Jim Steele is one of the local experts in the recognition of bird song & calls, as well as a popular avian hike leader. He will stick mainly to the Creekside & field areas of our Park, but be ready with good shoes & binoculars, as he will go where the songs are.

Children will hear from insects, birds, critters of all sorts about their adventures during Storytime, the first half-hour of Children’s Hour. Children will then draw/color these interesting creatures during Art Buzz, the second half-hour.

Christopher Quock of San Francisco State University, will be leading an Insect field trip for the Friends and for general public on Saturday, June 8, at 11am in SPVP.

Craig Nikitas, now Chief Operator at Bay Raptor Rescue, will deliver a program on the Cooper’s Hawk, a bird he’s come to know quite well; the photo at left shows him holding one he recently rescued in SF. The Program starts at 6pm on Sat, June 22, at our Visitor Center.

Morgan Stickrod ‘s Saturday, July 6th, 5pm talk will highlight the amazing biodiversity and beauty of the native plants of
California, a flora we treasure and work hard to protect.

Join Clinical Western Herbalist, Krista R. Herbe, RH(AHG), for a season centered look into the medicinal properties of Bay Area native plants. In this lecture scheduled for Saturday, Aug 17, at 5 pm, Krista will share how plants can provide nutrition, improve digestion, heal the skin, treat common diseases and boost the immune system. Highlighting the medicinal, energetic, and spiritual properties of individual plants & their European counterparts, she will also share a few common invasive species and how to use those ‘weeds’.

Renowned photographer and film-maker Robert Cala will take us through a photographic journey of onland creatures. Join for a fascinating look at intimate scenes of hummingbirds and other creatures captured beautifully.

Amateur astronomer Bing Quock will give us a tour of the heavens, including seasonal constellations, notable deep-sky objects, & a sneak peek at a few upcoming astronomical events.

Once again, Corky Quirk will bring live bats, disabled ones, to our Visitor Center, this time on Saturday, Nov. 9, at 3pm. However, they will still have the same voracious appetite that the flyers in the darkness have, as you will see when she dangles mealworms in front of their jagged-toothed mouths, realtime, on our screen.

Dr. V. Thomas Parker, who presented a program on the effects of climate change on California plants one year ago, will present again at 3pm on Saturday afternoon, the 25th of January. This time he will explore in some detail how wildfires have been a major ecological process in the “Golden State” for millennia, and how our state’s plants have adapted to it.

Join us at 3pm on Saturday, February 15, for Morgan Stickrod’s program on the ecosystems of these craggy islands. In his own words: “A mere 30 miles offshore from the bustling metropolis of San Francisco, the Farallon Islands can seem more wild and remote than some of North America’s most geographically isolated wilderness areas.