This very colorful mural debuted in Clairemont’s Bay Park neighborhood back in March. It decorates a fence on Morena Boulevard south of Ingulf Street.
Flora and fauna one might find in the neighborhood is depicted. In Tecolote Canyon one might observe a Red-Tailed Hawk. On the shore in Mission Bay one might spy a Snowy Egret. A bright yellow Bush Sunflower is an exclamation point to the brilliant artwork.
The digitally printed mural, part of the Morena Boulevard Beautification Project, was created by ArtReach (@artreachsd) in partnership with SDG&E. It was designed by artist Ian Stiles-Mikl (@ianstilesmikl) with input from community members.
Before the mural arrived, equipment and porta-potties in a dirt lot were visible through the fence. So much more beautiful now!
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Few people visit the northeast corner of vast Balboa Park, a quiet area bordering 28th Street in North Park. This is the home of Bird Park with its picnic benches, playgrounds, and expanses of green grass. It is also the home of a lush Monarch Waystation.
West of 28th Street, south of Thorn Street, the beautiful Monarch Waystation includes winding paths through milkweeds and nectar sources that shelter and sustain monarch butterflies as they migrate through San Diego.
When I walked the paths about a week ago, I noticed many monarch butterflies flitting here and there, and I attempted to capture them with my camera–but to no avail. I did take these photographs, however. They show what a fine, tranquil garden this is. No wonder. It has been adopted by the California Native Plant Society.
If you’d like to learn more about the Monarch Waystation Program, or would like information on how you can support butterfly populations, click this link.
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I post new blogs pretty often. If you like discovering new things, bookmark coolsandiegosights.com and swing on by occasionally!
I live in downtown San Diego and love to walk around with my camera! You can follow Cool San Diego Sights via Facebook or X.
During my last couple walks in National City, I noticed many electrical boxes have been beautifully painted with native flora and fauna. It’s almost as if wildlife has joined me on the sidewalk!
These photos were taken on National City Boulevard, a little south of 8th Street. I’ve observed boxes like these elsewhere in National City.
It appears many of these electrical boxes were painted last year by artist Laura Green (@lauragreenstudio). It’s part of the National City Utility Box Project.
Some of the boxes also specify the names or species of the painted subject.
What a great way to beautify an urban environment! One can learn to recognize our wild neighbors, too!
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I post new blogs pretty often. If you like discovering new things, bookmark coolsandiegosights.com and swing on by occasionally!
I live in downtown San Diego and love to walk around with my camera! You can follow Cool San Diego Sights via Facebook or X.
A free community Garden Fair was held today in Balboa Park celebrating Pollinator Week!
Local organizations that support our natural environment were lined up outside the San Diego Natural History Museum, providing the public with information about native plants and wildlife.
While pollinating bees and butterflies flitted about flowering plants in the Natural History Museum’s nearby nature trail, visitors to the park were learning about how they can help maintain a beautiful and healthy environment.
I walked around the museum to check things out…
Yes! Ecologik is included in a Women in STEM exhibit at the San Diego History Center!There are well over 500 species of bees native to San Diego! They can detect tastes with their front feet!Don’t we all love a clean San Diego? Of course we do!Many informative displays concerning pollinators and our natural environment.I see flowers and pollinators (including a bat) on this table!The San Diego Chapter of the California Native Plant Society is a great resource. They welcome new members!I didn’t know there’s a Paradise Hills Native Garden. I’ll have to check it out!The San Diego River Park Foundation had a table with great information.Volunteers with the San Diego Natural History Museum were providing a tour of their nature trail in Balboa Park.More exhibitors on the museum’s Moreton Bay Fig tree side.San Diego Canyonlands had some native pollinators on display.Hello to the Master Gardener Association of San Diego County!And hello to the San Diego Bird Alliance! They were demonstrating a native seed library. Create your own!You can help save Monarch butterflies by planting milkweed seeds.Endangered Concepts has repurposed unrecyclable plastic. The plastic fills decorative boulders! Clever idea!Learning at the California Native Horticultural Foundation table.Hey, NAT Garden Corps–this Garden Fair is a very cool event! That’s milkweed people can plant.
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I post new blogs pretty often. If you like discovering new things, bookmark coolsandiegosights.com and swing on by occasionally!
I live in downtown San Diego and love to walk around with my camera! You can follow Cool San Diego Sights via Facebook or X.
You’ve probably seen those book lending libraries placed near the sidewalk in front of homes. The boxes are filled with books that anyone can borrow.
Well, did you know there are similar native seed libraries?
Native seed libraries like the one in my photographs provide free native plant seeds for community members to use in their gardens.
As we know, native plants in San Diego are drought resistant and attract pollinators such as butterflies and birds. They’re good for biodiversity and a healthy environment.
If creating your own native seed library is something you’d like to look into, or do, check out this webpage on the San Diego Bird Alliance website. They provide starter kits that include seeds, envelopes, labels, brochures, posters and other materials for your box. Building the structure is your own fun project! (Perhaps make them similar to one of these.)
There’s a surprising museum jam-packed with wonders that everyone in San Diego should visit. I’m speaking of the Heritage of the Americas Museum in Rancho San Diego.
The Heritage of the Americas Museum is located near the West entrance of Cuyamaca College, immediately adjacent to the Water Conservation Garden. The museum building appears modest at first glance, but when you step through the front door your eyes might pop out of your head!
