Bumpass Hell Trail
The trail crosses volcanic slopes and snow-prone ridges before descending to boiling pools, steam vents, sulfur, and acidic ground.
California, United States: places and wildlife — page 4
Browse the published Explore collection for California, United States. Open a discovery for its field guide, practical details, and background.
Alamere Falls Trail
The authorized route uses Coast Trail and Wildcat Camp before continuing along beach at a safe tide.
Moro Rock Trail
Nearly four hundred steps thread ledges and railings to a narrow summit with views across Giant Forest, foothills, and high Sierra ridges.
Tomales Point Trail
Historic ranch buildings give way to coastal grassland, elk herds, wildflowers, cliffs, and the narrowing point.
The Huntington Botanical Gardens
More than a dozen themed gardens join global plant collections with architecture, water, art, and Southern California horticultural history.
Descanso Gardens
Descanso grows from remnant coast live-oak woodland into camellia forest, rose garden, Japanese garden, edible landscape, and native planting.
Filoli
Georgian Revival rooms open into walled gardens, terraces, woodland, and a working orchard shaped by two wealthy families and generations of staff.
Ganna Walska Lotusland
Cycads, cacti, aloes, bromeliads, topiary, lotus, blue garden, and sculptural reuse reflect Ganna Walska’s eccentric eye and expert horticultural collaboration.
San Francisco Botanical Garden
Magnolias, Andean cloud-forest plants, redwoods, succulents, ancient lineages, and California natives occupy fifty-five acres shaped by the city’s cool summers.
Ruth Bancroft Garden
Agaves, aloes, yuccas, cacti, Australian plants, and drought-adapted trees form dense compositions begun by Ruth Bancroft on former orchard land.
UC Botanical Garden at Berkeley
Nine geographic collections, rare cycads, redwoods, cacti, carnivorous plants, and conservation work occupy a steep Strawberry Canyon site.
Monterey Bay Aquarium
A towering kelp tank, sea otters, jellies, deep-sea animals, shorebirds, and the open-ocean gallery connect Monterey Bay ecosystems to fisheries, climate, plastics, and field research.
San Diego Zoo
Habitats for elephants, apes, big cats, birds, reptiles, and Australian wildlife spread across a lush hundred-acre site with major conservation programs behind the scenes.
San Diego Zoo Safari Park
African and Asian savanna species occupy large multi-species landscapes across a hot inland valley, alongside condor, rhino, and reproductive-science programs.
Aquarium of the Pacific
Galleries move from Southern California and Baja to tropical Pacific and northern waters, with sharks, sea otters, seabirds, coral, touch habitats, and conservation programs.
Los Angeles Zoo
Elephants, gorillas, reptiles, birds, hoofstock, and native-species recovery programs occupy a sloping campus near the Los Angeles River watershed.
Oakland Zoo
The zoo combines African and tropical species with the California Trail, where bears, wolves, condors, bison, and human land-use stories frame local conservation.
Birch Aquarium at Scripps
Kelp, seahorses, coral, intertidal animals, little blue penguins, and climate research connect public tanks to an active oceanographic institution.
Santa Barbara Zoo
Giraffes, gorillas, lions, condors, reptiles, and smaller species occupy thirty acres of former estate grounds overlooking the Pacific.
Northern Mockingbird
Arkansas’s state bird patrols open neighborhood territories, flashing white wings and stitching other birds’ sounds into long improvised songs.
Brown Pelican
Louisiana’s state bird patrols bays in low files, then folds into spectacular headfirst dives for schooling fish near the surface.
Mountain Plover
Look first for sandy plover with a white forehead and thin black forecrown in breeding plumage, then confirm it in shortgrass prairie, prairie-dog colonies, and sparsely vegetated fields. Those two clues make Mountain Plover much easier to identify responsibly in Colorado.
Utah Juniper
This slow-growing native forms much of Utah’s pinyon-juniper woodland, surviving heat, cold, and lean soils through scale leaves and extensive roots.
California Gull
Utah’s state bird is an inland gull whose vast Great Salt Lake gatherings connect nesting islands, farm fields, wetlands, and migration routes.
