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New Years 2024

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  Wow, what a year we had in 2023! I got a new hip in January and recovered more quickly than I had hoped (but unsurprisingly, it felt slower while I was doing physical therapy and healing!). It’s fantastic, now in the new year, to hike pain-free, though I may always be a 4-5 mile hiker and not a marathoner! I’ve loved getting back to swimming 2 or 3 times a week, weightlifting, dog walks and birding around Alameda and in the Regional Parks, and occasional longer hikes with friends. I’m so thankful for good health!! I’ve been busy all year with my birdy-volunteer work on the board of the newly named Golden Gate Bird Alliance (formerly Audubon) and co-chairing the related conservation group, Friends of the Alameda Wildlife Reserve. I co-led the Bird Alliance’s major fundraising effort, Birdathon, last year and am doing it again this year. Let me know if you’d like to financially support this important organization. One of our great joys was the drama of a nesting pair of Bald Eagles at
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2022 Embrys (the year that was...)

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  Bob and Sharol had an excellent year in 2022! Sharol enjoyed another year of retirement with creative pursuits (stained glass & mosaics! nature writing! traveling!) as well as Cocoa Case, her online chocolate business. After a career of annual reports, though, she can't resist a little review of this last year that was! In January she also joined the board of the Golden Gate Audubon Society and has tackled co-chairing their annual fundraiser, "April Birdathon 2023," as well as the conservation committee, Friends of the Alameda Wildlife Refuge. Sharol traveled to Puerto Vallarta in April with her college friend, Amy, to attend a week-long mosiac workshop at the fantastic Hacienda Mosaico. \ In May the whole Embry clan gathered in southern CA to celebrate Bob's Dad's (also Bob) 90th Birthday! It was a joy to have all of the kids, grandkids, GREAT-grandkids, and cousins as well as Bob Sr.'s siblings get together for the momentous occasion. We added on a spe
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Autumn Rolls In with the Birds

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Yellow-rumpled Warblers bring their brightness to our winter landscape (image: Wikimedia) A week ago, I heard the first herald of winter. I awoke to Golden-crowned Sparrows slurring their sweet song in my backyard. That’s the first I’ve heard from them since they left for their spring nesting grounds in May. Fresh from Alaska and northwestern Washington, they have winged their way back to spend the winter with us in the Bay Area. Their song is often described as “oh-dear-me” or “I’m so weary” which led Alaska gold miners (in the 1800s) to call them the “Weary Willie” bird. Our mild weather encourages their favorite foods of seeds, berries, and insects which they eat on the ground. They’re even known to help control noxious weed species with their voracious appetites for weed seeds. Golden-crowned sparrows spend the winter here and further south then migrate to their northern nesting grounds. (Image: Wikimedia) While walking the dog a few days later, I spied flashes of yellow
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Enter in Podcasting: getting preschool kids into nature

It’s a brave new world for me, getting used to the sound of my own voice, knowing I’m being recorded for others to hear. It makes it easier to have done this with my good friend, Cindy Margulis, Executive Director for the Golden Gate Audubon Society. Plus, I’m so committed to the topic, trying to get everyone outdoors to reconnect with nature. Cindy and I did a morning workshop for the Old Firehouse Preschool teachers from the East Bay and Marin. We talked about the health benefits of getting kids outdoors and practiced some activities they can use with their children. The podcast is for the parents to help them get their kids outdoors outside of school hours. I hope you enjoy it, too!  https://m.soundcloud.com/dorothy-stewart-606943480/introducing-young-children-to-nature
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Elephant Seals: Pupping, Breeding and Violence on the Beach

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Elephant Seals are born in winter on beach colonies and by the time they're weaned at one month have quadrupled their size. Mothers leave the young, after one month, to learn to swim and feed on their own. (Image by Jerry Kirkhart/Wikimedia ) By Sharol Nelson-Embry Trekking through sand dunes on a beautiful Northern California day last weekend, we rounded a bend and came to a group of huge elephant seals scattered like fallen logs around us. This was Bob's (my husband) birthday wish, to visit the Año Nuevo State Park's Northern Elephant Seal colony. Our docent guide had cautioned us to stick close to her on our walk out to the dunes. You can never be sure where these outlying animals will turn up. These, she told us, were the "losers," the male elephant seals that were too young to gather a harem and mate, or even hang around the fringes of the harem. We were still about 1/2 mile from the beach where the harems covered swaths of sand. The young males aro
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Crabapples, Berries, Winter Bloomers and Winter Bird Flocks

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Cedar Waxwing with its favorite winter food, berries. ( Cheapshot/Wikimedia ) by Sharol Nelson-Embry As I was out walking the dog just before another big rainstorm hit our Island City the other day, I noticed large flocks of birds in the bare tree branches. As I paused and my bird dog lifted her head in interest, I thought they were probably ordinary, non-native starlings. After parsing out their calls, though, I was excited to find it was actually two separate flocks — one of robins and one of cedar waxwings!   The waxwings are one of my favorite birds and among the first I could readily identify in my college ornithology class. I was so excited about them, that I showed them to my husband when we were dating. He was later able to point them out on campus to another pair of students that were interested in them. He told them the birds name and let them know how special they were. That was his first time as a “bird whisperer.” He’s never forgotten it. Notice the r
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Camellias: A Bright Spot in Winter

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My camellia tree in all of its winter glory (photo by author) by Sharol Nelson-Embry Just when the holiday excitement is over and the gloom, rain, and short days of January begin to wear on me, my camellias come through, blooming with exuberant enthusiasm. Their branches, heavy-laden with seemingly endless blossoms, attract throngs of honeybees on warm days and small songbirds every morning. The trees are like a small, bustling city with all of the activity. Yellow-rumped warblers, flocks of bouncing bushtits, and Anna’s hummingbirds work among the flowers and branches for insects, nectar, and pollen. One tree, in a sunnier location, bursts forth in late December with red petals unfurling to reveal a center of sunny yellow stamens. The other, a pink variety, is in a shadier spot and saves its blooms for a little later. They keep me going well into March. A honey bee visits -- notice its yellow "pollen baskets" where the bee collects pollen to take back to the hi
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