Lech Naumovich, Executive Director at Golden Hour, and Ryan Branciforte (Board Member at Golden Hour) have been collaborating on a large-scale conservation project sponsored by the Bay Area Open Space Council over the past 6 years.  This project specifically looks at providing a formula and guidance for land conservation efforts in the Bay Area.  Lech served on the Steering Committee and the Vegetation Focus group during this project while working for the East Bay Chapter of the California Native Plant Society. The text of the article, found below, is reproduced with permission from CNPS.

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Golden Hour will be sponsoring two workshops in the first week of April.  We’re excited to be working with our partners at Garber Park Stewards on a couple of local workshops.  Both workshops will be fully outdoors and the public is always invited.  We always recommend an RSVP to ensure we’ll have enough tools and handouts.  Please email lech atsymbol goldenhour.org. Continue reading →

Fragrant Fritillary (F. liliaceae) in full bloom in Santa Clara County

As some of the early spring flowers open up, we’ll be celebrating this spring with some exceptional workshops, new projects and important announcements.  Here’s a small sampling of projects to be offered shortly.

• The Measure DD project slated for Garber Park, Oakland has been implemented.  We are working on a monitoring protocol to determine how well the transplants – passive restoration efforts – have worked.
• We will be holding a 2nd Annual Sudden Oak Death at Garber Park.  Here is the announcement.  Sudden Oak Death: the Current State of Understanding & Strategies for Facing the PathogenThis 3 hour workshop will lead participants through Garber Park, Oakland, a location with confirmed Sudden Oak Death.  In this portion of Claremont Canyon (an extremely mesic portion of the Oakland Hills), impact on oaks can be catastrophic.  This workshop will talk about how to recognize infection in oak trees, possible treatments for infected oaks, and typical losses in the whole community.  Workshop is cosponsored by Garber Park Stewards and Golden Hour Restoration Institute, based on information and on-site consultation with UC Berkeley’s Garbelotto lab specializing on SOD research.  Location: Garber Park – Evergreen Rd entrance. April 7th, 2012 – 10 am. Continue reading →

So it’s that time of year when we’re watching the dull greens return to a bright lively color, while little green plants germinate everywhere.  We at Golden Hour are masterminding a work plan that will meet community demand as well as meet the promulgated goals of the organization.  We especially embrace projects with habitat value and community interest. We don’t take on any and every project, since we would be overwhelmed, but we try our best to at least fulfill projects that meet our internal selection criteria.  Continue reading →

Our late season survey of known Monarch roosting sites was a tremendous success.  A total of 4 brave biking-naturalists arrived by public transit and bike (see Transit and Trails here) in order to visit and record occurrence data at a location with a healthy monarch population.  The site information was corroborated with records at Xerces Society.  Although the Xerces thanksgiving count visited this site in late November, our goal was to observe what the site looked like in late January, 2 months later.  Liam O’Brien was helpful in helping us think about survey logistics and goals.  Thanks Liam!

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copyright by CA Academy of Science via Calphotos

Golden Hour Restoration Institute is teaming with Transit and Trails and Xerces Society to conduct a citizen science monarch survey in the East Bay.  This car-free entomological tour will visit a number of occupied and potential sites on the East Bay shoreline.  We'll be collecting some presence-absence data and log-scale observation numbers. Golden Hour Director, Lech Naumovich, will provide some basic instruction and information on this survey effort.  Please bring your own snacks.  Binoculars, spotting scopes and telephoto lenses are welcome!  Continue reading →

Golden Hour Executive Director, Lech Naumovich, was awestruck and greatly inspired by the 2012 CNPS Conservation Conference.  The sunny San Diego Town and Country venue was absolutely packed with cutting edge plant research, restoration success, professionalism, and inspiration.  Lech served on the conference steering committee and was a co-chair for the Restoration Science session.  Honestly, he couldn’t be more proud to be a part of this fantastic effort.  The California Native Plant Society staff, board of directors, steering committee, and session chairs worked diligently and tirelessly to make this a success – and they achieved that goal.  Thank you everyone for your hard work. Continue reading →

First and foremost we need to thank our wonderful donors, friends, volunteers, students and board for a fantastic year.  Our donors were generous in helping provide funding for 2012 which will include new partnerships and projects with Xerces Society, East Bay Parks, and a few other organizations.  We’re very excited about how many students and volunteers got “hooked” on nature this year.  The personal dispatches from past students and current enthusiasts are always welcome news.  Thank you for reaching out and staying in touch.

We closed out 2011 with a fantastically successful volunteer planting day: Restoration 2 Planting at Garber Park – what we’ve learned – how we plant.  As the Garber Park Stewards continue to work at habitat restoration in Garber Park, Oakland more exciting discoveries and successes sprout.  We found new leaves from plants we thought had perished, we located new native grasses in areas they weren’t observed before, and after one year, we concluded that our restoration treatment was a dramatic improvement from the weedy, “do nothing” control plot.

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Building and planting in the first set of restoration beds, Garber Park, Feb, 2011 (photo: Mary Millman)

We are excited to create 4 new planting beds in Garber Park, Oakland.  This project has been sponsored by the Garber Park Stewards and is scheduled to be implemented on this Saturday at 9 am – Evergreen Road entrance.  Here is the full announcement. Continue reading →