my naturalist’s eyes is the abundance of foliage. LUSH green leaves, frons, moss, lichens, of the diverse plant life, appear…

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I needed a mental reset from the past two weeks. COP 26 was a bust, flooding in the PNW due to climate change and destructive logging practices ravaged areas I grew up around, the Brazilian Amazon hit a record high level of destruction, politicians in North America are complete nincompoops, and these headlines seemingly have no end. Exhausting and depressing. Sooooo, some cuteness is in order! Over the past year and a bit, I’ve been…

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After a summer in BC, a short stint in Bellingham and Northern California, we are stationed along the central California coastline. We quickly took to walking the nearby golden hills in search of any remaining wildflowers still miraculously blooming despite the ongoing drought conditions. What became quickly apparent to me was the overwhelming main colors out and about were yellow or purple-colored petalled flowers. But why? California Aster Corethrogyne filaginifoliaDunedelion Malacothrix incanaCalifornia Goldenbush Ericameria ericoidesCrisp Monardella Monardella undulata ssp. crispa The flowers…

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This summer I read The Cougar Conundrum, by Mark Elbroch, ecologist, author, accomplished wildlife tracker, and lead scientist for the Puma Program director for Panthera. Having a particular love and passion for the puma, I knew the book was going to be good, and provide perspectives I hadn’t considered before. But I really didn’t expect to learn so much, to take away so many points, and to continue to mull over topics months later. I…

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In the spring of 2020 and 2021 my husband and I went backpacking in the Big Creek Provincial Park. We spent five and six days respectively, spanning most of the park. But we still have creeks to cross and ridges to walk on the to-do list. Something will always pull us back, and if history keeps repeating it will be a rare plant or insect that lures us back.  While most people recreating in the…

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A recent trip to Big Creek Provincial Park by way of Tyaughton creek and Lorna Pass inspired this post’s topic because ohhh holy moly the Robberflies were A-BUN-DANT! I’ll explore the reason why I think they were out in great numbers and diversity on this trip. But first, what is a Robber fly?  The Family Asilidae are commonly known as Robber flies which got their name from their ambush style of capturing prey. These flies…

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During our nomadic stint in Northern California – Dunsmuir to be exact – we were exposed to the concept of plant relicts and during our adventures found a few notable members of this fascinating group. I wanted to dig deeper into these interesting plants, which is the topic of this blog.  Northern California contains the Siskiyou and Klamath mountain ranges, which are composed of a variety of soil types which were once the sea floor,…

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Callahan’s Mariposa Lily standing nice and tall! This blog meant to go up last week (woops) and I intended it to be slightly shorter, and well that failed. Well now it’s a bit later and I’m still obsessed with Mariposa Lilies, the topic of this week’s blog post.  I started focusing on botany more intensely about two years ago, and only observed four species of the Genus Calochortus until this year. This year alone, from…

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