The Nature of Berkeley

Krishnamurti on a Nature Walk

2011-09-09T00:48:00.000-07:00

(NOTE: Originally posted Dec. 31, 2010 at Berkeley, Naturally!)

I just posted to one of my sister blogs, Metta Refuge, about the great spiritual teacher and visionary J. Krishnamurti. The post is called "Krishnamurti-An Uncompromising Teacher." If you're interested in being more present, more alive to the beauty of life and nature, I think you'll find it worth a look.

I mention him at my Berkeley blog, because I want to share some of his nature writings about his walks in the hills around Ojai, California.

As was the case with Krishnamurti on his walks, my walks in the Berkeley Hills are a kind of meditation. Maybe they are for you too. Meditation in its essence simply means being totally present and mindful. It means being alive to what is, without additional thought or preconception, without reference to the past, and with great love and openness to everything, just as it is.

In one sense, this kind of free, "choiceless awareness," to use Krishnamurti's term, is at odds with being a scientific observer. I love bringing my knowledge of the earth and life sciences to my walk. But I sometimes find I really miss out if all I do on a hike is note and catalog. Seeing a "Eucalyptus tree," I can miss seeing the tree itself, just as it is prior to thought and naming.

So, on my walks, I first seek to establish a basic presence and mindful. I let go, get in touch with my breath, and relax into mindful presence. I seek to drop all thinking and just accept and love what I see—free of thought or labels. I want to be present enough to really see a tree or animal before I "tag" it with scientific names and knowledge, When I'm "on my game," I seem to move effortlessly back and forth between being a "scientist" and a "meditator," and what is interesting is that with deep absorption, they just become one thing, me being me, at one with nature.

Well, enough "dharma talk." Let's listen in on Krishnamurti as he recounts one of his Ojai walks—his wise words apply just as much to hikes in our beloved Berkeley Hills as the Hills of Ojai.

(Note: You can click on any of the images below to see a large image.)

Krishnamurti To Himself

Ojai California Friday 11Th March, 1983

"It was really a most lovely clear beautiful morning. There was dew on every leaf. And as the sun rose slowly, quietly spreading over the beautiful land, there was great peace in this valley. The trees were full of oranges, small ones but many. Gradually the sun lit every tree and every orange. When you sat on that veranda overlooking the valley, there were the long shadows of the morning. The shadow is as beautiful as the tree. We wanted to go out, not in a car, but out among the trees, smell the fresh air and the scent of many oranges and the flowers, and hear the sound of the earth.

Later on one climbed right to the very top of the hill, overlooking the wide valley. The earth doesn't belong to anyone. It is the land upon which all of us are to live for many years, ploughing, reaping and destroying.

You are always a guest on this earth and have the austerity of a guest. Austerity is far deeper than owning only a few things. The very word austerity has been spoilt by the monks, by the sannyasis, by the hermits. Sitting on that high hill alone in the solitude of many things, many rocks and little animals and ants, that word had no meaning.

Over the hills in the far distance was the wide, shining, sparkling sea. We have broken up the earth as yours and mine - your nation, my nation, your flag and his flag, this particular religion and the religion of the distant man. The world, the earth, is divided, broken up. And for it we fight and wrangle, and the politicians exult in their power to maintain this division, never looking at the world as a whole. They haven't got the global mind. They never feel nor ever perceive the immense possibility of having no nationality, no division, they can never perceive the ugliness of their power, their position and their sense of importance.

They are like you or another, only they occupy the seat of power with their petty little desires and ambitions, and so maintain apparently, as long as man has been on this earth, the tribal attitude towards life. They don't have a mind that is not committed to any issue, to any ideals, ideologies - a mind that steps beyond the division of race, culture, that the religions man has invented.

Governments must exist as long as man is not a light to himself, as long as he does not live his daily life with order, care, diligently working, watching, learning. He would rather be told what to do. He has been told what to do by the ancients, by the priests, by the gurus, and he accepts their orders, their peculiar destructive disciplines as though they were gods on this earth, as though they knew all the implications of this extraordinarily complex life.

