Tricolored Blackbirds of the Port of West Sacramento

The search for tricolored blackbirds (Agelaius tricolor) at the Port of West Sacramento along the Sacramento deep ship water channel started last year. A field biologist and I hiked out to the ship channel's levee access road via Carlin Drive in West Sacramento, hoping to detect a breeding colony across the channel in the Yolo Bypass Wildlife Area. We walked the levee road a bit to the south, and as we were about to give up, we saw a foraging flock of about 40 tricoloreds in the non-native grassland on our side of the channel. It was late April during the volunteer-based statewide survey organized by the Audubon Society and UC Davis. We tried a few other spots along the channel, as well as within the Yolo Bypass Wildlife Area, but had no further luck.

Tricolored blackbird is a species of special concern that may very soon become listed as endangered, pending on a decision by the California Fish and Game Commission. Nearly endemic to the State of California, the species has faced precipitous decline over the past several decades, declining 44% between 2011 and 2014. When a friend and colleague of mine suggested we go out this year and look for them, I was eager to go back and cover some of the spots at the Port of Sacramento that my former field partner a year ago was not willing to try to access. So exactly one year and one day later, my friend and I hiked out to the same levee access road from a dirt road off Ramos Drive.

This time we went north up the levee access road instead of south, along the ship channel towards the Port of Sacramento and Washington Lake. The road is owned by the Port of Sacramento; however, not just wildlife biologists looking for blackbirds use it. We saw others running, biking, driving, and fishing along it as well, so it is one of West Sacramento's hidden recreation spots for only those who know about it. We walked about 3 miles and didn't see the blackbirds, but enjoyed the exercise and some good conversation. Then we turned off the levee road and started heading back towards the street where we had parked, in the late part of the afternoon. Pausing for a quick pit stop, I spotted the foraging flock.

About a week later, I dragged my brother and husband out to the same spot along the ship channel so I could confirm the sighting and get GPS coordinates. It was earlier in the day, and this time I took some photographs of the deep ship water channel and the habitat. I did not get a shot of the blackbirds, however, as I had three years ago in the Livermore area.

Non-native, annual grass field where the tricolored blackbirds were seen foraging

We walked along the channel and again could not find the birds. Until once again, when we turned to leave and paused for another pit stop, I saw and confirmed the identity of the tricolored blackbirds. One way to distinguish foraging tricoloreds from their almost identical looking cousins, the red-winged blackbirds (A. phoeniceus), is their flocking behavior. The tricolored flock will suddenly emerge from where they are hidden in the grass, fly back and forth in a synchronous motion, and land again in another spot in the tall grass, where they disappear from sight until they emerge again. If I was quick enough to get a scope on them or close enough to get them in my binoculars, I might have been able to see the characteristic white patch on their wings that also distinguishes them from the other blackbirds. But I didn't.

Each time I saw this flock, I saw them fly off in the direction of the ship channel. It made my colleague and I wonder if there actually is a breeding colony on the other side, and if we could somehow get access to that levee and peer over the toe drain part of Prospect Slough that separates the ship channel from the wildlife area. There was also some really lovely looking freshwater marsh habitat in this area that was beckoning us to visit. We didn't get around to it this year. I am hoping next year to not only seek a new adventure along the ship channel, but to locate a breeding colony of tricolored blackbirds in an area where they seem to be rapidly disappearing from.

Flight Over the Delta Part 2

Lindsey Slough

In part one of "Flight over the Delta", an early dense fog and President Obama's flight path to the Cyber Security Summit in Palo Alto blocked many of the views we were hoping to see from our small 4-seat fixed-wing aircraft. So my colleagues and I were very fortunate to be invited again to take to the skies for live aerial views of the landscape that our daily working lives are dedicated to. This time it was a bright and sunny day in mid April. No fog, no Obama, no Dramamine, and a map to help me figure out where we were. I could pay closer attention to the locations of the natural communities I hope will be protected and restored in California's Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta. We met at the hangar and took a different plane on this day, one with larger bubble windows. I couldn't have asked for a better day.

The photos and video I took with my iPhone will tell the rest of the story. Well, almost the rest.

Sacramento River from Hood to Courtland, CA. 

This is where the twin tunnels intake pumps would be constructed if that project goes through.

Brannan Island State Recreation Area on the Sacramento River.
This island has one of the last remaining dune habitats in the Delta.

Tip of Discovery Bay, Contra Costa County

Tyler Island and North Mokelumne River. Look closely to see Sacramento River, top.

Vernal pool-grassland complex in the Mountain House mitigation bank for species like California red-legged frog and California tiger salamander.

Some lovely riparian habitat along the San Joaquin and Stanislaus rivers, but a lot more needs to be restored here to bring back the species that once occupied this area but are now gone:

We diverted a bit from the Delta to the east to see how the reservoirs of the Sierra Nevada foothills  were doing during the drought. We probably shouldn't have been surprised by what we saw. The low water levels and exposed land are due to a record-low snow melt in the mountains. It's a little frightening when thinking about how much water is consumed in California.

