SAN FRANCISCO  — Chinese President Xi Jinping signaled that China will send new pandas to the United States, calling them “envoys of friendship between the Chinese and American peoples.”

“We are ready to continue our cooperation with the United States on panda conservation, and do our best to meet the wishes of the Californians so as to deepen the friendly ties between our two peoples,” Xi said Wednesday during a dinner speech with business leaders.

The gesture came at the end of a day in which Xi and President Joe Biden held their first face to face meeting in a year and pledged to try to reduce tensions. Xi did not share additional details on when or where pandas might be provided but appeared to suggest the next pair of pandas are most likely to come to California, probably San Diego.

The bears have long been the symbol of the U.S.-China friendship since Beijing gifted a pair of pandas to the National Zoo in Washington in 1972, ahead of the normalization of bilateral relations. Later, Beijing loaned the pandas to other U.S. zoos, with proceeds going back to panda conservation programs.

The National Zoo’s three giant pandas, Mei Xiang, Tian Tian and their cub Xiao Qi Ji, eight days ago began their long trip to China. After their departure, only four pandas are left in the United States, in the Atlanta Zoo.

“I was told that many American people, especially children, were really reluctant to say goodbye to the pandas, and went to the zoo to see them off,” Xi said in his speech. He added that he learned the San Diego Zoo and people in California “very much look forward to welcoming pandas back.”

Xi is in California to attend a summit of Indo-Pacific leaders and for his meeting with Biden. He made no mention of the pandas during his public remarks earlier in the day as he met with Biden.

But relations showed signs of stabilization as Xi traveled to San Francisco to meet with Biden. The two men met for about four hours Wednesday at the picturesque Filoli Historic House & Garden, where they agreed to cooperate on anti-narcotics, resume high-level military communications and expand people-to-people exchanges.

The National Zoo’s exchange agreement with the China Wildlife Conservation Association had been set to expire in early December and negotiations to renew or extend the deal did not produce results.

The San Diego Zoo returned its pandas in 2019, and the last bear at the Memphis, Tennessee, zoo went home earlier this year.

___

Associated Press writer Ashraf Khalil in Washington contributed to this report.

These were all once nicknames for Petaluma, a charming little city in the agricultural bosom of Sonoma County. By the early 1900s, a booming poultry industry, driven by a locally designed egg incubator, saw the area producing 120 million eggs a year. There were Egg Day parades led by Egg Queens, the world’s only poultry pharmacy and more money on deposit in the banks, per capita, than any other place on earth.

But how chickeny is Petaluma… now?

To find out, my partner and I drive into the countryside under a misty sun that looks like a big egg yolk. We carry the determination of Cool Hand Luke to eat 50 eggs or explode trying. Entering Petaluma, evidence of its feathered past peeks out from every corner. Chickens are painted on fading shop walls, metal roosters stand outside a restaurant, and the fairground harbors a huge sculpture of a white hen. That last one requires occasional repairs, because the local children like to ride it like a horsey.

For breakfast, we stop at Stellina Pronto, an Italian bakery downtown that makes a stellar egg frittata. The owners used to run Osteria Stellina in Point Reyes; when that closed during the pandemic, they opened this casual place which serves pastries, sandwiches and third-wave coffee accompanied by Straus dairy. The counter is piled so high with fresh-baked treats, we have a brain fizzle – do we want a breakfast puff with Point Reyes Toma cheese … or tomato focaccia … or a hazelnut brutti ma buoni (a Piedmontese meringue whose name means “ugly but good”)?

Eggs. Eggs. Eggs. Get here before 11 a.m., if you want the best chance of snagging Stellina’s fluffy frittatas, which come with local Caggiano Italian sausage and Hobbs ham or fresh veggies with herbs and cheese. They’re slow-cooked in a cast-iron skillet with organic eggs from Coastal Hill Farm, a co-op west of town that gets Instagram raves like: “Your eggs r the best we have ever had in our lifetime! The color looks like yellow velvet and the taste is insane!”

Our thirst for albumen now lit, we head out in search of the real, raw deal. The countryside around Petaluma is peppered with farm stands that sell fresh eggs by the dozen. They’re usually more expensive than at grocery stores, but you’ll taste the difference in quality when whipping up something delicious at home.