Sitting there, high above all the trees, on a rock that has its own sound like every living thing on this earth, and watching the blue sky, clear, spotless, one wonders how long it will take for man to learn to live on this earth without wrangles, rows, wars and conflict. Man has created the conflict by his division of the earth, linguistically, culturally, superficially. One wonders how long man, who has evolved through so many centuries of pain and grief, anxiety and pleasure, fear and conflict, will take to live a different way of life.

As you sat quietly without movement, a bob cat, a lynx, came down. As the wind was blowing up the valley it was not aware of the smell of that human being. It was purring, rubbing itself against a rock, its small tail up, and enjoying the marvel of the earth. Then it disappeared down the hill among the bushes. It was protecting its lair, its cave or its sleeping place. It was protecting what it needs, protecting its own kittens, and watching for danger. It was afraid of man more than anything else, man who believes in god, man who prays, the man of wealth with his gun, with his casual killing. You could almost smell that bob cat as it passed by you. You were so motionless, so utterly still that it never even looked at you; you were part of that rock, part of the environment.

Why, one wonders, does man not realize that one can live peacefully, without wars, without violence; how long will it take him, how many centuries upon centuries to realize this? From the past centuries of a thousand yesterdays, he has not learned. What he is now will be his future.

It was getting too hot on that rock. You could feel the gathering heat through your trousers so you got up and went down and followed the lynx which had long since disappeared. There were other creatures: the gopher, the king snake, and a rattler (rattle-snake). They were silently going about their business. The morning air disappeared; gradually the sun was in the West. It would take an hour or two before it set behind those hills with the marvelous shape of the rock and the evening colors of blue and red and yellow. Then the night would begin, the night sounds would fill the air; only late in the night would there be utter silence. The roots of heaven are of great emptiness, for in emptiness there is energy, incalculable, vast and profound."

♡♡♡

Rethinking Berkeley, Naturally!

2011-09-09T00:14:00.000-07:00

(Originally posted on June 22, 2010 at Berekely, Naturally!)

My posts to Berkeley, Naturally! slowed to the point where I realized I needed to rethink the goals of this blog. Originally, I had hoped to make Berkeley, Naturally! a kind of science/nature blog, similar to my other blog Goodheart's Extreme Science.

But with three blogs to write for and look after, it has become apparent that I can't be as ambitious with Berkeley, Naturally! as I had hoped. It will need to be more of a nature/photo blog and less of a science-oriented blog, although it will always have a science and nature lover's perspective.

When I have time, though, I'll probably still want to do occasional in-depth posts with like these three:

(Note: You can click on any of the images below to see a large image.)

They Are the Ladybugs of the Canyon

Berkeley Hills Landslide

Escape from New England to Berkeley—A Weather Nut's Confession

I typically get up in to the Berkeley Hills three or four times a week, and always take my camera, so I will have lots of images and observations to share. Please stop by and have a look! The posts should be most more regular and more often now.

The Berkeley Hills are calling!

UC Berkeley - Burst Pipe Flash Flood at McCone Hall

2011-09-08T23:46:00.000-07:00

(NOTE: This was originally posted on March 7, 2011, at my old blog Berkeley, Naturally!)

Although this blog is dedicated to the natural wonders of the Berkeley Hills and the beauty of city of Berkeley, occasionally I see something on the Berkeley campus that really gets my attention—like a small river of water rushing down the North Gate path at Hearst and Euclid!

(Note: You can click on any of the images below to see a large image.)

Monday night, around 8 pm, on March 7th, 2011, the area in front of McCone Hall was completely flooded:

A huge flood of water was gushing from the left-hand side of McCone Hall, and barriers had been set up to keep the water from running down the outside stairs to the basement area:

The water was 4 to 6 inches deep in many places, and would have been deeper had the area not drained down to the North Gate path. Given the sheer volume of water that was being released, I guessed that the pipe that burst or failed must have been very large or under very high pressure.

Emergency workers were in the building helping to get people evacuated. Given the amount of water that was gushing from the side of the building, and despite sandbagging, I had to wonder if the basement of McCone wasn't completely flooded.

