For years, Eric Schroeder has gathered photographs of local leucistic birds: white (or whitish) woodpeckers, hummingbirds, ...

We’re peering down into a ravine carved out by Lagunitas Creek, looking for North American river otters. According to official California Department of Fish and Wildlife records, last updated in 1995, ...

Pistachio orchards, like these at Gilkey Ranch near Five Points, California, are producing the nut of the future, say farmers, because the crop goes dormant during drought and demands less water and ...

In July, Governor Jerry Brown signed into law a bill declaring the lace lichen—found along the Pacific coast and throughout the coast ranges—the state lichen. As of January 1, 2016, California will be ...

Photographs by Christie Hemm Klok. This story was produced by High Country News, hcn.org, with support from Bay Nature. Conservationists restoring salmon along California’s North Coast have a mantra: ...

To deliberately attract a tick, you need to emulate a large animal—which shouldn’t be that hard because humans are essentially big, lumbering apes. You increase your chances of attracting the ...

The gums are mottled tan and brown like chicken bones, crowded together, the spaces between them choked with brush and hung with streamers of bark. Along with the sweet medicine smell of the trees, ...

In the early 1950s, a Swedish dairy farmer and real estate magnate named Axel Adler came to California and fell in love with Big Sur. The rugged backcountry, the spring flowers, the redwoods tall over ...

On July 27, 2017 this story was announced as a finalist for the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine 2017 Communication Awards. Every year, as summer turns to fall, the mouse ...

The Grove of Old Trees sits on a hill in Sonoma County in full view of the ocean. “This is where I come to chase the fog,” says Emily Burns. But on this day in March, her prey is elusive. Buttercups ...

To hear Roger Castillo tell it, all of the City of San José—its million inhabitants, its sprawling residential neighborhoods, its glittery glass high-rises and office-park tech campuses—is more or ...

In the shallows of south Lake Tahoe, diver Brandon Berry is slurping up clouds of algae with an underwater vacuum cleaner. Snorkeling above, I can hear his Darth Vader breaths better than I can see ...