We pull up at Hicks Mountain Hens, an unmanned stand that sells fresh eggs ($10 per dozen) and raw honey and that has a coin-operated machine for chicken feed. When we approach the machine, what previously was an empty nearby field becomes a sea of chickens – thousands of beaks and beady eyes and flapping wings pressing against the wire fence. A tourist family delights in the frenzy, with the little girl tossing feed into the hive-mass of poultry.

Up the road is Tenfold Farmstand, tucked in a historic two-room schoolhouse that dates back to 1895. Barn shelves are stocked with chard and eggplants and mini Juliet tomatoes, as well as organic vegetable starts for your garden. Inside are intricate floral arrangements, baskets of the season’s last strawberries – dark-red and deeply fragrant – and the treasure we seek: fresh eggs from Tara Firma Farms, with yolks like liquid gold ($15 a dozen).

Tenfold is something of a community hub. On Friday mornings, it has live farm music and Blooms End, a traveling bakery pop-up with a cult following. And the events lineup includes vintage-clothing sales, holiday fairs, kids’ book swaps and classes on making kokedama – Japanese-style balls of moss for growing ornamental plants.

While we now have eggs – which will later be transformed into sponge cake and fresh pasta – what we don’t have are answers. How did Petaluma get to be such a poultry town? We head to the free Petaluma Historical Library and Museum located downtown in a gorgeous Andrew Carnegie library, which has a permanent exhibit about the local chicken industry on its upper mezzanine.

There’s a 1950s egg-cleaning machine with long screws like some backwoods torture device, poultry lung and kidney removers and photos of one of the city’s many Egg Queens who marched in egg parades. This Queen’s wearing a feathered dress and posing on a chicken sculpture among her adoring retinue – a barnyard Venus de Milo.

It was around the 1870s, when a local dentist named Isaac Dias patented an artificial egg incubator, that the industry started taking off. The incubator sped up the process of hatching, allowing hens to skip nesting duty and lay more eggs. By 1925, Petaluma was the largest poultry center in the world with 2 million hens, and by the time World War II rolled around, it had hit peak production of 612 million eggs a year.

Dias was later joined in marketing his incubator by a fellow named Lyman Byce. When Dias died in a suspicious duck-hunting accident, Byce endeavored to take the credit for the invention and erase Dias’ name from history. At the museum, a portrait of Dias has his face blank because no photos of him exist anymore. Downtown there’s a mural of Byce by “his” incubator; hunched over and sporting a shady mustachio, he literally looks like he’s stealing eggs.

Petaluma eventually fell from poultry prominence due to a variety of reasons, including industry automation and lack of government subsidies. We study a USDA poster about egg quality – an AA egg means the “white is thick, stands high” – then head out for more eggs, this time in liquid form. Barber Lee Spirits is a craft distillery whose barrel-tasting room sports a mural of a fierce rooster. You can get flights of double gold-winning spirits such as single-malt rye, heirloom-corn bourbon, absinthe and moonshine, or cocktails as expertly made as anywhere in San Francisco.

At this point, we’ve become well-enough acquainted with eggs that we want to meet their grown-up relative, the chicken. Across the way is Easy Rider, a restaurant that opened last year whose chef, Jared Rogers, specializes in Low-Country cuisine from Appalachia and the Carolinas.

We grab a seat at the bar, where our server presents us with a glassy vitrine covering a smoky plate of steak tartare with muffuletta olives, house steak sauce and… a country egg ($18). Can’t avoid them! Then comes a platter-for-two of fried chicken marinated in Frank’s RedHot and served with collard greens, bacon-topped mac ‘n’ cheese and a silver tureen of herby-white bacon gravy ($35.50).

The meat is supremely juicy under its crackling, salty, paper-thin crust. The gravy seems like a hat on a hat, but that’s Southern cooking – we dip everything into it, with no regrets.

“What came first, the chicken or the egg?” Who knows: We’re just happy to enjoy it all here in the still-kicking poultry heartland of Petaluma.

If You Go

Stellina Pronto: Open 6:30 a.m.-2 p.m. Wednesday-Monday at 23 Kentucky St., Petaluma; stellinapronto.com.

Petaluma Historical Library & Museum: Open 10 a.m.-4 p.m. Thursday-Sunday at 20 Fourth St., Petaluma; petalumamuseum.com.

Tenfold Farmstand: Open 10 a.m.-5 p.m. Friday-Sunday at 5300 Red Hill Road, Petaluma; tenfoldfarmstand.com.

Hicks Mountain Hens: 7590 Point Reyes-Petaluma Road, Novato; instagram.com/hicksmountainhens

Barber Lee Spirits: Open from 3 p.m. Wednesday-Saturday and 1 p.m. Sunday at 120 Washington St., Petaluma; barberleespirits.com.