Inside McCone Hall, the emergency alarm was sounding and campus police were evacuating the building:

Most of the water rushed down the path along the Strawberry Creek North Fork toward Haviland Hall, where a very large screened drainage area behind the Hall kept the water from forming a small lake!

This map shows the area were the flooding occurred:

The UCB Physical Plant crew worked late into the night and when I checked the area on Tuesday morning, most of the water was gone, though you could see large areas of debris and mud where the water had swept away soil and plants.

I wondered about water damage to the lower floors of McCone Hall, and gave a tip of my hat to all the hard-working, dedicated folks who responded to this mini-disaster and who work so hard to keep the Berkeley campus beautiful and safe.

♥♥♥

Kudos to University of California Scientists at the National Ignition Facility

2011-09-08T23:19:00.000-07:00

(NOTE: This article was originally posted at Berkeley, Naturally! on Feb. 01, 2010)

Anyone who lives in Berkeley knows how central the University of California is to our beloved city. They also probably know what an important place the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory has in the University of California academic "ecosystem."

I love to hike up Centennial Drive to the wonderful Lawrence Hall of Science above Berkeley:

Every time I visit, I realize the incredible historical role the University of California, Berkeley, has played in the history of science:

Last week, the scientists at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in Livermore, CA, hit another one out of the park, so to speak, and everyone can be proud of UCB and the Livermore Lab folks.

On Thursday, Januray 28th, 2010, the scientists at the National Ignition Facility (NIF) in Livermore announced that they had used a super-laser to create a fusion reaction that produced more energy than it used. This was a scientific breakthrough that helps bring us even closer to the "holy grail" of clean, sustainable fusion energy.

If you want to learn all about this breakthrough, and the science behind it—in language non-scientists or high school students can understand—stop by my sister blog, Goodheart's Extreme Science and check out:

How Scientists brought the power of the Sun to Earth

This post has some great images from the LLN Lab and scientific explanations that just about anyone can understand. I think you'll find it interesting and fun.

So, enjoy! And congratulations to the amazing men and women of NIF and the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory! Once again, the University of California, Berkeley, demonstrates its unique place in academia and the scientific world.

How We Here in the Bay Area Can Help with the BP Oil Disaster

2011-09-08T23:03:00.000-07:00

(NOTE: Originally published at Berkeley, Naturally on June 1, 2010)

Hello friends of Berkeley, Naturally! It's been a while since I posted here, because my dharma and science blogs have been dominating my time and attention.

I've missed posting there, a lot, and realized I needed to make this less of a "science" blog if I was ever going to share with others. So, that change should be evident soon in a lot more regular posts at Berkeley, Naturally!

However, since this blog is basically all about nature and celebrating it, I wanted to bring you attention to a post I just made at Goodheart's Extreme Science.

The Gulf of Mexico Oil Disaster

The post is all about the growing environmental tragedy in the Gulf of Mexico. I’m sure we’ve all been staggered by the sheer scale of the disaster, as every two to three days the ruptured BP oil well spews out the same amount of oil as the entire Alaskan Exxon Valdez oil spill!

What's worse, officials are now telling us that it may be August before the rupture is fixed—near the very height of hurricane season.

: Gulf Pelican Being Cleaned of Oil

After discussing some of the physical, environmental, and oceanographic aspects of the oil spill, I zero in on using oil-eating microbes, which have been used with great effectiveness in other big spills. Oil-eating microbes aren't a silver bullet, but I find it hard to understand why this technology hasn't been utilized yet.

Here's the link to my Extreme Science post:

The BP Oil Disaster-Send in the Microbes!

A key part of this post is an outstanding video that I've embedded that explains how oil-eating microbes have been used before with great success.

: Our Little Helpers - Alcanivorax borkumensis

If you've been wanting to know more about the science of this spill, how it's affecting the Gulf environment, you should find this post at Goodheart's Extreme Science very helpful. There's a lot we can do, even from afar, to urge officials and the government to do more than they have.

Please share these ideas and ways to contribute with your friends or anyone who can or who wants to help.

