Copeland Creek

Copeland Creek “Clean-up”

Last weekend, we had the first Copeland Creek event of the fall semester: a clean-up sponsored by JUMP and the Friends of Copeland Creek campus club. We had a small turnout, but it was a fantastic day out on the creek! Originally, we’d intended to pick up garbage and go after some of the Himalayan blackberry that’s creeping back into the restoration areas. When we went out to get started, however, I decided that there was more wild radish to be dealt with (and it’s much easier to work with than the blackberry – no thorns!!), so we had a radish-removal day instead.

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By Wendy, ago

Fairfield Osborn Field Trip

I had a super fun time today doing something old, and something new! For the first time, I took some of my College of Marin students on an actual off-campus field trip, and we went to a place I have visited countless times before: Sonoma State’s Fairfield Osborn Preserve. I offered this optional weekend trip to my Introduction to Biology students for extra credit, and it was a fantastic day!

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By Wendy, ago
Bobcat

Wildlife Camera Spring 2023

April 7 through May 2, 2023

My Vertebrate Biology students deployed a wildlife camera on April 7th, which I retrieved on May 20. Water was flowing in the creek throughout the entire deployment. The only unfortunate thing is that I must have set the photo resolution too high, as my 2GB memory card ran out of space on May 2. But even so, I was excited to see the variety of wildlife that we caught on the camera. This entry features just some of my favorite shots. All my wildlife camera photos (from 2016 to present) can be found on wildlifeinsights.org.

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By Wendy, ago

Vertebrate Biology BioBlitz

May 20, 2022
09:00 to 11:30

Rather than giving my Vertebrate Biology students a conventional written final exam, I decided to do something more adventurous: have them participate in a BioBlitz on campus so I could assess their knowledge of local wildlife and identification techniques. For anyone not familiar with the term, a BioBlitz is an effort to document biodiversity in a given location during a certain period of time. While the structure of these events can vary, the idea is to identify as many species as possible in the time you are given.

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By Wendy, ago
Northern Pacific Rattlesnake

Vertebrate Biology Field Trip to Fairfield Osborn Preserve

For the first time since COVID, I’m able to take my students on field trips again, and we had a fantastic one yesterday. I took my upper division Vertebrate Biology class to one of our university’s preserves: the Fairfield Osborn Preserve on Sonoma Mountain. One of the preserve’s researchers and naturalists – Julie Wittmann – was our host for the day, and our primary target was herpetofauna (reptilian vertebrates and amphibians). We started out by surveying some of the coverboards that were established in 2015, and then we headed down to the creek to look for salamanders. All along the way, we saw AMAZING wildlife, with a couple of absolute highlights for the day.

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By Wendy, ago

The Historical Whereabouts of Copeland Creek

By Camille Mariner: An Afternoon Stroll through History On September 7th, Wendy St. John and I went on a walkabout through the outskirts of Copeland creek nearest to the community garden of SSU. We began a conversation about the history of the creek, where the headwaters were, recent projects and Read more

By Guest, ago

The Wonders of Copeland Creek

By Andrea Rossi: On August 23rd, Wendy St. John educated the Sonoma State University (SSU) Restoration Ecology class about the history of Copeland Creek. We all got clearer understanding of what the creek used to look like as well as how efforts to restore the creek continue to be made Read more

By Guest, ago