This snake charmer wrangles rattlers and advocates for the misunderstood reptiles

• June 4, 2025

As a San Francisco transplant in Landers, CA, Danielle Wall didn’t exactly plan to become the High Desert’s go-to snake wrangler. But one encounter with a rattlesnake in the middle of the road — paired with a lifelong soft spot for misfits and misunderstood creatures — changed her trajectory.

What started with a stick and a shaky hand quickly became a full-blown calling. These days, the former lingerie model is the one locals call when a rattler shows up uninvited. No hazmat suit, no bravado. Just Wall in her thrifted cowboy boots with a pair of tongs and a knack for staying calm when everyone else is climbing the furniture.

Her mission goes beyond snake removal: she’s out to dismantle the fear around these misunderstood and maligned reptiles — one call, one Instagram story, one wild encounter at a time.

Q: Let’s start from the beginning. What’s the story of your first rattlesnake rescue?

A: Total accident. I was working a 9 to 5, driving a boring Honda Civic, managing a wedding venue out in Pipes Canyon, and one day I nearly ran over a rattlesnake. I pulled over, because I don’t want anything dying — but there’s no phone service, so I couldn’t call for help. I eventually found a stick, and I poked it, and it scooted off. I was like, “Well, that wasn’t so scary.” That moment changed everything.

Q: What made you think this could be more than a one-time thing?

A: I was always, like, a nature freak, and I’ve done pit bull rescue. So I tried to see what was in place for humane snake removal, and everything was kill, kill, kill, kill, kill. I realized there was no one to wrangle them, and I thought, how hard could it be?

Q: And you’re self-taught? No formal certifications?

A: There’s no rattlesnake certification in California. It’s all a grey area with [the Department of] Fish & Wildlife, so I only work on private property, moving snakes within their home range. I operate in an in-between space — trying to do good in a system that hasn’t caught up yet.

Q: Did you face any barriers when you first entered the field?

A: Early on, I reached out to a high-level pro in the snake world, and he told me, “Sit down, little girl. You’re going to get hurt.” So I decided: I’m going to become better than you. I’m going to become better than everyone. Suddenly, I had a life purpose.

Q: How did you spread the word about your work?

A: One Facebook post. A woman needed a snake moved, and everyone in the comments said, “Kill it.” I said I’d help. That turned into 50 calls that year. Now I get hundreds. I’ve never stopped. I started doing it for free, and I still do it all as a volunteer. I know what it’s like to make money, and this work feels better than making money.

Q: What happens when someone calls you about a snake?

A: I ask for a photo, if it’s safely possible. If it’s a rattlesnake, I go. If it’s a harmless red racer, I don’t unless it’s trapped. I work my butt off to respond fast. But I don’t charge, so I have to keep it local. I’ve had people offer hundreds for a house call an hour-and-a-half away, but if I’m gone for three hours, I could miss three local emergencies.

Q: What’s your go-to gear?

A: Snake tongs, which are like big, glorified barbecue tongs. A two-foot hook. A secure clear-front catch bin. And always boots — mid-calf or higher. I thrift them. I don’t use gloves; I’ve got small hands, and most gear is made for men. In most situations, my hands are away from the snake anyway.

Q: You must get asked this a lot, but I have to know: Have you ever been bitten?

A: No. It’s so easy to not get bitten. Most bites in the U.S. [about 75-80 percent of venomous snake bites] happen to young men — the two main reasons are testosterone and booze. So I’m cautious, but I know the data. Statistically what I do is much safer than driving down Old Woman Springs Road every day.

Q: Any close calls?

A: Never from a snake. But people? Absolutely. Steve Irwin said it best about crocodiles: they don’t pretend to be your friend before trying to eat you. Snakes are predictable. People aren’t.

Q: What do people misunderstand most about rattlesnakes?

A: That they’re aggressive. They’re not. They’re defensive. They don’t chase you. They just want to be left alone. Rattlesnakes behave more like feral kittens than monsters. If you don’t touch them, they won’t touch you.

Q: When you respond to a snake call, you relocate them. How far do you take them?

A: I try to keep it within their home range, ideally under a mile. If you move them too far, they’re likely to die. It’s all about striking a balance between safety and survival.

Q: After a wildfire, what actually happens to the snakes? Are people more likely to encounter them?

A: I’m no expert on fire ecology, but snakes definitely get displaced. Rattlesnakes are extremely territorial creatures that typically spend their entire 20-year lifespans within just a half-mile radius. They’re very routine, hermit-like animals. So while displacement definitely occurs after a disaster, these snakes won’t travel far from their original territory unless absolutely necessary.

Q: What advice do you have for people who encounter a snake?

A: Don’t touch it. Most bites happen because people get too close, often trying to take pictures. Use the zoom on your camera instead. Accidental bites do happen, but many are preventable with proper footwear and awareness. If you must move a snake off a porch or path, toss sand at it gently. Don’t poke it with a stick or broom.

Q: What’s something you wish people better understood about you and your work?

A: That I’m not doing this to be famous. I’m doing it because someone has to. I love these creatures. They’re misunderstood and vital to the ecosystem, just like hawks or owls. The more we can decrease fear by showing the true demeanor of snakes, the better.

Q: How can people support you?

A: Follow me on Instagram: @high_desert_dani. That’s where I post updates, calls and photos. (I don’t have a website; I’m not great with technology, I just like wrangling.)

Donations help. Venmo is linked there, too. I don’t charge for calls, so anything helps with gas, gear, wear and tear on my truck. But mostly, support by spreading the word: there is a way to live with rattlesnakes without killing them.

​ Orange County Register 

Butterflies are in peril. Here’s what we can do.

• June 4, 2025

Butterflies need our help.

During the past four decades, scientists have documented a 1.6 percent decline per year in the number of butterflies in the southwestern United States.

Doesn’t sound like much? Consider how that figure compounds over the years.

“This means that since 1977, scientists have observed a whopping 64 percent drop in butterfly numbers, which comports with my own childhood memories of butterflies in Southern California,” says Adriana Briscoe, distinguished professor of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology at UC Irvine. “Thirty-two of 50 species of butterflies showing declines over this period occur in Orange County. Across the U.S., over a 20-year period starting in 2000, butterflies have continued their decline by a similar amount.”

Besides lifting spirits with their beauty, butterflies serve important environmental functions: Butterflies are indicators of overall ecosystem health. They’re important plant pollinators, and also a food source for birds and wild animals.

“The decline of butterflies is a factor in the decline of birds and other animals,” Briscoe says.