The World Is in Our Hands-What Will We Do?

♥♥♥

Escape from New England to Berkeley-A Weather Nut's Confession

2011-09-01T12:31:00.000-07:00

It all began in the Mojave Desert

(Note - this was originally posted at my old blog, Berkeley, Naturally! on 2009/12/03. I’ve reworked it and added some new images for its new home here at The Nature of Berkeley.)

I’m a weather nut. Have been since I was a little boy. Maybe it’s because I grew up in the Mojave desert. Except for the often spectacular heat, the weather in my home town of Las Vegas is deadly dull.

Sure, we would get our annual summer “monsoon” thunderstorms as moist air pushed up from Baja and Mexico:

(Note: you can click on any of the images in order to see them full-size.)

The lightning from them could be truly spectacular and delighted a little boy’s heart:

And yes, every four or five years a strong winter storm would leave an inch or more of snow in the Vegas Valley, to the amazement of both locals and tourists:

We kids loved it, but lots of people freaked out, and there was always a spate of car crashes as people not used to ice on the roads drove like Vegans usually do—way too fast!

But for extreme weather, that’s about it. Except for the heat. (You really can cook eggs on the sidewalk in the height of summer. I did it as a kid on a number of 115 degree °F days.)

New England—now for some real weather!

Tornado at UMass, Amherst
June 2011

So, when I moved to Boston in the mid-’70s after I got out of a tour of duty in the Army, I was in weather nut heaven! Finally, some real weather!

In New England you have it all: rainstorms, snow storms, wind storms, blizzards, fierce nor’easters, flash floods, heat waves, brutal cold snaps, and even the occasional tornado and hurricane!

How many places can you think of that have blizzards and hurricanes and tornadoes? New England gets them all! In fact, there was quite a tornado outbreak in New England this year, which was part of a disastrous pattern of violent storms this spring.

My most memorable New England weather event was, without a doubt, the Great Blizzard of '78. (I wish I still had my original photographs of this amazing storm, so I could scan them into my computer!) I'll never forget walking around the eerily quiet streets of Boston at the level of the rooftops of the cars buried in the drifts! Much of New England was totally paralyzed:

As Mark Twain famously noted:

“There is a sumptuous variety about the New England weather that compels the stranger's admiration -- and regret. The weather is always doing something there; always attending strictly to business; always getting up new designs and trying them on the people to see how they will go.”

The Dynamic Duo of New England Weather

The reason New England gets all of this weather is because it happens to be located near the semipermanent low pressure area called the Icelandic Low. Much of the time in winter this low pressure area looks something like this, as huge storm systems develop in it:

Located between Iceland and southern Greenland, the Icelandic low tends to pull the continental air masses of North America towards it, and thus, toward New England. If New England weather “sucks,“ it’s because the Icelandic Low literally sucks—all the weather masses of North America toward it.

But the Icelandic Low has a partner in crime—the Azores or Bermuda High:

This huge semipermanent area of subtropical high pressure is the other pole of what is called the North Atlantic Oscillation. In the summer, the high pressure area shown in this map tends to move toward North America. Its clockwise rotating air pumps warm, moist air up the Atlantic coast to New England. This is why a place that gets blizzards and below-zero weather also gets sweltering, humid 90 and 100-degree °F heat in the summer. Don’t you just love it? As a typical New Englander, I loved to complain about it!

Not only that, the Azores High’s clockwise rotation tends to create tropical waves off of Africa and send them toward North America. These pressure waves often become tropical storms, and sometimes, in a process not fully understood, the waves become hurricanes.

The Azores High‘s clockwise rotation sends them all toward the Caribbean and North America. When the high moves even further west, it will even shunt hurricanes up the East Coast, and that’s why New England can also get hurricanes. Here's a typical track of a hurricane sweeping around the Azores High and roaring up the Atlantic Coast toward New England and the distant Icelandic Low.

This double-whammy of the Icelandic Low and the Bermuda High is why there’s always some weather mass or storm merrily marching through New England.

If you love weather, and lots of it, move to New England!

