When light shines through water, colors with longer wavelengths are absorbed by the water, with the longest wavelengths absorbed first. Blue and violet have the shortest wavelengths of visible light, so they are able to penetrate the deepest.
"They didn't even try to fly away. They just feebly made noise," a woman told the Santa Barbara Independent on Saturday after spotting over two dozen dead or dying cormorants near Goleta Beach. "A few were on their stomachs, wings spread [and] gasping for breath.... Heartbreaking."
Jackie, the world-famous Big Bear bald eagle, has been melting hearts and educating the public about her species since 2015, thanks to a web camera run by the California nonprofit Friends of Big Bear Valley (FOBBV).
The crowd atop the Hermosa Beach Pier watched with bated breath as a local fisherman, stripped down to his underwear and armed with only a pair of scissors, waded into the water in an attempt to free a juvenile great white shark.
Shoreline Lake, in Mountain View, is holding its third annual Sail-A-Dinghy-Day on Sunday, April 12th, from 10am to 4pm. Visitors to "Silicon Valley's best kept secret" will get access to free skippered sailboat rides, helmed by the Boathouse's experienced instructors, as well as other Welcome-to-Sailing activities.
For 2025, there was good news and bad news: overall, these areas were visited 323 million times over the course of the year. That's the good news; the bad news is that this figure was down ever so slightly - specifically, 2.7% - from a record-setting 2024.
This contemporary residence offers a clean look with wire-brushed wood floors, LED lighting and a modern kitchen with a tiled backsplash and custom cabinetry. A glass-enclosed staircase leads up three floors to a private rooftop deck plumbed for a gas barbecue and a spa.
Out of an abundance of caution, access is being paused to give wildlife space and allow for ongoing monitoring. The investigation involves scientists from UC Santa Cruz and UC Davis, along with California State Parks, the California Department of Fish and Wildlife, the California Department of Food and Agriculture, the California Department of Public Health, the California Marine Mammal Stranding Network, the U.S. Department of Agriculture and NOAA Fisheries.
It looked like the silvery blade of a knife. Peering through his goggles, diver Ted Judah had laid eyes on a deep-sea creature rarely encountered by humans. He and wife Linda were diving off McAbee Beach in Monterey County in late December when, near the surface, he spotted the undulating thing. It was some kind of ribbon fish, he wrote in a post on the Facebook group Monterey County Dive Reports. Kevin Lewand solved the mystery.
For travelers looking to get to know the many-varied charms of the Golden State, discovering it through the best beaches in California is never a bad idea. The state's coastline spans a vast 3,427 miles after all. Among its 420 public beautiful beaches are plentiful opportunities to swim, lay out, look at tide pools, surf to your heart's content, or watch the sunset.
It was off-limits to the public for a century until recently, when a nonprofit land trust called the Wildlands Conservancy liberated the coastline following 10 years of planning. Accessing the preserve is allowed after reaching the farthest end of Bodega Harbour, a scenic coastal community of 700 homes linked within an 18-hole golf course. But once word about the hike began to spread last month, locals began saying their neighborhood was upended overnight by hundreds of cars.
City staff estimate it would cost approximately $1.2 billion to meet its goal of adding 87 more acres of parkland. That figure is based on Mountain View's current population, and does not account for future growth. "Significant funding would be needed to develop new parks or to update our parks," Assistant Community Services Director Kristine Crosby said at the Jan. 27 council meeting.