Friends of China Camp

December's naturalist book club has been postponed to January 29th, 2023 due to the holiday. Happy Holidays!  See calendar for January's program.    

Join us for this month’s book club as we discuss Tsim Schneiders book, The Archaeology of Refuge and Recourse. Schneider is a professor of archaeology at University of California, Santa Cruz and a tribal member of the Federated Indians of Graton Rancheria. Excerpt from uapress.arizona.edu: “The Archaeology of Refuge and... Read more »

There will be a footrace beginning at Miwok Meadows on Saturday, December 3rd from 8am-2pm. Please expect increased foot traffic on Shoreline Trail, Bayview Trail, and Oak Ridge Trail during that time. Go to the Inside Trail Racing website for more details.

We are excited to witness the rise of our last full moon of 2022. This full moon was dubbed the Long Night Moon by the medieval Anglo-Saxons describing the shortened winter days and long nights. December's full moon has a high trajectory in the sky, which means that it will... Read more »

As fall transitions into winter, we will venture out into the Miwok Meadows forest, where we will carefully watch for flickers of color and movement emerging from the early morning mist. Though most warblers have continued their journey further south to Mexico and South America, the vibrant Townsend’s warbler winters... Read more »

Sunrise by Sheila Coll At China Camp, we are big fans of the indescribable beauty of sunrises over the San Pablo Bay. That is why we have an ongoing tradition to welcome and honor the first golden light of the year with our New Year’s day sunrise hike. During this... Read more »

EVENT CANCELED DUE TO PREDICTED STORMY AND OVERCAST WEATHER. CHECK CALENDAR FOR FUTURE EVENTS.  We are howlin’ with joy to welcome the first full moon of 2023. January’s “wolf moon” was named for the howling wolves often heard echoing across snowy landscapes in the dead of winter. This full moon... Read more »

THIS EVENT HAS BEEN CANCELLED DUE TO FORECASTED STORMY WEATHER CONDITIONS. STAY TUNED FOR FUTURE EVENTS. To be, or not to be, that is the question. What it takes to be a lesser scaup, or to be a greater scaup, now that’s a great question. Winter is an excellent time... Read more »

  After the long dry summer, the winter rains have awakened China Camp’s landscape: long-dormant seeds are sprouting, slick orange-bellied newts are emerging from deep earthen burrows, and beetles feast upon wet rotting wood and new mushrooms. During January’s program, Junior Rangers will look for these and other creatures under... Read more »

It's said, "time and tide wait for no man," but if you plan ahead you can certainly join us for our January King Tide Photography hike. As the bay rises, peak tide will occur around 11:30 a.m., but we will arrive earlier to walk the Turtleback trail loop (0.7 mile)... Read more »

Join Dr. Mike Vasey, former director of the San Francisco Bay National Estuarine Research Reserve, for a walk near the edge of China Camp’s tidal salt marsh during a “king tide,” what we call the most extreme and highest tides of the year. We will learn what king tides can... Read more »

Join us for the first virtual book club gathering of 2023 as we discuss Richard O. Prum’s Pulitzer Prize finalist book, The Evolution of Beauty. Prum, a professor of ornithology at Yale, offers vivid examples of tropical avian plumage and mating displays as evidence of Darwin’s oft-overlooked theory of sexual... Read more »