How do I begin to describe this amazing place?
The museum has four wings. They are dedicated to Archaeology, Anthropology, Natural History and Fine Art. If you wanted to examine every artifact, specimen and work of art, you could easily spend an hour exploring the museum.
Display cases contain objects from the Americas that fall into dozens of categories, whether it might be Peruvian textiles, or Haida and Tlingit artifacts, or paleo points dated 12000 B.C. to 6000 B.C., or millions-year-old fossils, or beautiful sea shells and coral…
When I visited, school children on a field trip were excitedly peering into the displays, seeing new worlds beyond their own life experience.
I’ll share a few photos so you get an idea of the fascinating worlds you’ll encounter, too.
Cool thing: the Heritage of the Americas Museum is free to the public every second Friday of the month!
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I post new blogs pretty often. If you like discovering new things, bookmark coolsandiegosights.com and swing on by occasionally!
I live in downtown San Diego and love to walk around with my camera! You can follow Cool San Diego Sights via Facebook or X.
One of my favorite plant shows in Balboa Park is presented twice a year by the San Diego Cactus & Succulent Society. Their 2025 Summer Show and Sale is happening this weekend, so I had to check it out!
As always the event is attracting big crowds. When I visited, one of the Casa del Prado’s outdoor patios was bustling with people making purchases of cacti, succulents, pottery, and more.
Inside Casa del Prado’s Room 101, long tables are overflowing with hundreds of incredible plants. The show is free to the public.
I love how cacti and succulents can have so many different forms, and how a prickly plant can boast some of the most bright, brilliant flowers! I tried to take good photographs of the unique beauty.
Parking Lot C in Old Town San Diego will soon attract bees, butterflies, birds and other beneficial insects. That’s because the bed of soil along the Twiggs Street sidewalk is newly planted with native vegetation suited to pollinators!
Three other beds at this parking lot will be planted, too, according to a sign that I saw while walking today. Not only will this newly created habitat benefit pollinators, but it will add natural beauty, help stabilize soil, save water and provide educational opportunities.
If you’d like to learn more, check out this webpage. It concerns the Old Town San Diego Chamber of Commerce’s Pollinator Pathways project. You’ll find there are various ways for you to help out!
(As you can see, I took these photos very early this morning before many cars arrived at the parking lot.)
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I post new blogs pretty often. If you like discovering new things, bookmark coolsandiegosights.com and swing on by occasionally!
I live in downtown San Diego and love to walk around with my camera! You can follow Cool San Diego Sights via Facebook or X.
The San Dieguito River Park’s long Coast to Crest Trail runs through San Pasqual Valley, southeast of Escondido and northwest of Ramona. Much of the San Pasqual Valley is part of an agricultural preserve owned by the City of San Diego, where active farming can be observed.
The San Pasqual Valley Agricultural Preserve Trail is a segment of the Coast to Crest Trail that passes swaths of this farmland.
Yesterday I hiked perhaps a mile of this fascinating trail. As I walked east past an informative sign that I photographed, I observed farm workers planting a new crop to my left, and trees and vegetation along Lake Hodges/San Dieguito River to my right.
You can find a trail map in .pdf form here. You might have to rotate the map clockwise to orient yourself. The trail segment is almost 9 miles, and I explored only the west part of it, starting from the vicinity of Mule Hill. The sign that I photographed is where the wedge-like black arrow is on the map.
Here I am approaching the sign…
The San Dieguito River Park’s information includes:
The San Pasqual Valley Agricultural Preserve Trail runs through what once was called the valley of eagles. The In-ke-pah tribe called this valley Mo-culoch-culoch, which means “one stone on top of another.” In the late 18th century, the Spanish Franciscans renamed the valley for Saint Pascal.
The City of San Diego leases the land for farming, a use that helps the city maintain water supplies and protect water quality while preserving the rural character of the valley and continuing the tradition of agriculture in the San Pasqual Valley.
San Diego County maintains the second highest number of farms in all counties in the United States. It also leads the nation in the production value of nursery crops, floriculture and sod.
To read the above sign, enlarge my photograph.
Now I’m continuing my walk past it, getting my first glimpse of farmland ahead. The weather was pleasantly overcast on this early June morning. I saw several mountain bikers during my walk…
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I post new blogs pretty often. If you like discovering new things, bookmark coolsandiegosights.com and swing on by occasionally!
I live in downtown San Diego and love to walk around with my camera! You can follow Cool San Diego Sights via Facebook or X.
A beautiful native plant garden can be enjoyed at the Sikes Adobe Farmhouse in Escondido. The garden is on the grounds of the historic farmstead, directly next to the San Dieguito River Park’s long Coast to Crest Trail.
I visited the native plant garden during a walk today and took these photographs. I noticed a sign indicating it was an Eagle Scout Service Project, undertaken in 2021 by Matthew VanderVorst of Escondido Troop 668.
It’s late Spring, so many flowers are in bloom. Signs identify the plants, which include Monkey Flower, Deerweed, Bladder Pod, Black Sage, White Sage, California Buckwheat, Shaw’s Agave, Coastal Prickly Pear, and others.
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I post new blogs pretty often. If you like discovering new things, bookmark coolsandiegosights.com and swing on by occasionally!
I live in downtown San Diego and love to walk around with my camera! You can follow Cool San Diego Sights via Facebook or X.
Cool San Diego Sights! 