Easy Rider: Open daily from 4:30 p.m. at 190 Kentucky St., Petaluma; easyriderpetaluma.com.

If you spend any time on social media, whether it’s your neighborhood’s Facebook page or NextDoor.com, it seems like coyote sightings have increased exponentially in the last few years. Not only that – the canids, many claim, are multiplying by the day, and some areas are being overrun, threatening public safety.

But is that really the case?

“No,” said Seth Riley, chief wildlife ecologist for the Santa Monica Mountains National Recreation Area, who says he’s been hearing “that exact same thing” for the last 23 years.

Riley’s National Park Service colleague, wildlife ecologist Jeffrey Brown, said the uptick in sightings is likely related to the fact that so many people have doorbell cameras nowadays, which pick up wildlife visitors day or night.

“It just seems they’re noticing the wildlife more because they’re able to see them,” Brown said.

The California Department of Fish and Game estimates there are somewhere between 250,000 and 750,000 coyotes in the state, a wide range, to be sure, but it’s possible to get more precise in certain areas.

San Francisco’s coyote population was nearly wiped out in the last century — trapped, removed or poisoned. Some 30 years after that poison — Compound 1080 — was banned in 1972, a coyote was spotted in the Presidio. Today, the city has about 100 coyotes, which are divided into 17 to 18 family groupings, according to Janet Kessler, an amateur naturalist known as San Francisco’s “Coyote Lady,” who has studied the animals for the last two decades and posts her findings at coyoteyipps.com.

Coyotes can be spotted strolling the streets and trails in suburbia, too. They normally avoid humans, but there have been a few widely publicized exceptions to that rule in recent years. In the East Bay, an aggressive coyote attacked five people, including two children, in Lafayette and Moraga between July 2020 and February 2021, before being captured, DNA tested — to make sure it was the right animal — and euthanized. Meanwhile, in Golden Gate Park, a coyote had to be euthanized after it began lunging at small children in broad daylight in 2021.

In both cases, authorities said, the coyotes seemed to have lost their fear of humans — because people had been feeding them. In 2021, San Francisco Animal Care and Control officials even released photos of a woman feeding coyotes meat from a plate in Bernal Heights Park. That same year in the Oakland Hills, neighbors united to stop a resident from putting out dog food and water for coyotes.

Not feeding coyotes is incredibly important, Kessler, Riley and Brown agree — and it may seem an obvious thing. But you may be feeding them involuntarily by leaving your pet’s food and water bowls in the back yard or by not picking up fallen fruit or seed that falls from bird feeders. The latter attracts rodents, which are a favorite coyote snack.

We may want our back yards to be a haven for birds and other wildlife, but welcoming coyotes to your back door is never a good idea, especially if you have pets or small children — or neighbors with either. Even with these precautions, it can be hard to keep coyotes out of your yard.

Hazing coyotes — yelling at them, throwing things, chasing them off — works, at least for a while. “Coyotes are super smart,” Riley warned. You may need a longer term solution.

“A six-foot fence with rollers is supposed to keep them out,” Kessler said. “But this requires that no gaps exist at gateways and that the fence is buried at least a foot underground to keep coyotes from digging under the fence. The best practice of all is to always supervise your pet when you are out of doors.”

Avoid contact of any kind. Keep your dog on a leash, so it won’t go after the coyote. If it’s a smaller dog, Kessler said, pick it up. Then, walk away, keeping an eye on the coyote and staying calm and assertive. Running away from a coyote will only make it chase you. If the coyote follows you, stay calm but keep moving. Coyotes are protective of their territories and may just be “escorting” you away.

A coyote that lunges at you or bites is still a rare occurrence, but canid aggression can vary according to season. When coyotes are breeding, they are protective of their dens. Being cautious on nature trails between March and September, Brown said, is a good idea. In fact, the Presidio of San Francisco typically closes some trails to dog walkers during pupping season to minimize the chance of conflict.

Above all, try not to let one bad interaction sour you on these animals, because we’re more alike than you think.

“Our coyotes lead much richer lives than most folks are aware of,” Kessler writes on her site. “Their lives are full of emotion — really the same emotions we experience — and full of family life — the amazingly similar family life we enjoy.”

The director of the California Mountain Lion Project at UC Davis’ Wildlife Health Center, Vickers, 68, is one of the most experienced cougar experts in the U.S. He raves about his close encounters with the majestic predators.

