Red-winged Blackbirds through scope The snow thankfully cleared just in time for students and staff to travel to Northern California this month for our field course “Raptors & Waterfowl of Lower Klamath Lake,” the culmination of a special partnership created between SFI and the Tule Lake National Wildlife Refuge. Thanks to the refuge’s generous collaboration and … Read more
Students gathered at the Siskiyou Field Institute on a cool spring day to learn from long-time SFI instructor John Roth during “In Search of Serpentine’s Sister: Uniting Indigenous and Natural Histories.” As a student of many natural sciences and a local resident of the Illinois Valley, John is passionate about how much there is to … Read more
February 2022: A group of eleven birders convened in northern California’s Del Norte County for a weekend of searching for, and learning about, the many avian species to be found on the coast there. This course marked the first of SFI’s ‘Birding Del Norte’ classes with expert Ken Burton, with the second coming up at … Read more
Fall is a traditional time of harvest, but this harvest isn’t limited to crops grown on manmade farms. The forests and fields of our valleys supply many useful (and often delicious!) fruits in the fall months – if you know where and how to safely look for them. SFI’s class ‘Fall Foraging: Nuts & Roots’ … Read more
Lynn Ransford on a mushroom hike On September 13th, student Lynn Ransford officially met all the requirements to be recognized as a Siskiyou Naturalist by SFI, a certification she originally started working toward in 2008! We spoke with Lynn about her most memorable experiences completing the certificate, how the opportunity to volunteer as a course … Read more
A generous (and much needed) rain didn’t deter a small, but eager group of students from getting to know the stories of some of their own ‘pet rocks’ collected over the years in September’s ‘Best of Pet Rock Show’ class. Long-time SFI instructor and geologist John Roth led the class in an introduction to on-the-ground … Read more
Students struck out into the diverse forests of SFI’s property this month to learn all about ‘Montane Conifers: Identification, Measurements, and Responses to Climate.’ Our instructors, Lucy Kerhoulas and Rosemary Sherriff, joined SFI from Humboldt University, where they are both researchers and professors. Co-hosting the course were Dr. Chris Lee, a forest health specialist from CalFire, and … Read more
By SFI Butterflies instructor Dana Ross A visit to Steens Mountain and the Alvord Desert is always worth the time and effort. This past July, I taught a new 3-day course for the Siskiyou Field Institute (SFI) on the butterflies of the region based at Malheur Field Station. DAY ONE. On Friday afternoon, … Read more
Photos by Kathleen Pyle June fifth. Still spring. Delicious mist blanketing the valley. My car hugging the twisting, curving road, the road hugging the higher ground, and the high ground itself hugging the selvages of great flat stretching southward. Thoughts wandered. What would our class be like? What would the other students be like? What … Read more
Siskiyou Field Institute held an amazing class on The Spirit of the Forest the weekend of June 5th through the 7th. The class was about capturing the spirit of the forest through pictures and words. Dr. Diana Coogle taught the writing portion of the class. While exploring the forest, Dr. Coogle had the class take … Read more