But there’s hope: We can all do things to ensure the butterfly’s future.

Because butterflies are a short-lived, annual organism, populations will generally react strongly and quickly to changes in their environment — both negatively or positively — explains Ron Vanderhoff, general manager and vice president at Roger’s Gardens in Corona del Mar. He’s also a principal contributor to the book “The Butterflies of Orange County, California” and the Orange County coordinator for the Xerces Society’s Western Monarch Butterfly Count.

Here are simple actions we can all take to make things better for our local butterfly populations:

Toss the pesticides, insecticides and herbicides.

Brisco says the biggest declines in insect abundances, back in the 1990s, coincided with the introduction of neonicotinoid pesticides. Here’s a list of common gardening products that contain the chemical.

A 2022 study of milkweeds purchased from nurseries found that every single plant contained pesticides, and one-third of sampled plants contained pesticides at levels which are harmful to monarch caterpillars.

Says Briscoe: “As someone who rears butterfly caterpillars for my research, I can verify from personal experience that if you treat a plant with pesticide, it takes a very long time for the plant to become safe to eat.”

Instead, do companion planting.

Kim Neal, garden manager at Casa Romantica Cultural Center and Gardens in San Clemente, says companion planting in gardening is the planting of different plants in proximity with each other for weed suppression, pest control, pollination and to draw in beneficial insects — eliminating the need for insecticides, herbicides and pesticides.

Grow it yourself.

Since we can’t control all of the pesticides, insecticides and herbicides used in our environment, Briscoe recommends that home gardeners grow plants from seeds. “If you do purchase plants from a nursery, you might try changing the soil before planting it in the ground,” she said. “That way you are less likely to put plants in the garden which are toxic to the caterpillars you are trying to help.”

Plant both host plants for caterpillars to develop and nectar plants for adult butterflies to eat. Here are some of Briscoe’s favorite host plants for butterflies in Southern California:

• Black sage (Salvia mellifera)
• Buckwheat (Eriogonum fasciculatum)
• California sage (Artemisia californica)
• Coast live oak (Quercus agrifolia)
• Deerweed (Lotus scoparius)
• Fourwing saltbush (Atriplex canescens)
• Narrowleaf milkweed (Asclepias fascicularis)

Kale also is a good host plant for some of the local pierid white butterflies. Some swallowtail butterflies lay eggs on citrus trees.

“Adding even a few host plants to our gardens can help a lot,” Briscoe said. “You’d be amazed by how efficient female monarch butterflies are at finding even a single host plant for laying their eggs.”

The best nectaring plant? Lantana.

“It is a hardy plant that can produce flowers year-round when planted in the ground and has medium-sized flowers for skippers — a kind of butterfly — and larger butterflies,” she said.

Also, buckwheat produces small, pinkish-white flowers that feed local butterflies.

“They have smaller flowers so butterflies with tiny proboscides can reach the nectar,” she said. “Butterfly bush (Buddleja) is also a good option, and of course, milkweed produces flowers which monarch adults will nectar from.”

Vanderhoff recommends calscape.org as a good resource for finding the types of local butterflies in an area as well as specific food plants for those butterflies.

Add a puddling area in your garden.

A plant tray filled with mud, gravel and plant material along with added water to keep it moist is a simple way to create a puddling area.

“Our butterfly garden here at Casa Romantica also has a puddling area for the butterflies to seek out nutrients from minerals in the decaying plant matter, mud and gravel,” she said. “It’s not unusual to see multiple butterflies in the puddling area at the same time.”

Shop for change.

“One of the best and most impactful ways to influence a change is with our shopping habits,” Vanderhoff said. “Simply said, do not support those businesses that do not align with your values of environmental health.

“If a garden retailer or landscape company is selling or installing invasive plant species, stop shopping there and tell them why. If the shelves and displays are stock full of butterfly-harming neonicotinoids and other insecticides, stop shopping there and tell them why. If the landscape company is installing a bed of acacia, Rhaphiolepis or another plant that does not support our native butterflies, insects and other pollinators, ask them to stop. If not, stop using that landscape company and tell them why.

“Our actions and our dollars usually speak louder than our words.”

​ Orange County Register 

Vietnam scraps 2-child policy as aging threatens economic growth

• June 4, 2025

By ANIRUDDHA GHOSAL

HANOI, Vietnam (AP) — Vietnam abolished its long-standing two-child limit on Tuesday to try and reverse declining birth rates and ease the pressures of an aging population.

The National Assembly passed amendments scrapping rules that limit families to having one or two children, state media Vietnam News Agency reported on Wednesday.

The rules were usually stricter for Communist Party members, who could miss out on promotions or bonuses if they had a third child.

Vietnamese families are having fewer children than ever before. The birth rate in 2021 was 2.11 children per woman, just over the replacement rate required for a population to avoid shrinking over the long term. Since then, the birth rate has steadily declined: to 2.01 in 2022, 1.96 in 2023 and 1.91 in 2024.

Vietnam isn’t the only Asian country with low fertility. But, unlike Japan, South Korea or Singapore, it is still a developing economy.

Nguyen Thu Linh, 37, a marketing manager in Vietnam’s capital Hanoi, said that she and her husband decided to have only one child because they wanted to give their 6-year-old son the best education and upbringing that they could afford.

“Sometimes, I think about having another child so my son can have a sibling, but there’s so much financial and time pressure if you have another child,” she said.

Vietnam introduced rules blocking families from having more than two children in 1988 to reduce pressure on limited resources after years of war, first with France and then the United States, as the country transitioned into a more market-oriented economy

Vietnam’s “golden population” period — when working age people outnumber those who depend on them — began in 2007 and is expected to last until 2039. The number of people who can work is likely to peak in 2042 and, by 2054, the population may start shrinking. All of this could make it harder to grow the economy, since there will be fewer workers while the cost of supporting the needs of the elderly increases.

Birth rates in Vietnam aren’t falling evenly. In Ho Chi Minh City — the country’s biggest city and economic hub — the fertility rate in 2024 was just 1.39 children per woman, much lower than the national average. At the same time, nearly 12% of the city’s population was over 60, putting pressure on welfare services. To help, local officials started offering about $120 to women who have two children before turning 35 last December.

It also offers some of the most generous family benefits in the region, including six months of fully paid maternity leave and free healthcare for children under six. Tuition in government schools is free until the age of 15 years and, starting in September it’ll be free till the end of high school.