So, if I love wild weather so much, why did I leave New England?

As an amateur meteorologist, I loved my time in New England. I relished her nor’easters, hurricanes, blizzards, cold snaps, snow storms, and heat spells. The skies were often magnificent, with beautiful clouds of every variety. Over time, however, the long, cold New England winters started to get to me as the initial novelty of them for a “desert rat” wore off.

While i was beginning to dread winter, I loved fall in New England. Who wouldn’t? In my opinion, it’s New England’s best and most beautiful season. Here's an image from a great hill Malden (where I lived just outside of Boston). The shot was taken in the fall of 2008, my last Fall in the Boston area. (click the image a large desktop-sized image)

But for all the glory of autumn in New England, more and more I was dreading the brutal, long, cloudy winters.

It wasn’t just how early winters started and how long they lasted. It wasn’t just the damp, penetrating wind-driven cold. (Forget it Chicago, Boston is the real windy city!) The coup de grace was day after day of grey, overcast skies. I need sun! I need to see blue skies, even in winter—even if howling winds make the windchill 10 below zero! Just gimme some sun!

After over three decades in New England, I just needed a new place that (for me) reflected and supported a brighter, happier outlook on life (not that one can't be happy in New England; I'm talking about the physical environment.) So, after a lot of thought, discussion and research, my wife and I decided that California was the place for us—and not just anywhere in California, but the beautiful San Francisco Bay Area.

California, here we come!

Getting ready to move across the country took a lot of hard work and effort. Despite all our preparation and research, we finally ended up just taking a leap into the blue—moving out with no jobs, and only a general sense of where we wanted to live—maybe San Francisco, maybe Berkeley, maybe Walnut Creek. All that mattered was that it was California!

As a final send-off, just before we left for California in the last days of 2008, New England got in one last nor'easter. Not a record setter, but afterwards, the snow and slush all froze, and it was bitter cold from November until we took the Amtrak Zephyr to the Golden West in early January of 2009. Adiós New England! Hola California!

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So, now, here I am in Berkeley, with my dear wife—blue skies galore, even in winter—and no snow, no ice, and no 20-below zero windchill!

Yes, I know the Bay area has its winter rainy season. I know it can be rainy for days, even weeks. (We arrived in the middle of winter when we moved here.) I now know what the fogs of summer are all about (and thye are not nearly as bad as advertised.)

Bay area weather at its worst is just not in the same league as bad weather in New England. In New England, you get more of everything—more cold, more clouds, more rain, more heat, more humidity, more wind, more....just more! And less—less sunny days, less time you can spend outside, less truly comfortable, pleasant weather. (Of course, I speak as someone who lived in Boston; I know there are places in New England that can be more mild than Bean Town! But even there, you get real winter!)

The Glorious Weather and Climate of the San Francisco Bay Area

So, now I turn my weather eyes to the amazing climate and weather of the San Francisco Bay area. It may not be as “exciting” weather-wise here, but there’s plenty going on, and the big picture is very interesting.

Here on the West Coast, we have our own weather-making version of the Icelandic Low. It called the Aleutian Low, and not surprisingly, it’s generally located in the Aleutians off the coast of Alaska. But instead of pulling continental weather to it, this semipermanent low pressure area spins off storm after storm toward central and northern North America, creating most of the big weather systems for North America. The cyclonic storms that form in the Aleutian Low are some of the biggest and most powerful on Earth.

In winter, these huge storms spin out of the Gulf of Alaska and crash into Canada, the Northwest, and Northern California. After dropping huge quantities of rain and snow, they still have enough moisture and energy to move on and create rain and snowstorms across the entire United States.

Another big weather maker in California—and all around the world, for that matter—is what is commonly called El Niño. The scientific term for El Niño is the El Niño-Southern Oscillation, often abbreviated by meteorologists as ENSO. El Niño not only has dramatic effects on California weather, it affects weather all over the world, producing floods, droughts, and destructive storms.