“When you handle them, oh my gosh, look at their claws and those teeth! They weigh about the same as me,” the tall and trim, gray-haired researcher says with playful envy in his voice, “but holy smokes, unlike me, they’re all muscle!”

The UC Davis project, which has worked with mountain lions in Southern California for more than two decades, uses cameras and tracking collars to look at questions of habitat, health and human interaction, as the border between wilderness and development grows increasingly porous.

Northern California has a similar organization, the Santa Cruz Puma Project, which was founded by wildlife biologist Chris Wilmers in 2008. The partnership between UC Santa Cruz and the California Department of Fish and Wildlife focuses on Bay Area mountain lions, using collars and cameras to track them, and projects such as the wildlife underpass completed in January that provides safe passage beneath Highway 17 at the Laurel Curve.

The underpass, a collaboration with the Land Trust of Santa Cruz, benefits a variety of wildlife, not just mountain lions, Wilmers says. Within hours of its cameras going live, there was already evidence of squirrels, deer, wood rats and gray foxes using the underpass. Researchers are just now starting to get focused data on how well it works.

Vickers’ and Wilmers’ research focus has a common impetus: In both the Santa Monica and Santa Cruz mountains, California mountain lions’ survival is threatened by inbreeding, human interference and car crashes.

In Southern California, “cars and roads, in a nutshell, are the main cause of their deaths,” says Vickers,

In the Bay Area, Wilmers says, traffic accidents are second only to humans seeking revenge against mountain lions that kill livestock and pets.

Rodenticides can be harmful to mountain lions, although it rarely is their primary cause of death, he adds. Mountain lions are an apex predator, and they feed on larger animals. But rodenticides can lead to a weakened immune system in mountain lions, making them more susceptible to illness and possible death.

“Every (dead) mountain lion we find has some amount of rodenticide in its system,” Wilmers says. “It is very widespread.”

Urban development and the vast networks of highways and interstates create another sort of threat for the animals, one that most people don’t even think about. The barriers prevent free movement by the mountain lions. The result is populations that suffer from inbreeding. Vickers has seen it firsthand: mountain lions reaching a freeway, sitting for hours as cars and trucks speed past and then turning around, because they don’t dare cross.

The lack of genetic diversity in an inbred population, if not addressed, could doom the estimated 5,000 mountain lions that reside in the state. Already, scientists are seeing newborns with deformities such as kinked tails. Vickers was instrumental in a recent study which discovered that 93 percent of the male mountain lions have abnormal sperm.

“There’s a race to the bottom,” he says.

Along with other experts, he estimates that mountain lions will be locally extinct by 2050, if the state does not take drastic measures to help them survive.

Vickers grew up on a cattle farm in the Ozarks, the son of a country vet. “We treated every creature, small and large, from cats to cows,” he says.

He describes himself as an outdoorsy kid, “always fishing and hunting and canoeing.” He vowed not to follow in his father’s footsteps but after a few semesters of studying engineering, the call of the wild was too strong, and he switched to veterinary medicine after all.

“What my dad really gave me was appreciation for animals and caring about their welfare,” he says.

Vickers became a vegetarian when he started to work as a veterinarian, “because I couldn’t really see the value of working so hard to save the life of one cow only to then kill it for a steak.”

He worked as a regular vet in Arkansas and California for nearly two decades, while also accepting every chance to treat wildlife. His fascination with big cats led him all the way to Nepal to study snow leopards. A second degree in epidemiology at UC Davis inspired him to join the Mountain Lion Project there in 2002. At the time, the vets there had started out researching endangered bighorn sheep in Anza Borrego State Park and considered mountain lions a threat to them.

“We were soon shocked to find that the mountain lions had an unusually high mortality rate,” Vickers remembers. So the researchers started tracking mountain lions, accumulating 20 years of detailed knowledge about the reclusive animals. The data on the big cats’ important habitats and corridors has become key for conservation efforts.

Vickers is among those calling for wildlife crossings over major freeways so local mountain lions can mix and mate with peers from neighboring habitats. In the Santa Monica Mountains, Caltrans recently broke ground on the world’s biggest wildlife overpass, dubbed the Liberty Crossing over busy 101. The new bridge, which is expected to open in 2025, will cost $88 million, a sum that sounds outrageous until one considers the alternative: In the last three years, wildlife crashes in California have cost more than $1 billion.