Vietnam is also dealing with a unbalanced gender ratio, partly due to long-standing preferences for sons. According to state media, the distortion is more concentrated in Vietnam’s northern Red River delta, which includes Hanoi.

Doctors aren’t allowed to tell parents the baby’s sex before birth, and sex-selective abortions are banned. But despite this, some still hint at the baby’s gender using coded language, said state media VN Express, citing a government report.

On Tuesday, the health ministry proposed tripling the fine for choosing a baby’s sex before birth to $3,800, state media reported.

China imposed a one-child policy in 1979 amid worries about overpopulation. But as the country faces growing concerns about the long-term economic and societal challenges of an aging population, it has been slowly easing the policy to allow a second child and then a third child in 2021, but with little success in boosting birthrates.

Associated Press journalist Hau Dinh contributed to this report.

​ Orange County Register 

Monterey County offers nature enthusiasts treasures by land, sea and sky

• June 4, 2025

Monterey County may be known for its artist colonies, Cannery Row, golf tournaments and car races. But for real nature enthusiasts, it offers a wonderland of adventures.

The epic drive on Route 1 from Ragged Point to Carmel, with its steep cliffs, hairpin turns, and magnificent ocean views, is a must-do for any adventurous soul. But Stephen Copeland, who owns Big Sur Guides and Hiking, believes taking the time to explore the county’s many parks and nature preserves can be nothing short of life-changing.

Copeland moved from Southern California to Big Sur in 1971. When not working at the Nepenthe Restaurant, he would hike in the area, and soon decided to start a tour guiding business.

“I was enamored with nature,” Copeland says. “I just couldn’t believe what I was seeing, and I thought for sure people from around the world would want to come to see this. The power of nature in this particular place was so meaningful, in a God-like way. I mean, this was a religious experience, in my opinion.”

And in the years since he started his business, Copeland says he has seen many others fall in love with the area. He currently offers tours not just in Big Sur, but on the Monterey Peninsula and Carmel Valley, and they run the gamut from hiking in beaches and forests to walking tours in town, to seeing butterflies and flowers.

But while a guided tour is a great way to get an introduction to Monterey County, you can of course also explore on your own. And since there is so much to see, we are dividing the highlights into Land, Sea and Stars (because if you live in a big city, you seldom get to see the stars).

Land

Monterey County can certainly not be accused of lacking green space.

The National Park Service runs Pinnacles National Park, Fort Ord National Monument, Los Padres National Forest, and the Salinas National Wildlife Refuge, while state parks and reserves include the Elkhorn Slough, Fremont Peak State Park, Garrapata State Park, Julia Pfeiffer Burns State Park, Point Lobos State Natural Reserve, and the Pfeiffer Big Sur State Park.

And that doesn’t even include the many county parks, or state-owned land.

Copeland prefers to take his clients through state-owned lands, not parks, though some of his tours are on park trails. What is the difference? There are no bathrooms on state-owned lands, he says, so you must plan accordingly.

But taking one of his tours has other benefits.

“For the most part, we don’t hike people in places you can easily find,” Copeland says.

As for what animals you may see in those secret and less-secret places, it’s everything from bears, mountain lions, and bobcats; “I see them, I make a U-turn,” Copeland says.

Rattlesnakes are also around, as are deer and rabbits. But a favorite with tourists is the California condor, and they are easier to find since the state released several dozen condors into the wild.

Monterey County is also known for its butterflies. Pacific Grove, which sits between Pebble Beach and Monterey, is often called “Butterfly Town, U.S.A” and got its moniker because of its Monarch Grove Sanctuary.

Every year, usually between November and January, Western monarchs (there is also an Eastern variety, which goes to Mexico) migrate to California to avoid winter weather, and Pacific Grove has long been a favorite stop. The city owns and maintains the sanctuary, but the Pacific Grove Museum of Natural History, says museum naturalist Natalie Johnston, provides education in the form of volunteer docents and field trips. “In addition, we count the population of monarchs each week while monarchs are in Pacific Grove, as well as what trees the monarchs are on.”

Johnston is one of the people who counts the sanctuary’s monarchs every season, and unfortunately, this past year had many fewer winged visitors than the years just before.

Monarch butterflies are at risk (though not officially endangered). But while monarchs are of particular interest to scientists because their milkweed diet makes them toxic to predators, they also live longer and they migrate. Also, they are not the only butterflies in the county.

“One of the coolest things about the area is we have butterflies year-round,” Johnston says.

Different types of swallowtails, including western tiger, pale, and anise, can be seen at Jack’s Peak, Johnston says. Smith’s blue, which unlike the monarch is an official endangered species, can be found at Garrapata State Park. And even the Monarch Grove Sanctuary is not just for monarchs, Johnston says. Visitors have also spotted red admirals, which are considered “monarch mimics,” or butterflies who evolved to look like mimics to avoid predators. Other monarch mimics in the area include the American lady and the West Coast lady.

And though monarchs tend to prefer milkweed, Monterey County also is well-known for its many spring wildflowers.

Ice plants form a “purple carpet” along Ocean View Boulevard in Pacific Grove between April and June. Garrapata State Park features poppies and daisies. Pinnacles National Park also has poppies, along with lilies and larkspur. Garland Ranch and Fort Ord both offer lupines.

Sea

If marine critters are your thing, Monterey Bay Aquarium is always worth a visit. Built in the 1980s on the site of a former sardine cannery, the aquarium is world-renowned for its commitment to ocean conservation. And its many exhibits also showcase the local marine life, from sea otters to sea stars, so after a visit, you’ll be more familiar with what to expect in the wild.

Tidepools

The Monterey Peninsula’s rocky coast may not be ideal for swimmers or surfers, but it is a real bonanza for tide pool lovers. Rebecca Malkewicz, a marine naturalist at Monterey Bay Aquarium, is a big fan of tide pooling, and recommends Asilomar State Beach in Pacific Grove.

“You can literally go anywhere along the coastline there,” she says. “It’s just kind of fun to wander.”

But that’s not the only place worth a visit. Point Pinos has the always-popular Great Tide Pool. South of Asilomar, Pebble Beach’s 17-mile Drive has its share of tide pools (though for an $11.25 fee). Even farther south, Point Lobos’ tide pools are worth a look, though locals and tourists alike warn the preserve gets unbearably crowded at peak times. Also, you have to pay $10 per car, and parking is limited.

As for what you might see, sea stars are common, Malkewicz says, along with crabs, sea urchins and sea anemones. Less common are nudibranchs (better known as sea slugs) and, if you’re really lucky, octopuses.

