From left to right: Halloween is for weevils, Norris Center CAMINO scholars at their research symposium,

training new Field Inquiry Mentors at Gazos Creek Beach, students and community members working

in our herbarium, and our Day of the Dead altar

Happy Halloween everyone!  While it's busy up here on campus with midterms this week, we’ve been finding some time to have some fun. Last week, we celebrated Halloween early with a fun “Night at the Museum” event. This Friday and Saturday we will celebrate Day of the Dead, including helping to sponsor El Centro’s campus-wide event this weekend at the Upper Quarry. After months of preparation this summer, we’ve begun our yearlong collections curation project funded by the California Institute for Biodiversity. Under the leadership of our collections manager Dr. Gizelle Hurtado, a team of 43 undergraduate interns, paid undergraduate and graduate curators, and community volunteers have been working to prepare, organize, digitize, and move thousands of our specimens into our new collections cabinets. From labeling individual bee specimens to mounting plants from our collections backlog, the Norris Center has been a flurry of focused teamwork over the last month. Meanwhile, after several weeks of training to lead natural history hikes on campus, our group of 12 Field Inquiry Mentors just began their work with hundreds of first-year students from Rachel Carson and Merrill colleges. And we’ve also been busy working with our Art+Science undergraduate and graduate awardees on their projects, including receiving applications for student artists to work with the Amah Mutsun Tribal Band (AMTB) to help illustrate local native plant species and assemble an illustrated booklet about their traditional local use.

Help us continue work on Randy Morgan's clover seed collection

This Giving Day, November 20, the Norris Center is teaming up with the UCSC Greenhouses Plant Conservation Program to support work on this important collection. As many of you know, Randy Morgan (1947 – 2017) was one of our most accomplished Santa Cruz naturalists. One of his many specialties was the plant genus Trifolium, also known as the true clovers or trefoils. This valuable aging collection is in need of attention to ensure that it lives on for future researchers and plant systematists to work with. You can support this project by making a donation on Giving Day, which will support undergraduate interns working to create a detailed inventory of this collection, to conduct initial viability and germination experiments on select species, and identify priority samples for special long-term storage. For now, mark your calendars to help us on November 20th!

R. Morgan (above) and

greenhouse interns (below)

Stopped by a Shrike

A couple weeks ago, I was walking through the Great Meadow scouting out a nature walk I was going to lead later that day. Suddenly, a medium-sized bird flushed out of one of the nearby shrubs, flew up the hill, and perched on another shrub right next to the bike path. As it flew, I caught distinct flashes of black, white, and gray. Through my binoculars, I could see it looking distinctly back in my direction from its new vantage. I could also plainly see that it was a bird I hadn’t seen on the campus in several years: a Loggerhead Shrike. Read the full article here.

Friends and current students in front of the Bickford House at Año Nuevo Natural Reserve

Friends travel to Año Nuevo Natural Reserve

In mid-October, Friends of the Norris Center members and student interns enjoyed a special tour of Año Nuevo Natural Reserve, including the field station and adjacent coastline. After welcoming the group, Director Dr. Patrick Robinson reviewed the long history of research that has brought so much information on elephant seals to light over the past five decades, thanks to groundbreaking efforts of UCSC faculty, staff, and students. Robinson then led the group on a walk to see the 1-, 2-, and 3-year old elephant seals hauled out on the beach and “mock fighting” in the shallow intertidal pools. Birders in the group enjoyed great looks at shorebirds recently returned from their nesting grounds, along with an array of gull species.

Today, Año Nuevo Reserve continues to offer undergraduates the chance to learn field skills and contribute to a growing body of knowledge on elephant seals – their unique physiology, breeding and feeding strategies, movement patterns, genetic histories, and ongoing conservation challenges. Many thanks to Patrick Robinson and to the enthusiastic tour participants. Planning for tours of nearby natural areas and other events is underway for 2025 –stay tuned to the Friends website for the upcoming schedule.

Join the Friends. Your membership extends through 2025!

If you’re just learning about the Friends of the Norris Center, this is a great time to join us! Friends members enjoy a variety of perks, including tours for Friends to local natural history hotspots, discounts on Norris Center merchandise, and the satisfaction of knowing that your membership supports the Center’s education, research, and community outreach work, along with a growing student mentorship effort. 

Join now and your membership will extend through 2025. Use the online membership site, or see the Friends of the Norris Center website for more information. If you’re already a member, thank you! Look for renewal information coming soon.

Join us to celebrate the conservation legacy of the Environmental Studies Department

We're busy planning a series of events for the weekend of February 21-23, 2025 to celebrate the conservation legacy of the Environmental Studies (ENVS) department, from founding chair Richard (Dick) Cooley (pictured right) to the present. Dick Cooley and Ken Norris were close colleagues, often successfully collaborating on big conservation goals, including the passing of the Marine Mammal Protection Act in 1972. Cooley and many of his students (the "Cooley kids") focused on Alaska conservation, where they were instrumental in establishing both new protected parks and supporting Native Alaskan cultural and land-use goals. Stay tuned as our plans take shape for the weekend, which will include our annual natural history symposium on Saturday February 22 at the UCSC Hay Barn.