If you visit the Placerita Canyon Nature Center right now, you will be welcomed by the noise of jackhammers and a busy team of workers handling concrete and new electrical wiring. Outside on the trail, nature is always beautiful and peaceful, and the autumn foliage shines in the golden light. So my recommendation...

“Young adult Western literature” is where I read about aspen trees for the first time. As I grew up in Paris, France, I had never seen an aspen in real life, but I was an avid reader – and those books took me to new territories beyond my own borders. I was entertained by the endless conflicts...

We have many regularly scheduled hikes at Placerita Canyon State Park. The idea of a hike is well understood by the public at large: You go from point A to point B as fast as possible; the rewards will be that your health will improve, your muscles will get some exercise, and you might even lose some...

We are so familiar with most of the animals at Placerita Canyon that we acknowledge them with a simple nod of recognition as they pass along: ground squirrels, hawks, woodpeckers, scrub jays. We get excited and the cameras come out when a coyote or bobcat is spotted. Those sightings are written on the...

We tend to forget that 30 minutes from the Valencia mall, we have areas of wilderness where it’s possible to encounter a bear. Towsley Canyon borders East Canyon, and the two add up to a large piece of safe territory for a bear to survive. While a bear is mostly content eating berries, roots, foliage,...

Most of us are actually wonderful bird watchers. We have vast knowledge and don’t even realize it. “How is that possible? I have never gone bird watching with a group, and I do not even own a pair of binoculars,” you ask. I will issue a challenge: You can already recognize many birds without...

With these first warm days of early summer, cicadas have started their loud song, and suddenly people wonder where this noise is coming from. California has about 65 species of cicadas. They are not locusts; they are more closely related to leafhoppers and spittlebugs, and we have them every year. They...

Would you like to adopt some wildlife? I sure hope you have no problem slicing into a dead rat, if you want a raptor. Also, their enclosures need to be constructed according to Fish and Wildlife recommendations, and yes, they are large, so that is going to take a good portion of your backyard. They need...

What do Ventura and Baja, California, have in common during the last two weeks of March and the first week of April? They are on the migration path of the gray whale, going north to Alaska. Some of the whales go all the way to the Bering Sea. I just came back from an incredible week in Baja’s Sea of...

I received this phone call a while ago: “Evelyne, I need help. A coworker found a baby barn owl in the parking lot, put it in a box and brought it to the office. What should I do?” Sometimes I hate springtime. You’re dealing with someone with a big heart who wants to help a bird in distress –...