To get the best tide pooling experience, Malkewicz recommends checking tide charts before visiting.

“You want the tide to show a negative number,” she says.

And even then, always keeping an eye on the ocean is a good idea. “Sneaker waves,” also known as sudden huge waves that surge higher up the beach to pull the unwary off rocks or sand and into the water, are not uncommon during the colder seasons. Other safety recommendations include wearing water-proof shoes with good soles that won’t slip so easily on wet rocks.

Tide pooling etiquette demands that you not remove any of the animals or plants you might see, and it’s best not to touch them or even get too close to them. (The aquarium has exhibits where you can touch tide pool denizens safely.)

“Leave everything as you found it, and don’t leave anything,” Malkewicz says.

Marine mammals

As for seeing bigger ocean animals such as seals, dolphins or whales, there are several companies based out of Monterey’s Fisherman’s Wharf or Moss Landing that offer boating trips. None are operated directly by the aquarium, but

likes to educate their clients as well as entertain. According to the company’s website, their tours are led by marine biologists, who also do research while on board.

But you can also see many of these animals from dry land, Malkewicz says. You just need binoculars and a bit of patience.

“Anywhere along the coastline with ‘point’ in its name,” she says, is a good start. That would include Point Pinos, Lovers’ Point, Point Lobos, and Cypress Point. Also, vista points along Route 1 can yield results on clear days.

Malkewicz says the whales you’re most likely to see, whether from a boat or from land, are humpbacks (the most common) and grey whales (on their migration between Alaska and Mexico). It’s also not unheard of to see orcas, fin whales and minke whales, though they are less predictable. Blue whales, the biggest animals on the planet, will also make an occasional appearance, depending on whether krill, their favorite food, ventures closer to shore.

There are plenty of dolphins, though many may not recognize the Risso’s dolphin, the most common to the area, as a dolphin because of its flatter face. Yes, there are stereotypical Flipper-like bottlenose dolphins around, but not as many as common dolphins, who also have a bottle-like nose, but different coloring, including a yellow streak along the side.

If seals and sea lions are your thing, you can find Harbor seals at Elkhorn Slough. They also gather on the beach at the Hopkins Marine Station in Pacific Grove, mostly during spring, which is pupping season. Elephant seals have a sanctuary at Piedras Blancas, just north of San Simeon. While not technically in Monterey County, they are a must-see if you are planning to take Route 1 to the Monterey Peninsula. Sea lions can usually be spotted along the Coast Guard Pier in Monterey. If you are a sea otter fan, they can often be seen anywhere between the Coast Guard Pier and Point Cabrillo in Pacific Grove.

As with the animals in tide pools, keeping your distance from marine mammals is key. Experts at NOAA recommend staying between 50 and 200 yards away, depending on the species.

Stars

Monterey County has long been known as a favorite playground for celebrities. Clint Eastwood still owns the Mission Ranch in Carmel (diners at the restaurant have been treated to his piano playing), and John Denver fans can pay tribute at the site of his fatal 1997 airplane crash in Pacific Grove.

But if you prefer stars of the celestial variety, there are many places where, weather permitting, you can get your fill of the firmament. That includes Pinnacles National Park, Asilomar State Beach, Pfeiffer Big Sur State Park, Andrew Molera State Park, Jack’s Peak Park, and Garland Ranch Regional Park. You can even often see the stars standing near or on the beach in Carmel, since the village has no streetlights.

Basically, any place without city lights and trees and an open unclouded sky can work, says Jean Perkins, an astronomer at the Monterey Institute for Research in Astronomy, or MIRA. MIRA was established in 1972, and its main facility in Carmel Valley, with a 36-inch telescope, was built in 1984.

While MIRA offers tours to the public during the summer, the telescope is only available to professional stellar astronomers. Stellar astronomy focuses on the birth, structure and evolution of stars. However, MIRA has a smaller facility in Marina, the Weaver Student Observatory, which has a 14-inch telescope available to the public during planned events, as well as to local high school students who study astronomy.

Unfortunately, because of its proximity to the ocean, the Marina facility’s telescope is “constantly fogged out,” Perkins says, adding that humidity is also a problem because dew gets on the telescope. And that’s not all.

“In general, humidity is bad news for astronomy,” explains astronomer Bob Berman in a 2005 piece for Discover Magazine. “Water absorbs light, especially light at the red end of the spectrum, coloring our view of the world … water vapor in the air takes a little bit of the red out of starlight before it reaches the ground.”

What this means, practically, is that many stars, nebulae and galaxies (and that includes our Milky Way) are much harder to see in humid air. It doesn’t even take fog or a marine layer — when the air is damp enough, it can dim the sky as much as 60 percent, Berman writes, even if it looks clear to the naked eye.

And that is why Monterey County’s monthly star parties (free and open to the public), are usually held in higher and drier locations like Garland Ranch and Laguna Seca (also known as the WeatherTech Raceway).

The parties are run by the MIRA Astronomy Club, which is an independent entity from the Institute, says the club’s lead coordinator Mark Tomalonis. The club started in 2013, and in 2014 joined the Jet Propulsion Laboratory’s Night Sky Network. The Network hosts web pages for astronomy clubs across the country, and while California’s Central Coast has several astronomy clubs, MIRA’s is unusual, Perkins says, because it has both professional and amateur astronomers as members, and she herself often attends the star parties.

Etiquette at the parties, Tomalonis says, includes no running around in the dark, no bright lights (like car headlights and phone screens), no touching the lenses or eyepieces, and being polite and taking turns looking through the telescopes after asking the owners. In return for good behavior, both the pros and amateurs will be thrilled to show you everything from a nebula in Orion’s belt, to Jupiter and its moons.

If you’re on your own, the light rules still apply.

“Leave your smartphone in your pocket!” Tomalonis advises.

That said, smartphone apps can also help you identify what you’re seeing. Perkins recommends one called Stellarium Mobile. To get around the brightness issue, she recommends installing a red-light filter app, such as RedLight or Twilight. You can also change the tint on your screen to red.

Happy stargazing!

​ Orange County Register 

How citizen science projects can expand your world – and help researchers

• June 4, 2025

A few months before my youngest child graduated high school, a couple of hawks built a nest in a big magnolia tree near our house. For several weeks, the birds swooped through the yard. Sometimes they carried sticks in their beaks. Often, they spattered the driveway and sidewalk with big poops the color and texture of Wite-Out. I began to recognize their high, shrill yips and to pick out their watchful silhouettes in distant sycamores.

