Nature's Archive

Today, Dr. Stuart Weiss unravels an amazing and unexpected series of discoveries that connect cows, cars, and conservation, all triggered by the study of the threatened Bay Checkerspot butterfly. These discoveries have had reverberations across ecological circles and have led to amazing conservation successes, despite a senior US Air Force official calling the tiny butterfly a national security th...

Finally - a deep dive into the Fungi Kingdom thanks to Damon Tighe ( instagram , iNaturalist )! Damon is a skilled naturalist, photographer, science communicator, and biotech educator. He has a biology and chemistry degree from Saint Mary’s college, and has years of professional experience in genomics and DNA sequencing, including with the Human Genome Project at the National Lab’s Joint Genome In...

Today you'll become a Beaver Believer thanks to my guest, Ben Goldfarb. Ben is the author of the book Eager: The Surprising, Secret Life of Beavers and Why They Matter , winner of the 2019 PEN/E.O. Wilson Literary Science Writing Award. Aside from being an author, Ben is an environmental journalist, with writing appearing in The Atlantic, Science, The Washington Post, and many other esteemed...

Today's episode could be broadly described as “how to maximize your time in the field”, whether it be casual hikes, random walks in nature, goal-driven hikes, or BioBlitzes.   And our guests are Chloe and Trevor Van Loon. Chloe has a background in ecology and environmental science, and while Trevor’s educational background is in math and computer science, he’s also become a fanatical amateur...

My guest in this episode is Dr. Andrew Farnsworth. Andrew is a Senior Research Associate in the Center for Avian Population Studies at the Cornell Lab of Ornithology , and has a BS in Natural Resources from Cornell University, MS in Zoology from Clemson University, and PhD in Ecology and Evolutionary Biology from Cornell. Andrew started birding at age 5 and quickly developed a fascination with bir...

This is an encore of my popular wildfire in the west interview with Rick Halsey of the California Chaparral Institute. Don't worry, more great new episodes are coming.  Do you want to learn about bird migration forecasting? I’ve got you covered. And how about maximizing your nature observations when in the field? Covered again. And I have a bunch of other episodes and new projects in the work...

My guest today is Cricket Raspet. Cricket is a Curatorial Assistant at the California Academy of Sciences, specializing in marine mammals.  She’s a passionate community scientist, raptor bander with GGRO and a rescue and animal care volunteer at the Marine Mammal Center.  An interest (obsession?) with the colorful sea slugs of the pacific coast led her from the tidepools to the strange community o...

Dr. Merav Vonshak is a former guest on the podcast from episode 7 . Merav is an ecologist, naturalist, and citizen science organizer (see BioBlitz.club ) located in the San Francisco Bay Area. Merav volunteers as a curator on iNaturalist, and has an astounding 42800 observations on iNaturalist. She has also lead a project to document and raise awareness about the tragically high roadkill mortality...

My guest today is Dr. Jaret Daniels. Dr. Daniels is a professor specializing in lepidoptera research and insect conservation at the University of Florida, and is curator of Lepidoptera at the  Florida Museum of Natural History . In addition to that, Dr. Daniels is the author of over a dozen books that help connect the general public to butterflies, insects, and gardening for wildlife. These includ...

Galls are beautiful and sometimes bizarre growths on plant tissues induced by another organism, such as a wasp, midge, or others. They often develop vivid colors and evocative shapes, and have fascinating natural histories. And Adam Kranz is here to help us understand what a gall is, their lifecycles, how to find them, and about Gallformers.org , a website designed to be the authoritative resource...

My guests in this episode are Dr. Carrie Olson-Manning and Sydney Kreutzmann. Dr. Olson-Manning is an Assistant Professor at Augustana University, has a Ph. D. in Evolutionary Genetics from Duke University, and leads the Olson-Manning Lab which focuses on understanding how biochemical pathways evolve. Sydney Kreutzmann is a Research Technician in Dr. Olson-Manning's lab , working on a number...

My guest today is Brandon Kong. Brandon is a conservation field technician at Stanford University, is studying Ecology and Evolutionary Biology at UC Santa Cruz, and has a particular passion for “herping” , which is looking for and studying the nature of reptiles and amphibians. Brandon’s studies and field work give him plenty of hands-on herping experience, and he shares many of his amazing finds...