As a newcomer here in California, I've not personally experienced a strong El Niño event, but as a long-time student of weather, I sure know how damaging a strong ENSO event can be, as these pictures show:

I’ll be talking a lot more about these fascinating aspects of California weather. But for now, I’m just going to kick back and enjoy this sunny Berkeley day in early December (when this post was written in 2009).

Wow, I can wear my t-shirt outside! Wow, I don’t have to wear my heavy New England winter jacket. Wow, the wind isn't freezing my face off! This year (2009) in Boston, it snowed heavily in October, and at night there, it’s already in the low 30s and high 20s °F.

My New England friends tell me they are having a warm spell right now, after the "summer that wasn't." (Boy, do I remember a lot of those in New England, actually!) But, alas, they are still doomed. Winter is coming to New England, and there's no stopping it!

Dear New England, I loved you! I loved your people, your culture, and your wild and crazy weather. But your long, cold, dark winters will grind me down no more! I’ve found my personal paradise here in Berkeley and the Berkeley Hills. And I'm here to stay!

Welcome UC Berkeley Students! Be Sure to Discover the Hills!

2011-08-24T17:41:00.000-07:00

Welcome UC Berkeley freshman and returning students! The Nature of Berkeley is a blog dedicated to the natural beauty of Berkeley and the Berkeley Hills.

This blog is a going to be new home for my first Berkeley nature blog:

Berkeley, Naturally!

Eventually I will transfer all the old posts to The Nature of Berkeley, but in the meantime, if this post intrigues you, I hope you’ll stop by Berkeley, Naturally! and enjoy the many wonderful nature images and articles there.

I’m not a native of the Bay area; in fact, my wife and I moved from Boston to Berkeley just a little over two years ago early in 2009. But we immediately fell in love with Berkeley and with the Berkeley Hills above the campus. If hope you will make time during your stay here in Berkeley to hike in the Hills—to learn something about the geography, the ecosystem, the plants, the wildlife, and the climate and weather.

Since moving here, I’ve talked to students who were juniors and even seniors, and they had never hiked up into the Hills—not even up the the Big C! And yet, I would suggest that some of your most memorable college experiences could take place up in the Berkeley Hills—looking down at the magnificent San Francisco Bay and watching the fog roll in, seeing black-tailed deer and wild turkeys, and standing in awe of sunsets that you will cherish the rest of your life.

I’ll be doing more posts soon to tempt you into the Hills—if you need tempting!—but to whet your appetite, here’s one of my very first posts, which I hope you will enjoy. The title speaks for itself, and I hope it’s a feeling you come to share too!

Why I Love the Berkeley Hills

(Originally posted on December 1, 2009)

(A point of geography: the term Berkeley Hills applies to one of ranges of the Pacific Coast Ranges. These hills used to be called the Contra Costa Hills. Therefore the term "Berkeley Hills" includes those hills above Oakland as well as those above Berkeley. "Berkeley Hills" is a geographic term (a toponym, to be exact) and has nothing to do with political or city boundaries. I just want my good neighbors in Oakland to know they are not being left out when I speak of the Berkeley Hills!)

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I’ve been so busy getting my dharma journal, Metta Refuge, up and running, I just haven’t had time to get anything posted here at “Berkeley, Naturally!”

But today, the first day of December, that changes! I thought the least I could do was post some introductory images from my hikes in Strawberry and Claremont Canyons. I wanted folks to see why I’m so in love with the Berkeley Hills area and why I feel so grateful to live here.

I’m also working on my first post about an animal you’ll often run across in the Hills. It’s actually a much-loved insect (yes, insect!) More on that later!

For now, click on “Read More,” below, to see some lovely images that highlight some of the natural wonders our beautiful ecosystem here in the East Bay.

If you click on any of the small images below, you’ll get a much larger one you can download to use for your desktop image or wallpaper. Enjoy! Steve

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I took these next two photos this summer in Strawberry Canyon. The grasses are brown because it’s been nearly five months since the last substantial rain, and the Great October Rainstorm of 2009 is still months away.

