can be found in Sugarloaf Ridge State Park, Black Diamond Mines Regional Preserve, and Henry W. Coe State Park.
RIPARIAN WOODLAND
Found beside creeks and rivers, these trees and shrubs provide the Bay Area’s best hope for an autumn display of color. Common riparian species include bigleaf maple, white alder, red alder, California bay, various willows, California rose, poison oak, California wild grape, elk clover, and giant chain fern. Point Reyes National Seashore and Monte Bello Open Space Preserve give you opportunities to enjoy this community.
REDWOOD FOREST
At one time, coast redwoods blanketed the Pacific coast from central California to southern Oregon. These giants are the world’s tallest trees and are among the fastest-growing. Commercially valuable, they were heavily logged, especially in the Santa Cruz Mountains. The remaining old-growth coast redwoods in the Bay Area are confined a few areas, most notably Muir Woods National Monument in Marin County and Armstrong Redwoods State Reserve in Sonoma County. Associated with redwoods are a number of plant species, including tanbark oak, California bay, hazelnut, evergreen huckleberry, wood rose, redwood sorrel, western sword fern, and evergreen violet. You can visit second-growth redwood forests and see a few old-growth giants at Muir Woods National Monument, Redwood Regional Park, and Purisima Creek Redwoods Open Space Preserve.
DOUGLAS-FIR FOREST
These majestic trees often occupy similar habitats as coast redwoods, but thrive where soil conditions do not favor redwood growth. In many parts of the Bay Area, Douglas-fir is the “default” evergreen, easily told by its distinctive cones, which have protruding, three-pointed bracts, sometimes called rats’ tails. Like redwood, Douglas-fir is prized for its lumber. Some of the common plants associated with Douglas-fir are the same as those associated with coast redwood, namely California bay, tanbark oak, and western sword fern. Others include blue blossom, coffeeberry, and poison oak. Point Reyes National Seashore, Mt. Tamalpais State Park, and El Corte de Madera Creek Open Space Preserve have beautiful Douglas-fir forests.
Coast redwoods grow in association wtih other trees and shrubs, creating a plant community.
MIXED EVERGREEN FOREST
A mixture of evergreen trees, including California bay, canyon oak, coast live oak, and madrone, comprises this community. The understory often contains shrubs such as toyon, blue elderberry, hazelnut, buckbrush, snowberry, thimbleberry, oceanspray, and poison oak. Carpeting the forest floor may be an assortment of wildflowers, including milk maids, fairy bells, mission bells, hound’s tongue, and western heart’s-ease. Take a stroll through a mixed evergreen forest at China Camp State Park, Dry Creek Pioneer Regional Park, Sierra Azul Open Space Preserve, and Edgewood Park and Preserve.
CHAPARRAL
This community is made up of hardy plants that thrive in poor soils under hot, dry conditions. Chaparral is very susceptible to fire, but some of its members, such as various species of manzanita, survive devastating blazes by sprouting new growth from ground-level burls. Although chaparral foliage is mostly drab, the flowers of many species are beautiful, with some blooming as early as December. The word chaparral comes from a Spanish term for dwarf or scrub oak, but in the Bay Area it is chamise, various manzanitas, and various species of ceanothus that dominate the community. Other chaparral plants include mountain mahogany, yerba santa, toyon, chaparral pea, and poison oak. You can study this fascinating assembly of plants on Pine Mountain, Mt. Diablo, and at Sierra Azul and Rancho San Antonio open space preserves.
GRASSLANDS
Few if any grasslands in the Bay Area have retained their native character. Human intervention, in the form of fire suppression, farming, and livestock grazing, along with the invasion of nonnative plants, has significantly altered the landscape. Gone from most areas are the native bunchgrasses, perennial species that once dominated our area. Remaining, thankfully, are native wildflowers, which decorate the grasslands in spring and summer. Among the most common are bluedicks, California poppy, owl’s-clover, checkerbloom, lupine, and blue-eyed grass. Look for these at Skyline Wilderness Park, Sunol Wilderness, Joseph D. Grant County Park, and Russian Ridge Open Space Preserve.
COASTAL SCRUB
Also called soft chaparral, this community consists mostly of shrubs and grasses growing near the coast. Among the most common members are California sagebrush, coyote brush, toyon, bush monkeyflower, and various brooms. Point Reyes National Seashore, Tilden Regional Park, and San Bruno Mountain are all excellent places to find coastal scrub.
Animals
MAMMALS
It’s always a thrill to see a coyote or a bobcat from the trail, but these sightings are uncommon. Glimpses of mountain lions are more rare still, but these large predators are present in the Bay Area, mostly in the more remote parks. Other, more common mammals in our area include squirrels, rabbits, deer, gray fox, raccoon, skunk, opossum, and chipmunk. Wild pigs have invaded some Bay Area parks and their rooting does extensive damage. Stay away from these dangerous animals.
BIRDS
Located on the western edge of the Pacific Flyway, the Bay Area is a great place to go birding. The large variety of species results from the wide range of habitats—seashore to mountain—present here. Birders at Point Reyes National Seashore, the area with perhaps the greatest variety of birds, have logged an impressive 440 different species, or just under half of all bird species found in North America north of Mexico. Large numbers of individual birds reside in the Bay Area year-round, pass through on migration, or winter here. For the common names of birds of the continental United States and Canada, the American Ornithologists’ Union’s (AOU) checklist is the authoritative resource. It can be found at www.aou.org/checklist/north/index.php.
Early spring is a good time to spot birds at Sonoma Valley Regional Park.
Common birds seen from the trails include acorn woodpeckers, western scrub-jays, Steller’s jays, spotted towhees, dark-eyed juncos, sparrows, and California quail, the state bird. Hawks, falcons, vultures, golden eagles, and kites soar above many Bay Area parks. If you learn to “bird by ear,” identifying species by their distinctive notes, calls, and songs, you will quickly expand your list, because many birds are frustratingly hard to spot, especially in dense foliage. Birding with a group also improves your odds of seeing and identifying a large number of species, including rarities.
REPTILES AND AMPHIBIANS
A variety of snakes are present in the Bay Area, including California kingsnake, rubber boa, California whipsnake, yellow-bellied racer, garter snake, gopher snake, and western rattlesnake. Gopher snakes are often mistaken for rattlers, but a gopher snake has a slim head and a fat body, whereas a rattlesnake has a relatively thin body compared with its large, triangular head. Gopher snakes are common, but rattlers are seldom seen.
The ubiquitous western fence lizard is probably the Bay Area’s most commonly seen reptile. Also here are the California whiptail, a lizard with a tail as long as its body, the alligator lizard, and the western skink. An animal resembling a lizard but actually an amphibian is the California newt, which spends the summer buried under the forest floor, then emerges with the first rains and migrates to breed in ponds and streams. Briones Regional Park and Monte Bello Open Space Preserve are among good places to witness these migrations. Other amphibians you might see or hear include western toad and Pacific tree frog.
Comfort,
