Wonders of Natural Life on the Edge

Life in California is lived on the edge--and I mean that literally. Beneath our feet, the shifting tectonic plates of the Earth’s crust collide and ride up over each other. On our western horizon, the Pacific Ocean pounds the crumbling edge of the North American continent. Now and again, we are reminded of these facts by a seismic shudder or, more recently, the tragic death of a young woman who was buried under a collapsing cliff face as she watched her husband riding the surf.

Susan J. Tweit understands the edginess of life in the West, as she demonstrates in “Seasons on the Pacific Coast: A Naturalist’s Notebook� (Chronicle Books, $22.95, 224 pages), a useful, delightful but ultimately hardheaded guide to the flora and fauna of our coastal environment. “Edges are magical places, diverse and full of possibility,� Tweit explains. “The interplay between ocean and land, and between freshwater and salt where streams and rivers meet the ocean, is what makes the coast such a complex and fascinating ecological edge.�

Like her earlier work from Chronicle Books, “Seasons in the Desert,� Tweit’s latest book is organized according to the four seasons and features the plants and animals that are most prominent in each season of the year. Thus, Tweit shows us the California poppy in the section for spring, when poppies in breathtaking profusion “appear as if by magic� from “plants [that] have been there all along, hidden underground.� The orca, better known as a killer whale but actually the largest member of the dolphin family, appears in summer when the family groups called pods join up into “superpods,� “possibly to give male orcas a chance to mate with females outside their genetic group.�

Tweit raises the consciousness and goads the conscience of her readers at every opportunity--she reminds us, again and again, that the very natural wonders that make California such a powerful draw are placed at risk by overpopulation and urban sprawl. “The fiery poppy displays of the southern coast are a thing of the past, displaced by development and exotic landscaping,� she notes. DDT may be banned, but seabirds like the pelican are endangered by pesticides that wash out of residential lawns and end up in the ocean: “Thus, what I do in my yard comes back to me when the sky offshore is empty of brown pelicans flying in lines.�

Not all the environmental news in “Seasons on the Pacific Coast,� however, is bad. Orcas, once used as strafing targets by Air Force pilots on training flights, are now regarded with affection and interest, a sea change in public opinion that Tweit attributes to the good work of SeaWorld and other animal parks: “Seen up close, these ‘killer whales’ charmed viewers with their engaging behavior and amazed researchers with their intelligence and sophisticated language.�

One of the glories of “Seasons on the Pacific,� by the way, is the illustrations by James Noel Smith, whose watercolors have the freshness and immediacy of a quick sketch in a field notebook and, at the same time, the charm of a pretty picture in a children’s book. Indeed, even as they enliven the book, the illustrations enhance its usefulness as a field guide precisely because they are so clear and so detailed.

Practical tips on coastal adventures can be gleaned from the book, which includes a section on “Recommended Readings & Places to Visit,� but Tweit delivers her good advice with both humor and intimacy. For example, the banana slug is a mucus-covered creature that oozes through the temperate rain forests of the Pacific Coast, and I saw lots of them on rainy days during my undergraduate years at UC Santa Cruz, where it was adopted as the official school mascot. But, thanks to Tweit, I know now not to lick one.

“Not only does the mucus make for a gummy, gaggy mouthful, it is also an anesthetic,� Tweit explains. “As my daughter, Molly, discovered years ago when we lived in slug country in western Washington, if you lick a banana slug, your tongue goes numb.�

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After 24 hours on the Strip in Las Vegas, there is something cleansing about a drive across the desert to Boulder City, Nev., and Hoover Dam, which is not merely one of the greatest feats of civil engineering in history, but also a work of art that says something profound about America in the early decades of the 20th century. That’s the subtext of “Hoover Dam: The Photographs of Ben Glaha� by Barbara Vilander (University of Arizona Press, $55 cloth, $24.95 paper, 169 pages).

Glaha, an employee of the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation, was assigned to create a photographic record of the construction of the dam, and his uncredited photographs were used to publicize and promote the project. But, almost inadvertently, Glaha went above and beyond the call of duty: “What set Glaha apart from other photographers,� explains Vilander, “was his ability to produce images that could be utilized for technical documentation, propaganda and fine-art exhibitions with equal effectiveness.�

Vilander retrieved Glaha’s work from the filing cabinets to which they had been consigned, and she presents 50 of them here, ranging from a shot of the wild river gorge called Black Canyon where the dam was sited to the completed project in all of its brutal grandeur, and the mighty saga of construction that led from one to the other.

West Words looks at books related to California and the West. It runs every other Wednesday.