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But for the pandemic, I would be flying to New York City to see a snowy owl standing in a Central Park meadow. It’s the first time the Arctic tundra dweller has been seen in the park in130 years. “Wow! A magnificent snowy owl is in NYC! ,” @Centralparknyc posted on IG.
The rare sighting took me back to 2013, when I persuaded my husband to ditch his birthday dinner in favor of careening over to Marina del Rey to see blue-footed boobies that had appeared offshore. We got there just before sunset. Avid birders had set up scopes and invited us to take a look. It was beyond thrilling to see these visitors from Ecuador’s Galápagos Islands.
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Am I the only one who didn’t know about the wetlands in South Los Angeles? Last weekend I was invited to what I would call a curated park cleanup: Show up, pick up tools or garbage bags, dial into a conference call, and learn a little about the park through earbuds while you pick up trash no contact required.
I went because the cleanup was held in South Los Angeles Wetlands Park, a place I had never heard of, at 5413 S. Avalon Blvd. As wetlands go, this one is a convincing imposter, described in a 2012 media account as “carved out from the industrial tundra of South Los Angeles.”
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For a few hours each week, Kevin Benedicto inhabits an otherworldly realm: Icewind Dale, a perilous land of tundra and frost, wizards and orcs, white dragons and crag cats. His domain is the universe of Dungeons & Dragons, the addictive tabletop role-playing game that made its debut more than four decades ago.
As dungeon master for the uninitiated, that’s the game’s organizer and leader of the adventure Benedicto steers his group of friends across a world conceived in their minds and limited only by their creativity and the roll of the dice. Here, they can do something they can’t in real life: defeat a monster.
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Happy New Year to readers of The Wild.
Time to step into 2021, maybe by seeking out sunrise views in these places. Here are my picks for the best places to make tracks over the long holiday weekend while staying close to home.
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Mt. Hollywood, Griffith Park: This peak is good for a workout hike, day or night. By night, the ambient lights of the city are all you will need to find your way to the top. Depending on how clear the air is, you’ll see the observatory in the foreground and views of downtown L.A., Hollywood and Century City. A New Year’s Eve hike isn’t out of the question (no boozing it up), but remember that the park closes at 10 p.m. There are several routes to the top, the most direct 2½ miles uphill from the Griffith Observatory (though parking is difficult in that area). Check out our guide to Griffith Park for more details.
This is part of our series PLANT PPL, where we interview people of color in the plant world.
Mallory Browne always said she’d be a florist in her next life, but why wait? Toward the end of 2017, while working a desk job focused on the analytical side of marketing, Browne said to herself, “I don’t know what it’s going to be but I need to use my hands for something other than typing.” Later on, during a walk with her boyfriend, she said she felt compelled to vocalize what her intuition was telling her: “I’m going to be a florist.”