The crossings help wildlife of all sorts. In Utah, wildlife crossings have reduced fatal deer collisions by 98.5 percent, and Colorado has seen a drop of nearly 90 percent. Apex predators such as pumas also act as “ecological brokers,” a recent study found, and play “an outsize role” for the health and biodiversity of their territories.

Another overpass is being planned for Highway 101 near the border of Santa Clara and San Benito counties. The nonprofit Land Trust of San Cruz County purchased a 2,600-acre slice of land near San Juan Bautista in December, spending $17 million. Now the trust is working with Caltrans to build a 120- to 160-foot wide wildlife crossing, which will provide mountain lions, deer, bobcats, badgers, foxes and other animals safe passage over the highway.

Providing safer routes for animals to navigate their territories is important, but it’s not the only thing that can be done to ensure the survival of mountain lions.

“No. 1 is stop the sprawl of development,” Wilmers says. “Build in existing cities. Secondarily, a lot of mountain lions die when they kill someone’s goats. People often have their goats in pens at night, which helps them keep track of the goats but doesn’t provide any protection against predators. If they can, they should have their goats in a fully enclosed structure with a roof.”

Acknowledging that “it’s hard to get people to change their behavior and spend money to build a barn or a secure cage for their animals at night,” Vickers focuses on young people. “Educating the young when they’re at the formative stage on how to protect animals, hopefully, that’s a long-term solution.”

When asked what fascinates him the most about the charismatic cougars, he raves about their resilience.

“Despite dramatic persecution, they have been the most successful of the big carnivores to persist,” he says, with awe in his raspy voice. “You just have to admire their ability to continue to exist against all odds.”

Shadow, the dog in question, is indeed a dog-wolf hybrid but he wasn’t lurking around looking for Goldilocks. He had escaped from his home in Santa Rosa and had been running scared for five days. Fortunately, he was caught and safely returned to his guardian.

For those familiar with dog-wolf hybrids, the fact that Shadow would run away and start roaming is no surprise. These dogs are among the best escape artists. They can easily scale a 6-foot fence from standing still and are known to dig their way under any obstacle. They’re also persistent — so once they learn they can escape, they’ll likely try new tactics.

Not surprisingly, they also require a lot of space — at least a half-acre of securely fenced property to roam. Also not surprising, they have a high prey drive and should not be kept around cats, chickens and other small animals. They are, however, social with dogs and don’t do well without other pack members.

Dog-wolf hybrids can also be mouthy and it’s much more difficult to train them out of this habit than it is to train dogs. They also experience something called neophobia, which is the fear of something new. After about six months of age, they begin to become increasingly fearful of new things, new environments and new people. And they respond by, you guessed it, running away.

So, why do people want these animals as pets? For many, it’s the “cool” factor, as well as the bragging rights of “owning a wild animal,” or one that reminds them of a dire wolf. For others, they’re mesmerized by the beauty of them.

Sadly, many people who buy these dogs are unprepared for what they need for their physical and social well-being. Some dogs end up spending their days in small cages or tied to chains, with a poor quality of life. According to the W.O.L.F. Sanctuary, in California, 90% of pet wolfdogs are euthanized by age two because those who acquire them have little understanding of what’s needed.

Finally, there is a legal aspect to all of this. In California, wolf-dogs can only be legally owned as a pet if they are at least second generation, meaning they’re the offspring of a domestic dog and a half-wolf-half-dog hybrid — with no more than 25% wolf.

As always, Marin Humane encourages people to think carefully about the type of animal they can commit to for that animal’s life. Making sure the animal is an appropriate match for our lifestyle and making sure we’re prepared to care for them in the way they need ensures all will be happy, healthy and safe.

Lisa Bloch is the director of marketing and communications for Marin Humane which contributes Tails of Marin articles and welcomes animal-related questions and stories about the people and animals in our community. Go to marinhumane.org, find us on social media @marinhumane, or email lbloch@marinhumane.org.

What was an itsy-bitsy spider spinning webs a few months ago is now a large, fully-grown exterminator helping keep the pest population under control.

Is it peak spider season? Not necessarily, because there are usually more spiders in the spring after they hatch their eggs. By September to November they are fully grown, easier to find and make larger webs.

Some spidey facts

Almost all are venomous but only a few can harm you. According to the Burke Museum in Seattle, only 25 have venom that can cause harm to humans. So just 1/20 of 1% of spiders are dangerous to humans.

