For many years the craggy rock formation perched above the Coast Trail beckoned to me like a siren song in the distance. I thought of these sentinel rocks during the Woodward Valley Fire in 2020 and their bird’s eye view of the fire. The time had come to finally explore these rocks.

As of July 9, twenty-two chicks were hatched and running on the beach. That’s significantly more chicks than we’ve had in previous years at this time which is great news for the threatened Western Snowy Plover.

North Beach in Point Reyes was mild and beautiful on Saturday June 25 — a perfect day for volunteering as a snowy plover docent. We had a first — every dog that visited the beach was on leash and stayed on leash.

With fetid in the name of the plant, you would naturally expect the California Fetid Adderstongue (Scoliopus bigelovii) to be a real stinker. On my annual visit to the Bolinas Ridge Trail to admire these stunning leopard-spotted plants, I was finally able to get a good whiff of the scent.

It’s chalky green-gray and covered in sticky webs. Its branches are rangy like tentacles with spiky flower heads bending in all directions. It looks like something from Halloween or a 1950’s sci-fi movie. What is it?