“So you’re an ecologist?” a doctoral student on a field trip asks.
“No, I’m not a scientist,” I hastily reply. “I’m just trying to get to know my neighborhood.”
With a patient smile, she informs me that “ecology” comes from the Greek words for “study of” and “home” or “place to live.” By this simple definition, I qualify–as, at the least, an accidental ecologist.
“Have you heard of Frank Zappa?”
Visitors touring the Bodega Marine Laboratory and Reserve often seem surprised by my question. Baby-boomers call out answers: Guitarist. Composer. Had a band called the Mothers of Invention. Named his kids Moon Unit and Dweezle. For those too young to recall, I explain that shaggy-haired, iconoclastic Frank Zappa (1940-1993) released more than sixty albums and rocked the music world in a career that spanned three decades,
The first time I spied newborn Western gulls, I instinctively wanted to scoop the downy, dotted hatchlings up and away from a sea and sky of dangers. I needn’t have worried. Their parents had the job covered.