According to the University of Kentucky, spiders don’t have a jaw and teeth like many animals, they have chelicerae – external structures that work somewhat like a jaw. Spiders use their chelicerae to hold prey in place while they inject it with venom.

Instead of chewing their food with mandibles, spiders will first spit enzymes either on or in their prey to liquefy it. They then eat the prey by sucking in the juices created by the enzymes with their mouth parts, according to the Illinois Department of Natural Resources.

They all make silk, but they don’t all make webs. About half the species catch prey with silky webs, while the others use it to make nests, cocoons or egg sacs.

Many spiders replace their entire web every day. According to science.org a study was conducted in 2018 that discovered that certain spiders’ webs are stronger than steel and if human-size, would be tough enough to snag a jetliner.

UC Irvine has a web page with photos of all the spiders, ticks and mites in Orange County here.

Keeping them out

Even though spiders may help control insect populations, many people have some form of arachnophobia or simply don’t want them inside their homes. As the days cool, spiders might be looking for warmer places to winter.

A few tips

Seal potential entry points like cracks and gaps along the building’s foundation.Keep doors, windows and screens sealed.

Prevent other insects from inhabiting the area by keeping a clean home.

Reduce clutter to limit hiding places.

Use a botanical repellent. Spiders don’t like the scent of lavender.

Source: Hebets Lab, Burke Museum, reconnectwithnature.org, National Space Society, University of Kentucky, earthkind.com, The National Pest Management Association Illustrations by KURT SNIBBE and staff artists

Unexpected treasures, however, await if you have a good eye and the patience to wait, as our Bay Area News Group photographers show in this stunning array of images.

“Often it also takes a bit of luck and good timing,” staff photographer Jane Tyska said about spending a day at the Foothills Nature Preserve in the Palo Alto hills in hopes of capturing a photo of one of the preserve’s elusive mountain lions. Her wait was rewarded with a coyote sighting instead, snacking on a gopher, and she also “lucked” into seeing another coyote — near San Francisco’s Coit Tower, where the animal’s presence was unexpected.

Karl Mondon agreed on the time one has to devote when photographing the artistry in nature. He grew up near Golden Gate Park’s Lloyd Lake, so he swings by when he can to check out the birding scene. “Sometimes you go for days without a glimpse,” he said. “Other times they just won’t stop smiling for the camera.”

Jose Carlos Fajardo has had luck staking out spots like Indian Creek in the Shell Ridge Open Space during the rainy season — toads abound — and even the manmade lake at the suburban Heather Farm Park in Walnut Creek.

Wherever there’s water, there’s wildlife.

The image by Ray Chavez of flocks of pelicans feasting at Lake Merritt in Oakland — an unusual sight — occurred on a day when he stopped by to get photos of runners, bikers and hikers. “Took too many photos until I saw this white pelican surrounded by the brown pelicans, plus the nice sunlight dropping in it. Made a beautiful picture.

“After I took those photos, the pelicans left.”

A moment in time.

As the sky darkens, a family of raccoons digs in the turf at the base of a tree, looking for worms and grubs. And as the moon rises, a coyote howls in the distance.

This isn’t happening in some idyllic country retreat, but in a tiny back yard a block from a major freeway. And if you think it’s unusual for such a small space to have such varied wildlife, think again.

California is the most biodiverse state in the country and one of the most biodiverse on the planet. The Bay Area offers so many species of flora and fauna — birds, fish, mammals, amphibians and invertebrates — UNESCO designated the region the Golden Gate Biosphere Reserve in 1988.

Even Los Angeles County, with all its concrete, is home to more than 500 species of birds, 19 species of snakes and dozens of species of frogs, lizards and turtles. And that’s not even counting the mammals, says Lila Higgins, a senior manager at the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County and co-author of 2019’s “Wild L.A.: Explore the Amazing Nature in and Around Los Angeles.”

“We’ve got very ‘urban’ habitats, parks, back yards, empty lots, streetscapes,” Higgins says. “(But) like an ‘urban forest,’ all of those things create zones for creatures to live in.”

In other words, you don’t have to head for the wilderness to spot wildlife. They’re in your back yard. Higgins and colleagues started the annual City Nature Challenge in 2016 as an L.A.-Bay Area effort to encourage citizen naturalists to photograph the wildlife they spot in their yards, parks and hiking trails. Since then, the effort has gone global. The 2023 challenge, held May 1-7, involved 485 cities in Europe, Africa, Asia, Australia and the Americas and recorded nearly 1.9 million sightings of more than 57,000 species by more than 66,000 citizen naturalists.