By the time they began to sit on eggs, we’d put down a deposit on my daughter’s cap and gown. While she drove herself to parties and planned her last summer before college, my husband and I traded the binoculars back and forth, straining to catch a glimpse of this new family.

Inevitably, curious folks paused their dog walking or jogging. What were we looking at? We shared the binocs, pointed up at the tree. “Cooper’s hawks,” we said, pleased to introduce the neighbor on the ground to the neighbor in the sky.

Conservation biologist Thomas Lowe Fleischner defines natural history as a “practice of intentional focused attentiveness and receptivity to the more-than-human world, guided by honesty and accuracy.” By this definition, my husband and I might have been justified in feeling a bit like scientists, but it was meeting a local volunteer from a community science project, LA Raptor Study, that helped us truly understand the value of our observations.

Launched in 2017, by Daniel S. Cooper, Ph.D., in partnership with Friends of Griffith Park, LA Raptor Study trains volunteers — often called “community scientists” or “citizen scientists” — to document raptor activity. Over time, the group has expanded beyond the boundaries of the park to include six-sub regions including the southeastern San Fernando Valley, East Los Angeles and portions of Burbank, Glendale and Pasadena.

“It would be several full-time jobs to collect all this data,” said Cooper, a research associate in the ornithology department of NHMLA. Group effort enables Cooper and others to learn how the birds adapt to their urban environment. “Even basic questions,” he said, “like if you chop down a tree with a nest, does the hawk rebuild or no?”

He told me that the most common raptors — the red-tail hawk, Cooper’s hawk, red-shouldered hawk, and great horned owl — partition the city by habitat. Like movie stars, the red tails enjoy nesting in the Hollywood Hills, but LA Raptor Study volunteers also have found them in South Central and Koreatown.

According to Cooper, this is a territory expansion worth investigating, and one that, without extra boots on the ground, might have gone unnoticed. Volunteers also have located breeding pairs of American Kestrels in Boyle Heights. “They’ve vanished from the Santa Monicas and West LA,” Cooper said.

He wonders if a broken sprinkler has allowed grasshoppers and Jerusalem crickets to flourish. These preferred kestrel snacks may not exist in the lush, heavily fertilized lawns of the westside.

Opportunities abound

Community science projects exist across the country and throughout the world on a spectrum that includes major journeys, local ramblings and desktop investigations. Websites, such as SciStarter.org, catalogue in-person and online opportunities.

Depending upon your interest and availability, you might use your phone to track cloud formations or report on flowers and bees or spend an afternoon collecting water samples at a nearby beach or river. With our help, scientists can deepen their study of the tiny changes in temperature, humidity or pollutant levels that may contribute to larger ecological transformation.

The 2019 rescue of a fledgling owl introduced Nurit Katz to LA Raptor Study and, ultimately, set her on the path toward a PhD in ecology and evolutionary biology. She looks at how different factors in our urban environment affect nesting locations, and cites rodenticide and tree trimming as some of the biggest (and most easily avoidable) threats to the health of area raptors.

“I had some level of imposter syndrome around science,” said Katz, who is chief sustainability officer at UCLA and current co-director of the LA Raptor Study, “but I made some real discoveries and contributions as a volunteer and that made me think maybe I can do this.”

Some of the most successful community science projects, such as the Cornell Lab of Ornithology’s eBird, make logging data as easy as taking a photo with your phone. With more than 1 million users to date, the platform boasts nearly 2 million observations from all around the world creating a vast, publicly accessible, trove that broadens our knowledge of migration, species distribution, and biodiversity.

“You don’t have to do it perfectly,” said Brice Semmens, professor of Biological Oceanography, Marine Biology Scripps Institute at UC San Diego. “You just have to start trying.”

Semmens leads diving expeditions for the REEF Volunteer Fish Survey Project, ongoing since 1993. REEF’s public-access database makes it possible to see long-term change in populations of marine fish, and select invertebrate and algae species world-wide. Over the years, swimming community scientists have documented what Semmens calls “pretty fish, but pretty fish that aren’t supposed to be there,” such as the invasive lion fish.

“There are often surprises,” Semmens said. “Often not welcome surprises, but nonetheless important for understanding these sorts of cryptic changes in the ecosystem.”

All part of the ecosystem

Participating in community science reminds me that I, too, am a species in an ecosystem, and that the health of the skies, waters and forests relates as directly to me as to creatures who swim, fly or crawl.

I can think of almost no better example of our interconnectedness than phytoplankton. Allison Cusick, PhD, a biological oceanographer at Scripps Institute of Oceanography, has partnered with cruise ships in Antarctica to collect samples of the microscopic floating plants she calls an “invisible forest.” Built around the November-through-March tour season, Cusick’s study is an on-board educational activity that has provided a bounty of information for her studies of melting sea ice.

“The engagement potential is big,” she says. “I’ve got a captive audience.”

What starts as a bucket-list trip to Antarctica may turn out to be an eye-opening introduction to plants responsible for 50 percent of the world’s oxygen and the health of some of our most photogenic birds and mammals.

“If you know the pattern of your first food source,” Cusick says, “you can see the next pattern in the things that eat them.” Krill eat phytoplankton. Whales and penguins eat krill. We all breathe air. For all these things, we can thank a lifeform smaller than an eyelash.

Data collected regularly over the span of the tourist season gives Cusick a better sense of how the decline of sea ice affects phytoplankton. Chunkier plants seem to like colder water. “Some species are more nutritious than others,” she says. “It’s like a salad bar where you’ve lost all your kale. If all you’ve got is iceberg lettuce, you’ve got nutrient deprivation.”

The living systems of our world are so intertwined that this deprivation will eventually affect those bottles of krill-based Omega 3s on the shelf at your local drugstore. “Contributing to these projects is more than just gathering data,” Cusick said. “It’s inspiring new livelihoods, new hobbies, next-generation scientists and changemakers.”

It takes enormous amounts of raw data to illuminate more complex narratives, especially about species that are rare, vulnerable, threatened or endangered.

“A lot of funding for studies is short-term,” explained Zoe Raelyn Collins, MPA coordinator for Heal the Bay. “It’s good to go into it with a bank of information.”

To track the health of West Coast ocean waters, volunteers conduct monthly samplings in Marine Protected Areas (MPAs) near Malibu and Rancho Palos Verdes. They also track recreational activity. Since California has only had a network of MPAs for 10 years, this data is especially critical.