American White Pelican
One of North America’s largest birds nests on remote Great Salt Lake islands and travels astonishing distances to feed in freshwater wetlands.
Golden Eagle
Utah’s state bird of prey is a powerful open-country eagle most often discovered as a dark, steady shape circling over cliffs and basins.
Greater Roadrunner
New Mexico’s state bird is a large ground-dwelling cuckoo: a fast, territorial hunter that rudders with its tail, flashes white wing patches, warms dark skin in the morning sun, and sounds nothing like a cartoon beep.
Two-needle Piñon Pine
New Mexico’s state tree is a small, slow-growing pine that builds vast woodlands with juniper, feeds birds, mammals, and people with unusually large seeds, and records drought visibly in its crown.
New Mexico Locust
This small native tree can turn burned mountain slopes pink with pea-like flowers, then stabilize soil through vigorous root sprouting and nitrogen-fixing partnerships.
Cactus Wren
Arizona’s brash desert wren advertises itself from cholla with bold white brows, spotted plumage, and a mechanical chugging song.
Abert’s Towhee
A secretive lower-desert towhee scratches beneath mesquite, revealing a black face, warm undertail, and brief accelerating song.
Two-tailed Swallowtail
Arizona’s enormous yellow state butterfly patrols canyon streams and gardens, flashing black tiger stripes and two tails on each hindwing.
Saguaro
The Sonoran Desert’s towering column stores rain in pleated stems, shelters cavity nesters, and feeds wildlife with crown flowers and red fruit.
Blue Palo Verde
Arizona’s state tree sheds tiny leaves during drought, photosynthesizes through blue-green bark, and erupts in pollinator-rich yellow spring bloom.
Greater Sage-Grouse
At dawn, males turn a quiet sagebrush flat into a popping, swishing arena—a display sustained by much more habitat than the lek itself reveals.
Desert Bighorn Sheep
Nevada’s state mammal turns steep desert rock into refuge, using gripping hooves while tracking sparse forage, shade, and water across isolated ranges.
Lahontan Cutthroat Trout
Nevada’s native cutthroat links icy headwaters with Pyramid Lake, carrying the history of an immense Ice Age watershed in one living fish.
Carson Wandering Skipper
One of North America’s rarest butterflies survives in fragments of Nevada wet meadow, where groundwater keeps saltgrass green enough for its caterpillars.
Ash Meadows Blazing Star
This pale, star-flowered plant belongs to one Nevada oasis system, translating hidden groundwater into visible summer bloom on white desert soil.
Singleleaf Pinyon
Nevada’s characteristic pinyon often carries one needle per bundle, building broad woodlands whose seeds connect people, birds, rodents, and fire.
Great Basin Bristlecone Pine
Nevada bristlecones survive for millennia not by growing quickly, but by yielding wood, bark, and crown until a narrow living strip sustains the tree.
Mountain Bluebird
Idaho’s state bird flashes an almost unbroken blue across open mountain and sage country, often hovering briefly before dropping onto ground prey.
Western White Pine
Idaho’s state tree once dominated vast northern forests, and its five-needle sprays now tell a story of blister-rust loss, selective breeding, and restoration.
Bitterroot
Montana’s state flower hides a surprising strategy: succulent leaves gather early moisture, disappear, and leave luminous pink blossoms seemingly resting on bare stony ground.
Oregon Silverspot Butterfly
Oregon Silverspot Butterfly is recognizable by an orange-brown fritillary with dark spots above and bright silver spots beneath the hindwing.
Port Orford Cedar
Port Orford Cedar is recognizable by a tall aromatic conifer with flattened sprays, tiny scale leaves, and small round cones.
Mardon Skipper
Mardon Skipper is a small tawny-orange skipper with a stout hairy body and pale rectangular marks beneath and is most meaningfully sought in native grasslands and open meadows in south Puget Sound and the southern Cascades.
Western Redcedar
Western Redcedar is a very large conifer with fibrous reddish bark, drooping leader, and flattened sprays of scale leaves and is most meaningfully sought in moist forests, river terraces, wetlands, and shaded slopes across the Pacific Northwest.