If you missed this year’s challenge, you can still do some nature spotting and recording of your own, says Mark Girardeau, who posts his sightings of bobcats, pumas, coyotes, foxes and even orcas at orangecountyoutdoors.com.

About those coyotes, though. If you belong to your neighborhood Facebook group or spend time on NextDoor, you may think these canids have taken over your neighborhood. There are between 250,000 and 750,000 coyotes in the state, and urban ones have been expanding their territories into California suburbs. But Girardeau says they’re not as widespread as social media might have us think.

“We now hear about every coyote sighting, whereas just 10 or 20 years ago, we didn’t,” he says. “It seems like people are seeing them more, when in reality, we are just more connected to everyone else’s lives and complaints than ever before.”

(That said, if you do encounter one, keep your distance. If you feel threatened, experts suggest you make yourself large and loud, wave your arms and shout at the animal to go away. Do not run. Keep dogs on a leash, so they don’t run either, and if you’re walking a small dog, pick him up.)

You don’t want to make your back yard coyote-friendly, of course, so don’t leave pet food out on your porch or patio. But how do you make whatever green space you have as wildlife-friendly as possible for other creatures?

Plant as many native, drought-resistant species as possible. Add a water feature. A small pond, bird bath or fountain is a great way to attract birds. Avoid pesticides. Leave mulch on soil and don’t clear away brush piles. They provide cover for insects and smaller animals, such as lizards.

Despite being a neighborhood of sorts, the canyon is also a wildlife haven. Dozens of species of resident and migratory birds, animals, insects, amphibians, mollusks and even crustaceans make this magical forest their home. And you never know what you’re going to see on a stroll in the redwoods.

Rounding a bend into a deep, shady ravine, I heard a slight hooting sound. I paused to locate the sound and continued walking just a bit further up the trail. To my astonishment, I had lucked into an encounter with some of the rarest creatures in the redwoods: Northern spotted owls, a threatened species that lives mostly in the old growth coastal redwoods and the forests of the Northwest.

Amazingly, right above the trail in the hollow of a time- worn redwood tree were two fuzzy baby owls — owlets — looking like cute little Star Wars ewoks as they bobbled their heads and warbled in curiosity. Two parent birds were in the nearby redwood canopy, keeping a watchful eye on their brood.

Spotted owls are the holy grail of veteran Bay Area birders. To see fledgling spotted owls was truly a moment to remember.

This wasn’t the first time I’ve spotted these rare owls and other exotic birds in this particular redwood forest. Walking the trails that follow Mill Valley’s Old Mill Creek, I’ve seen great blue heron and snowy egrets — birds usually found in San Francisco Bay’s estuaries — fishing for tiny steelhead trout. And I regularly see red-tailed hawks and turkey vultures circling the canopy high overhead, bold Steller’s jays winging among the trees and Anna’s hummingbirds flitting about in high-speed searches for nectar. Acorn woodpeckers and pileated woodpeckers with their distinctive red crest and distinctive call peck away at rotting trees with a rat-a-tat-tat, searching for bugs to eat.

Among my favorite avians are the most common: tiny Pacific wrens that hop along logs with their stubby tails held upright, chirping high-pitch notes. They’re cute and perky, like little welcome ambassadors to the redwood forest.

California’s 2 million-acre coastal redwood forest, which is unique to the state’s north coast and the extreme southern Oregon coast, is also home to an abundance of small mammals, such as bobcats, Western gray squirrels, raccoons, skunk, bats and medium-sized members of the weasel family, including Pacific fishers and pine martens. You may spot larger animals, too, such as black-tailed deer and Roosevelt elk.

Once, while visiting Muir Woods, I spotted elusive gray foxes and their young emerging from a den below the deck of the park’s visitor center. Another checkmark for my redwoods wildlife bucket list, right next to black bear and mountain lions.

Once common amphibians such as Pacific giant salamanders, red-bellied newts and tailed frogs have become less common, at least on my walks, perhaps victims of increased global temperatures. But garter snakes and slimy, slow moving banana slugs (the mascot of UC Santa Cruz — Go Slugs!) are still seen here and there, with the latter most commonly seen on moist and rainy days.