“We can assess whether current levels of enforcement are working and can advocate for stronger coastal management across the state,” said Collins, who added that volunteers are trained as land stewards and educators. “When you give people a way to get involved and show them there is a tangible way to make a difference in the world, they just light up.”

After three years as a volunteer with LA Raptor Study, Jenn Rose can easily identify a red-tail hawk, and also a kestrel, a merlin, a peregrine falcon, and so many others. On her daily commute from North Hollywood to Anaheim, she points out every single raptor.

“My focus was macro photography — spiders — and so I was always looking down,” she said. “But now the world is much bigger.”

Three years ago, those Cooper’s hawks in my tree hatched three eggs. We watched from a respectful distance as those fuzzy babies stretched their nubby wings, and held our breath as they made their first tentative explorations outside the nest. Their adult feathers took time to grow and, for a while, they looked moth-eaten and seemed completely at the mercy of all that is fierce and dangerous in this world. But then, one day, they took a short flight. And then another. Eventually, they soared.

Like our daughter, they’ve continued to return, on their own terms, for a visit now and then.

Resources

Budburst

eBird

Fjord Phyto

Globe Observer

Happy Whale

Heal the Bay

iNaturalist

LA Raptor Study

MPA Watch

Natural History Museum LA

Nurdle Patrol

SciStarter

​ Orange County Register 

The Mojave desert has a song all its own – if you take the time to listen

• June 4, 2025

Some believe the desert is silent.

They picture a vast mute nothing, hot enough to grill a steak on your vehicle’s hood and dry enough to chap your soul. They think of scorched plains, scrubby plants that look like they gave up trying, and a horizon that barely bothers to show up. A place made of absence.

But those people have not spent enough time with the Mojave.

They haven’t heard the wind chip away at rock like a sculptor, or the way a canyon answers itself with a ghostly “who, me?” They haven’t paused long enough to hear the hush between one rattle and the next, the percussive rhythm of something unseen sizing you up.

The desert doesn’t lack voice. It just doesn’t shout. And sometimes, if you’re lucky enough, the desert sings.

***

I like to drive desert highways, those unbending lines of asphalt that stretch toward the horizon like a wire pulled tight. I blast Lucinda Williams and floor it just enough that the drive becomes a kind of release, not from speed, but from gravity. Eventually, the landscape opens up like a question. A strange one. The kind you don’t answer, just follow.

My favorite stretch is when I take the back way from the Coachella Valley to Las Vegas, a road that thrums with solitude. Sometimes it gets so lonesome that I catch myself daydreaming about alien contact, not out of fear but a desire for companionship. My GPS claims the trip takes three hours. It always takes five. Time, like sound out here, doesn’t behave.

It’s along that route, between the skirted palms of Palm Springs and the neon seizure of Vegas, that the land rises and swells, nudging you to notice. To stop. This is the Mojave National Preserve — 1.6 million acres of desert made strange and sacred by lava flows, fossil beds, abandoned mines, creosote, Joshua trees. In the middle of it all rise the Kelso Dunes, 45 square miles of pale sand heaped like a dream misplaced, like some celestial toddler spilled a bucket across a granite floor.

***

For years, I passed them without stopping. A decade of drive-bys, of glancing and then continuing on, as if I wasn’t quite ready to be held by that kind of quiet.

Then one December, I pulled off the road. Not out of a plan, but out of ache. I had been feeling unmoored, like a tide cut loose from its moon. A sorrow that doesn’t speak, only settles — slow and inevitable — the way dust collects in a long-closed room. I thought maybe a walk in the desert might tether me back to something real, help me shake off the blues.

I keep a daypack in my trunk for moments like this. That day I threw it over one shoulder, tucked a water bottle inside, and slid in a piece of broken-down cardboard I’d been meaning to recycle, thinking maybe I’d ride it down a dune the way we used to sled hills as kids. I didn’t know yet whether I’d use it. I only knew I needed to climb.

I parked at the trailhead and stepped out of the car. It was like entering a snow globe drained of snow and shaken by heat. Everything was sand. Pale grains gleamed under the low winter sun, their edges rounded from the long alchemy of wind. The light ricocheted in all directions. The air was taut and breathless, like a held note waiting to be struck.

I headed toward the tallest dune — a mound that looked soft and harmless from a distance, like a big pile of sifted cake flour. This, of course, was a lie.

Sand is a trickster. From afar, it promises gentleness. Up close, it devours your ankles. You think you’re hiking, but really you’re drowning upward. For each step forward, the dune takes some of it back. So I climbed, and the dune slipped away beneath me. I climbed more. Still, it yielded.

I realized this is not the kind of terrain where you seek solid footing. The sand will not offer it. Instead, it gives something more valuable: a lesson in how to move when the ground won’t hold you. How to persist without purchase. How to balance atop uncertainty and still keep going.

Halfway up — lungs straining, heart loud in my ears — it struck me that this wasn’t just a climb. It was a mirror. Of now. Of these strange, teetering times. The shifting ground beneath me, the faltering steps, the way each effort slid backward before it counted. It all felt familiar. There’s no firm path, only the insistence to keep moving, even when you can’t see where forward leads.

The summit appeared. I tried to run. My legs buckled. I crawled the final feet, hands sinking into the grit. At the top, I sat and breathed.

Then I remembered the cardboard folded flat in my pack. I pulled it out and perched on it, the way I did with a sled on snowy hills in Ohio. Gave it a little nudge. Nothing.

So I threw myself forward. And that’s when it happened. The dune trembled. A deep vibration rose from the sand, felt first in my hips, my knees, my chest. Then sound. A long, low, resonant hum. Not loud but wide, like a didgeridoo in the underworld. A sound that bypassed the ears and went straight to the bones.

The dune was singing.

I froze. Let the sound ripple through me. The boom continued, low and haunted, the voice of a landscape exhaling.

What I triggered was not magic, though it felt like it. It was geophysics disguised as wonder, a phenomenon known as “booming” or “singing” sand. The sound, deep and unplaceable, comes not from wind or from otherworldly creatures (though Marco Polo in the 13th century described similar noises in the Gobi Desert as “spirits talking”), but from the sand itself in motion.

At Kelso, the ingredients align just right. The grains are remarkably uniform — mostly quartz and feldspar, worn smooth by wind and time. They’ve traveled from the Mojave River sink, carried here by gusts that whip off the Soda Dry Lake bed. Over centuries, they’ve piled into these vast, velvety dunes, rising nearly 700 feet above the basin floor.