After 33 years in Boston, I can't tell you what a marvel it is go a whole summer without a trace of rain! As a boy growing up in the Mojave desert, I was used to long rainless periods, but even in the desert, we had summer "monsoon" thunderstorms. The Bay area's "Mediterranean" climate and summer drought are fascinating, and I look forward to discussing how they shape this ecosystem.

These next two photos were just two weeks after our amazing October rain storm. (The heaviest October rain in 47 years!) What a difference!

As a newcomer to the area, I was amazed at how fast the hills “greened up.” The plants in this area have some amazing adaptations to the Mediterranean climate we have here, and I’ll be writing a lot about that in later posts. Here's a nice shot looking across Strawberry Canyon to the historical UC Berkeley Cyclotron.

My favorite trees in the Canyons are the somewhat controversial Eucalyptus, which were introduced to this area in the 1850s. These beautiful trees dominate much of the terrain in the Canyons.

One of the best things about living in Berkeley is being so close to wonderful hiking and fire trails. Here are some images from some of my favorite hikes.

Once you gain some altitude into the hills, you are often rewarded with beautiful vistas of San Francisco Bay and unobstructed skies.

There are a huge range of plants in the Strawberry and Claremont Canyons. Here are two of my favorites: lichens and some wild (unripe) blackberries:

Many of the trees on the steeper slopes have a real battle with gravity and erosion. (I’ll be writing much more about Berkeley Hills plants and their challenges in later posts.)

Finally, hiking in the hills you’ll definitely come across wild animals. I’ll never forget the first time I came upon a flock of wild turkeys in Strawberry Canyon. (Alas, I’ve yet to have my camera with me when I’ve come across them.) There are many kinds of birds, too, including large raptors. But the toughest, most aggressive bird you’ll come across in the Canyons is the smallest! Meet the pound-for-pound champ, the Rufous Hummingbird:

You’ll also run across reptiles on your hikes. I’ve seen several kinds of garter snakes, and along the sunnier trails, you’ll almost see always some Western Fence lizards:

And some of the creatures you’ll find in the Hills are, well, just fantastic:

I hope you enjoyed my first “Berkeley, Naturally” post. In the weeks ahead, I’ll be creating new posts, as well as moving old posts to The Nature of Berkeley.

See you in the Hills,
Steve

Goodbye "Berkeley, Naturally!" - Hello "The Nature of Berkeley"

2011-08-18T14:35:00.000-07:00

Welcome! This is my first post for "The Nature of Berkeley." This blog will be the successor to my current blog:

Berkeley, Naturally!

I've decided to move to Blogger from WordPress, not because I'm dissatisfied with WordPress, but because Blogger (soon to become Google Blogs, I understand) offers me more financial opportunities in terms of what I can do on my blog. It's not a move I take lightly, because the site has had more than 40,000 visits in the two years it has been online, even though I haven't had time to post as often as I would like.

One of the reasons for this has been my focus on my dharma and meditation blog:

Metta Refuge

which is my great joy and which has been the main focus of my writing efforts. If you are interested in learning about metta or Buddhist loving-kindness practice, as well as skillful means and encouragement in meditation and mindfulness, I hope you will stop by and have a look.

My third, (and, I regret to say) my most neglected blog, is:

Goodheart's Extreme Science

At my Extreme Science site, as the name implies, I explore and explain really interesting and amazing topics in science, from prehistoric mega-sharks, to the smallest and largest snakes in the world to laser fusion and the BP Oil Disaster.

As a science writer and editor, I love writing about this stuff, but when I began serious blogging, a couple of years ago, I was, shall I say, a bit overenthusiastic in starting up three blogs at once! I may well move my Extreme Science blog to Blogger as well, for the same reasons that I'm moving "Berkeley, Naturally!"

In the next few weeks, I plan on moving most of my "Berkeley, Naturally!" posts to "The Nature of Berkeley," but it will be a lot of work. In the meantime, I have some new post ideas and some great Berkeley Hills images I want to share, which I hope my visitors will enjoy.

I hope to make my new "The Nature of Berkeley" blog a place that lovers of nature and of the East Bay and Berkeley Hills area will want to visit. See you in the Hills!

Steve Goodheart