Local Habitats

Even though we live in a city with lots of streets, apartments, and office buildings, there are still many wild natural habitats close by. These are places that people have worked together to preserve and save from destruction. From our home we can ride our bikes to the baylands, drive to the Los Altos hills or go all the way over the Santa Cruz mountains to the beach.

In Mountain View there is a very pretty baylands. The baylands has a lot of water, animals and plants. The San Francisco bay is huge. At one end of the bay, salt water comes in from the Pacific Ocean while at the other end rivers and streams empty fresh water into the bay. The edge of the bay where there is a lot of mud is called the baylands. Some of the animals that are at the baylands are birds, fish, insects, and ducks. When the tide goes out, you can see shells, crabs and the birds looking for food in the mud. There are also some islands at the baylands that are full with birds and plants. Going to the baylands is very exciting. - Hugo and Marialena

Hidden Villa is an enviromental education center in the Los Altos hills. At Hidden Villa there's a forest, garden and farm. In the forest there are a lot of animals like deer, lizards and banana slugs. Some forest animals are nocturnal and only come out at like bats and owls. The forest habitat is important for these animals because it is their house where they can find food, water and protection. In the garden they have plants that are healthy because they don't use pesticides. Hidden Villa has chickens, pigs, cows, goats and sheep on their farm. We really enjoy going to Hidden Villa on field trips with our class. - Jose and Javier

On the other side of the Santa Cruz mountains is the beach. The habitat of the beach has a lot of animals like crabs, snails and fish. The crabs are red and they can pinch really hard. The snails are calm and they make bubbles when you put salt on them. The fish swim in the ocean so we can't see them from the beach, but we know that they're there! - Micha y Fernando