Today's guest is Dr. Doug Tallamy, and let me say up-front that the episode title doesn't really do justice to our wide ranging discussion! Doug Tallamy is the T. A. Baker Professor of Agriculture in the Department of Entomology and Wildlife Ecology at the University of Delaware, where he has authored over 100 research publications and has taught insect related courses for 40 years. Chie...

My guest today is Danielle Husband. Danielle is a graduate student studying dragonflies and damselflies at the McIntyre Lab at Texas Tech University. In particular, she is studying the west Texas playas, salinas, and urban catchments, and their suitability for odonates. Today’s episode is full of great topics. We discuss the importance of wetlands in general, and drill down into the specifics of t...

"Just because it's a view you've seen your whole life doesn't mean it's a normal, healthy forest." See full show notes here, with links to all topics discussed. My guest today is Dr. Justin Angle, creator of the podcast series “ Fireline ”, which dives into the realities of wildfire in the western USA. Justin is Associate Professor of Marketing at The University of Mo...

This episode is a special one that warrants a special introduction. Today, you are going to hear all about Wasps with award winning author Heather Holm. But rather than me interviewing Heather, this is actually an episode from the Backyard Ecology podcast . Shannon Trimboli, the creator of Backyard Ecology, and I have become fans of each other’s shows. We decided it would be fun, and hopefully val...

My guests today are Scott Whittle and Mike Lanzone of Project Terra and Cellular Tracking Technologies .  Scott is a bird expert and author. His passion for the natural world has led to co-authoring The Warbler Guide , the Warbler Guide App, and contributing to the Birdgenie bird song identification app. Mike is a Research Biologist turned technologist, and is the Founder and CEO of CTT - Cellular...

My guest today is John Griffith, or better known as Griff. Griff is a Natural and Cultural Resources Interpreter for California State Parks, and host of the Animal Planet show “ Wild Jobs ”. Prior to that, Griff was a long time crew supervisor in the California Conservation Corps, where he and his crew restored habitat throughout Northern California. Griff’s love of nature and infectious personali...

My guest in this episode is Dr. Yiwei Wang. Yiwei is the Executive Director at the San Francisco Bay Bird Observatory , or SFBBO for short (find SFBBO on FB and IG ). Yiwei grew up in the South Bay (San Francisco Bay Area) and has called that area home for most of her life. She attended Cornell University and double majored in Biology and Psychology. Returning to the west coast, she worked for a v...

My guest in this episode is Chris Helzer. When I started this podcast nearly a year ago, Chris was on my short list of people I wanted to interview, so I’m very happy that the day has come. Chris is The Nature Conservancy’s Director of Science in Nebraska, where his main role is to evaluate, capture, and share lessons from the Conservancy’s land management and restoration work. Chris is the creato...

You’re gonna be liken this episode. Well, let me rephrase that - you’re going to like this episode about lichen. What’s a lichen? If you’ve hiked just about anywhere, you’ve probably seen one. They are colorful organisms that grow on rocks, tree branches, and even fence posts. Around where I live, I see lichens growing on people’s roofs, too! I called them organisms because they are complicated. S...

My guest today is Alvaro Jaramillo. Alvaro is a highly regarded ornithologist and birder with a long list of authored books and published papers. Born in Chile, raised in Canada, he’s lived in California for the last several years where he operates “ Alvaro’s Adventures ”, a birding-centric tour company that specializes in combining birding with local cultures across the globe. Alvaro has a BS in...

Today’s guests are Tora Rocha and Terry Smith, founders of the Oakland, California based Pollinator Posse . The Pollinator Posse creates pollinator-friendly landscaping and fosters appreciation of local ecosystems through outreach, education and direct action. They engage with municipalities, land owners, golf courses, garden groups, and the general public to help people become better stewards of...

Today’s guests are Tora Rocha and Terry Smith, founders of the Oakland, California based Pollinator Posse . The Pollinator Posse creates pollinator-friendly landscaping and fosters appreciation of local ecosystems through outreach, education and direct action. They engage with municipalities, land owners, golf courses, garden groups, and the general public to help people become better stewards of...

My guest in this episode is Brian Sullivan. Brian is a long-time leader at the Cornell Laboratory of Ornithology , where he currently serves as Digital Publications Lead, managing the Birds of the World project, and he has previously served as project leader for eBird from 2005 to 2017. Brian has conducted fieldwork on birds throughout North America for the past 25 years.  Birding travels, photogr...