Bonnie has been involved in the native plant community for the past 16 years, helping the San Diego Chapter of the California Native Plant Society (CNPS-SD) in various capacities, including plant sales, garden tours, workshops, and membership, as well as seed processing, label writing, and website editing. Her love of California native plants led to planting her own native pollinator garden in 2009. The diversity of species that began to arrive was astounding! An iPhone camera and an iNaturalist account soon followed, and she is now an avid contributor to the database, with more than 19,000 observations, 9700 of which are pollinators, including 5800 native bee observations. She also documents native bees for two survey groups: one at Cabrillo National Monument and one at Torrey Pines State Natural Reserve. Bonnie has been displaying her native bee photos and related information at various tabling events for the past several years, including World Bee Day, Pollinator Week, Earth Day, and various other nature-themed events. This led to being recruited in 2023 to be a committee member of the Xerces Society’s Bee City USA-San Diego initiative as a representative from CNPS-SD. She is now a founding member of the newly formed California Native Bee Society (CalNBS).
Contact: bonnie@calnbs.org