And there are fish! In Oakland’s Reinhardt Redwood Regional Park, a unique variety of rainbow trout has adapted to dammed-up waterways and can still be seen spawning in streams shaded by the park’s redwood trees. On Mount Tamalpais’ north side, Coho salmon make their way up Lagunitas Creek to spawn each year and can be seen from the Leo Cronin Fish Viewing Area off Sir Francis Drake Boulevard between the village of Lagunitas and Taylor State Park.

It’s yet another remarkable wildlife scene in our unique and vibrant coastal redwood forest.

If you’re heading out to go birding or wildlife-watching in California’s coastal redwood forests, you’ll want to wear comfortable hiking shoes, of course, and tote trekking poles, a good pair of binoculars and birding, wildflower and wildlife guidebooks or smartphone apps. A hat, sunscreen, a sack lunch and plenty of water are a must for any Bay Area hike. And a digital camera with telephoto and close-up lenses will provide the highest resolution images.

Smartphone applications such as Merlin and Sibley have detailed identification information and illustrations along with bird calls that can help you identify a wide variety of birds. The latter, which costs $20, includes all the content in David Allen Sibley’s 644-page “Sibley Guide to Birds,” as well as audio recordings. But like its print counterpart, the app is aimed at die-hard birding devotees. Beginning birders will likely want to start with Merlin, a free app designed by the Cornell Lab of Ornithology.

You can download a copy of the Save the Redwoods League’s free, 81-page birdwatcher’s guide to the coastal redwood and giant sequoia forests and other helpful travel guides at www.savetheredwoods.org under the Experiences tab.

Having seen spotted owls in the redwoods and checked those off my list, my new priority is to spot other rare birds, such as California condors, peregrine falcons, bald eagles and especially marbled murrelets, seabirds that curiously split their time between the open ocean and nesting sites high in the canopy of old growth redwoods.

So many birds, so little time.

For neophyte birders, I suggest following the sage words of the Save the Redwoods birding guide: “Walk slowly and stop often. Listen. Look. Speak softly. Birds, after all, are wildlife, and wildlife is reflexively reclusive and retiring. To observe birds, you must become part of the wild.”

Up until last year, each group flew in a single line, forming a sine wave in perfect formation. Each exactly follows the bird ahead. They flap their wings to rise 30 to 40 feet, then at the top, they glide down to skim the surface so closely that their wing tips dimple the surface of the water as they again flap their wings to rise.

But for the past two years, they have nearly completely lost this precision. They straggle in irregular groups, some large, some small. Sometimes a semblance of the old formation happens. What do you think happened? Did they lose their leader?  Did homeschooling fail? Did they decide to become free to fly without regimentation?

It’s an existential crisis.

— Roger Ecker, Alameda

DEAR ROGER: Maybe they’re carrying too much emotional baggage in their pouches.

I’ve spoken with some bird experts and while they can’t provide an exact reason for the change, they say it’s not unusual for pelicans to do their own thing and not fly in formation.

It could have to do with the supply of food. It might not be as plentiful, so the fish are more widely dispersed. It might have to do with the number of other birds around at a specific time of the year. Regardless, they say there is nothing to be concerned about.

JD Bergeron with International Bird Rescue near Fairfield says they haven’t seen any illnesses or concerns with brown pelicans, other than the usual injuries and entanglements in abandoned fishing lines and hooks.

Perhaps the pelicans are as discombobulated as we are in these post-pandemic, unsettling times.

DEAR JOAN: There’s a dreadful odor coming, apparently, from a dead animal under my daughter’s house. Her husband says there’s no way to reach it. He hasn’t been able to see exactly where it’s located nor what it may be, but the smell permeates the floor and the children’s bedrooms are affected.

Do you have any suggestions?

— R. Nakano, San Jose

DEAR R.: The best bet is to hire a pest control company that will find the source of the smell, remove the dead animal and clean the area to help eliminate the odor and any biological concerns.

Next, clean the house using vinegar or a product that has vinegar in it. They might also set out bowls of vinegar, which is good for absorbing and removing unpleasant odors. Make sure the bowls are safely out of reach of children and pets.

If they do nothing, the stench will disappear in a few weeks, but trust me, it will be agonizing until then.

Krane Pond update

Fantastic news. With your help, Save Mount Diablo has met its $500,000 goal for purchasing and preserving Krane Pond, an important water source for wildlife on Mount Diablo and surrounding areas.

I’ll have more details on what happens next in next week’s column, but on behalf of Save Mount Diablo, myself and wildlife, thank you.

Animal Life runs on Mondays. Reach Joan Morris at AskJoanMorris@gmail.com.