The noise is born of a chain reaction: as grains tumble, they jostle their neighbors, compressing pockets of air and setting off synchronized vibrations. It is an avalanche turned orchestra. The frequency of the sound depends on grain size and speed of movement, and its resonance can last several seconds, echoing across the basin like thunder caught underground.

But the symphony is selective. Only a few dunes on Earth possess the right combination of grain chemistry, dryness, steepness and sun-baked cohesion. Kelso is one of just seven in North America known to sing, and one of the most sonorous. Scientists have studied it for decades, chasing the exact mechanics, but even now, the dune will not always cooperate.

It will not sing for the careless, and it doesn’t always boom on command. You must move a certain way: deliberate, sustained, downward. You must press and shift and let go. And you must listen.

There are other sounds in the Mojave, but they’re not the kind we’re trained to hear. Wind tunneling through a canyon. The distant whistle of a hawk riding thermals. The dry clatter of gravel under boots. None of these noises beg for your attention. They wait. Patient. Ancient. Ready only when you are still enough to be changed by them.

We treat the desert like something to survive or speed through: windows sealed, AC cranked, radios loud, eyes on the next stop. But the Mojave doesn’t reward conquest. It asks for humility. For curiosity. For a kind of listening that begins in the soles of your feet.

And when you move like that — when you soften and stay open — the land doesn’t just speak. It sings.

​ Orange County Register 

Outdoor arts programs offer another way to connect with nature

• June 4, 2025

On a Saturday afternoon in early spring, I watched through the thick branches of a pepper tree as singer Nyallah and a small group of musicians played soulful jazz.

In this tiny pocket of the Audubon Center at Ernest E. Debs Regional Park in northeast Los Angeles, a crowd of picnickers gathered for the intimate, outdoor concert, organized by Living Earth. Most were lounging as the band played, but a few kids were playing in the dirt and one had climbed a tree. In a corner near the entrance to the event, someone painted on an easel.

I ventured away from the music, following a trail, and noticed plants that appeared on the Audubon Center’s signage, including hollyleaf redberry and white sage. Despite living just a few miles away, I had never wandered into this 17-acre space prior to that Saturday.

That’s a familiar sentiment to Evelyn Serrano, the center’s director.

“We consistently hear, ‘I didn’t know this place was here,’” Serrano says on a recent video call. People will tell her that they found out about the community nature hub because they follow an artist who happened to be playing a show there. Sometimes, they’ll return for volunteer days.

“Nature is for everyone, and your entry into it is going to be different for everyone,” says Serrano.

Part of Audubon California, the Audubon Center opened in Debs Park, where they leased 17 of the 282 acres, in 2003. “We’re here to remind people that you can spend time outdoors — and the outdoors is free for everyone,” says Serrano.

The programming reflects that. In addition to volunteer days and community science gatherings, there are Living Earth’s concerts and Old Time String Band’s performances, on the third and fourth Saturdays of the month, respectively. Beginning May 23, the Audubon Center will hold monthly movie nights through the summer.

We’re not all outdoorsy people, yet nature impacts all of our lives. For those who aren’t science-minded, inclined to garden or don’t particularly enjoy hiking, the arts can be a meaningful pathway to engage with our local environments.

“Nature is art as well. It opens up our minds to different sounds, different combinations of sounds, different colors, different things living together,” says Serrano.

If nature is art, then it is a work-in-progress. It’s not the Instagram-perfect destination that we travel to so much as it is the spaces in our own neighborhoods that thrive when communities put in the effort.

“I think we’re in a world that’s so used to not being in a space that’s literally living,” says Maryam Hosseinzadeh, development and programs director for Arlington Garden. “We’re so used to being in a space that’s staged or constant.”

***

On the day I met with Hosseinzadeh and Andrew Jewell, interim executive director for the nonprofit, water-wise community garden in Pasadena, it was lush. Purple and orange wildflowers popped out of dense greenery. A hummingbird flitted between trees near our meeting spot.

“It’s constantly responding to itself and also responding to the community,” says Hosseinzadeh of the garden.

Founded in 2005, Arlington Garden sits on a three-acre plot of Caltrans-owned land and first bloomed thanks to an effort spearheaded by late neighbors Betty and Charles McKenney. Today, it continues to flourish with a lot of help from the locals who pitch in during frequent volunteer events. Education is built into the garden.

“It’s not just a place to come and look and say, ‘Oh, isn’t this nice,’ and then go home and have your lawn and water it,” Hosseinzadeh says. “The idea is that we can inspire people to enact the practices that they’re learning here in the garden, get dedicated to the land, and really start to think about how they can impact their own little patch of environment.”

That education and inspiration extends beyond the volunteer days. Come here for Resonance, a yoga and sound event hosted by Living Earth, and you might begin to notice the similarities between music and the sounds of nature. Head to an Exploring the Mycoverse evening and you might be entranced by the mysterious world of fungi.

Founded by mycologist Aaron Tupac as a reading group just a few years ago, Exploring the Mycoverse has grown into a monthly celebration of fungi. They’ve hosted film festivals, book talks and art-making sessions.

“We love a good poem too,” says Tupac on a recent video call. The group will often open sessions with poetry. “We don’t have the language yet to describe how fungi work and how they live,” they explain. “That’s where poetry really helps — coming up with ideas of how to understand fungi better.”

Whether discussing fungi in film or sculpting clay mushrooms, the group activities help deepen members’ understanding of the large and relatively understudied fungal kingdom.

“Fungi eludes us so often because they’re not easily visible to the eye. Art can really help us introduce fungi to larger audiences by getting people curious. Just noticing fungi, I think that’s the most radical thing that art can help with,” says Tupac. “Once people start to notice mushrooms, or fungi, they’re all around us. I see them in my yard. I see them when I’m out walking my dog. I see them when I go out walking for a hike.”

***

Just as the arts can be a gateway into the outdoors, they can also help us understand our role in its stewardship.

“The idea of having a stewardship kind of relationship to the places that we live and depend on is really critical in my mind to our survival as a species,” says artist, writer and designer Rosten Woo. Known for his civic art projects, Woo has long collaborated with Clockshop, the public arts organization that works largely along the Los Angeles River.

Recently, Woo teamed up with composer and sound designer Celia Hollander to create “What Water Wants,” an audio tour of an Elysian Valley stretch of Los Angeles that riffs on the format of a guided meditation.

I listened to “What Water Wants” while walking along the bike path that hugs the edge of the river, a birdsong entering my right ear via the earbud while live birds chirp on the left. The format is similar to popular, online meditations, but the content dives into the tumultuous history of L.A.’s water and arrives at the prompt for listeners to think about everything connected to the waterway and its health.

“I think that the art that I’m making and that a lot of other people are making is partially about trying to imagine a more just, humane, connected world,” says Woo. “I think a lot of that can work hand-in-hand with how you change the infrastructure of your local community.”

And, as Woo adds, “the natural world is infrastructure.”

***

Not far from the river is Los Angeles State Historic Park. Since this is my local park, I’ve seen the way it has grown in the eight years since it officially opened. It’s now home to a monarch habitat and large, shady trees. When Clockshop hosts its Listen By Moonrise or Reading By Moonrise events here, the foliage is now thick enough to block out the surrounding activity. And there is a lot of activity here. In a neighborhood that’s heavy on apartments and low on backyards, L.A. State Historic Park bustles daily with joggers, dog-walkers and sports-playing kids. When the annual Kite Festival happens, it sees an influx of folks from across the city flying store-bought and homemade kites together.

Organized by Clockshop, who partners with California State Historic Parks on several L.A. River-adjacent sites, the Kite Festival launched in 2021 in part as a means to bring people together post-COVID. But, it also was a response to the proposed aerial rapid transit gondola system connecting Union Station and Dodger Stadium — a project opponents say could threaten the park’s footprint. Says Clockshop executive director Sue Bell Yank, the Kite Festival emerged from an understanding that green public spaces “are constantly threatened as well.”

Clockshop encourages people to make their own kites, with workshops leading up to the event, as well as a competition at the festival. With a crowd of about 5,000 people and growing, the Kite Festival is, at its core, a day of art and recreation.

“Kites are one of these universal art forms,” says Yank. “Seeing El Salvadoran kites in the sky, Chinese kites or traditional Japanese or Korean kites, it’s amazing to see all of that artistry on display.”

Through their audience surveys, Clockshop does see that events bring more awareness to the park. But, it’s not just about introducing people to a place they might not have known existed. “It’s also about building that bridge to advocacy,” says Yank. “These spaces don’t just happen. They were fought for by the communities around them, or they would have all been warehouses.”

She adds: “We want to invite people to internalize that and recognize that it’s up to them to preserve them and also be fighting for those spaces in the future in the neighborhoods where they live.”

​ Orange County Register 

Tiny outdoor space? Turn it into an inviting retreat

• June 4, 2025

By Kim Cook | The Associated Press

Whether it’s a modest balcony, a pocket-size patio or a tiny backyard, small outdoor spaces have big potential. With a few smart design choices and some creative flair, even the most limited square footage can become a welcoming and rejuvenating retreat.

The very constraints of a small area can inspire more thoughtful — and impactful — design decisions.

Here’s how to make the most of your petite patio, balcony or urban garden and turn it into a space that wows.

Think vertically: Make use of walls and railings

When floor space is at a premium, the only way to go is up. Vertical gardening is a game-changer for small spaces. Hanging planters, wall-mounted herb gardens and tiered plant stands help you layer in greenery without sacrificing room for seating or movement.

And it will help with privacy as well.

“If you’re squished up against your neighbor in an urban setting, strategically placed containers with vining plants can form a green privacy wall,” said House Beautiful editor Kate McGregor. “You could also try trellis panels or fencing, to ensure you don’t feel like you’re always on display when you’re outside.”

Vining plants with attractive flowers include black-eyed Susan vine, mandevilla, sweet pea, star jasmine and trumpet honeysuckle. If you’ve got actual ground to work with, on a small outdoor patio for instance, consider something heftier, like climbing hydrangea or shrub rose.

Trellises, rail planters and vines create the illusion of a taller, larger space, as they draw your eye upward.

Mini gardens and container plants

Containers allow you to grow herbs, flowers or a few veggies just about anywhere. Go minimalist with a couple of sleek planter boxes, or add visual interest with some artsy pots in different materials and sizes.

Layering plant heights —from low succulents to tall grasses or small trees — adds depth and makes the area feel lush and vibrant.

Low-maintenance options like lavender, rosemary and ornamental grasses can add greenery with minimal upkeep. Grasses can look pretty in a breeze, and anything with a scent is worth planting.

Ahh, al fresco

Put a sturdy bin or basket near your patio or balcony entryway to stash yoga mats and small weights. You’ll have a handy 24-7 meditation or workout space, right outside the door.

Fill a planter with zesty citrusy-scented lantana, soothing lavender or night-blooming moonflower to add a mood maker.

Fold it, stack it, store it

When space is tight, think flexible, lightweight and dual-purpose furniture. Foldable bistro tables and chairs can be tucked away when not in use, while storage benches offer a place to sit and stash outdoor cushions, garden tools or a cozy throw blanket for chilly evenings.

Stackable stools or nesting tables can be pulled out when you’re entertaining and tucked away when you want more open space.

Look for all-weather and multi-functional pieces.

Cozy lighting, big ambiance

Lighting can completely transform an outdoor area, especially in the evening. A string of simple battery-operated fairy lights, a solar-powered lantern or LED candles add warmth and a festive vibe, without needing an outlet.

For extra impact, combine lighting types — overhead string lights with a couple of lanterns at ground level can make a space feel layered and create a cozy atmosphere.

Rugs, textiles and texture

Bring the comfort of indoors out by adding textiles. All-weather rugs come in dozens of patterns and textures. Use peel-and-stick tiles, if you’re permitted. Either will define a living area and help bring in whatever décor style you’re going for. Cushions and throws come in loads of colorful, weather-resistant fabrics, adding homey softness to the space.

Style with personality

Just because a space is small doesn’t mean it has to be boring. Treat your outdoor nook like any other room in your home by infusing it with personal style. Use outdoor-safe mirrors to reflect light and make the area feel larger. Hang weatherproof artwork or decorative panels to add a creative focal point.

Accent with items that reflect your taste — whether that’s a boho lantern, a modern metal sculpture or even a vintage watering can repurposed as décor. A consistent color scheme can tie it all together, whether you go for calming neutrals or punchy brights.

Shade and shelter

Free-standing umbrellas, or more space-saving, free-standing retractable awnings, are renter-friendly options that require no installation.

Besides protecting you from the elements, these items also help define your outdoor space, making it feel more private and purposeful.

So whether you’re sipping your morning coffee on a city balcony or hosting a few friends on a tiny patio, it’s not about how much space you have — it’s about what you do with it.

___

New York-based writer Kim Cook covers design and decor topics regularly for the Associated Press.

​ Orange County Register