New Melones Lake. Water level changed so much in a matter of weeks, I could not match this image to Google Earth.

Narrow band of Sierra Nevada snowmelt

Leaving New Melones

Camanche Reservoir with exposed islands

After our detour to the foothills, we returned to the Delta so we could get good bird's-eye views of Suisun Marsh. Suisun Marsh isn't technically within the legal Delta boundary; however, it is that part of the San Francisco Bay estuary that links the Delta with the San Pablo and San Francisco bays. It consists primarily of managed wetlands for waterfowl habitat and duck clubs, but plans have been underway to restore these diked wetlands to the historic state of a natural tidal marsh ecosystem. I had visited Suisun Marsh many times on the ground; but had never imagined how colorful it would be from the air.

Grizzly Island Wildlife Area and Roaring River Slough

Flooded island between Wheeler Island and Van Sickle Island

Montezuma Slough and the Montezuma Hills

We circled around Suisun Bay and Grizzly Bay, then headed up to Lindsey Slough and the north Delta. I took one last shot of Cache Slough and Lindsey Slough meeting up with the now-flooded Liberty Island (top of photo below):

Now the rest of the story: After reveling for a couple of hours in the air, our aircraft landed and we were told to hop out. But for some strange reason, it was super easy to jump out because there was such a wide open space. In other words, there was no door. It wasn't until we were out, standing on the tarmac, that our pilot said, "Where's the door?" Apparently, it fell off and landed somewhere in Suisun Marsh. We were all so enthralled in our habitat viewing, photographing, and video recording, none of us noticed--not even my colleague who was sitting next to it. It wasn't until we were off the plane that we realized the door was no longer there. We all got a good chuckle out of it. We were well strapped in, and the flight was low and slow, so there was no noticeable change in air temperature, pressure, or anything dangerous or scary. We were just having a little adventure that we weren't even aware of.  And now that we were back on terra firma, it was time to go back to work in the office and look forward to another adventure.

Calhoun Cut and Lindsey Slough

West Lindsey Slough

A travel blog theme this year has been the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta. Because I work on behalf of the natural resources in this area, I go on some cool field trips to places I'm not sure the public is authorized to go. Lately the purpose of these field trips has been to witness restoration in action--the act of converting compromised and degraded habitats to as near historical condition as possible so the area can once again thrive as a natural community supporting diverse native plants and wildlife. One of California Department of Fish and Wildlife's drought-related projects was to restore tidal flow back into Lindsey Slough in the Calhoun Cut Ecological Reserve.

Lindsey Slough is in Solano County, California. It was historically a dendritic channel that received tidal flow from the Sacramento River, just about 5 miles north of where the freshwater of the Sacramento and San Joaquin rivers mixes with the salt water of Suisun Bay.  It had arms that stretched to the west, north, and south of its main channel, with many small finger channels extending from the arms. These channels and their adjacent wetlands supported a wide variety of fish and wildlife species that depended on the tidal marsh ecosystem.

In the early 1900s, a self-proclaimed entrepreneur named Patrick Calhoun was at the forefront of developing Solano City, an idea for a grandiose river town. The city would have extended from Highway 113 down to Highway 12 and Suisun Marsh, just east of where Fairfield, California, exists today. Plans were made and property was acquired by 1913 for a city that would support up to 75,000 residents and have fancy accommodations for tourists. To provide easy transportation for boats and ships on the Sacramento River, Calhoun and his partners dredged a straight channel from the western arm of Lindsey Slough at Highway 113, where the city was to be built, to its confluence with Barker Slough, where Lindsey Slough's main channel was wide enough to connect mariners to the Sacramento River. In doing so, they created large berms to cut off what were once the north and south arms of Lindsey Slough, and to channel the tidal flow into their new watery super highway. The channel was aptly named Calhoun Cut. As the story goes, these shady developers wound up spending all of the money too soon, defaulted on debts, and went bankrupt. Solano City was never developed and the idea died. Along with Solano City, the tidal flow into the historical north and south channels of Lindsey Slough also died, and the blockage dried up the channels and surrounding marshes.

Today, the Department of Fish and Wildlife and two family ranchers own the land that surrounds Calhoun Cut and Lindsey Slough. With cooperation between CDFW and the landowners, the Lindsey Slough restoration project was developed and implemented in 2014. Levee breaches at the berms blocking the northern and southern arms of Lindsey Slough brought the historical tidal flow back to where it belonged. The marsh vegetation returned, and so did its wildlife.

Restored southern arm creates a marsh in dried-out land

In the grassland looking towards Calhoun Cut

On two occasions I was lucky to witness this first hand. On the first trip out to the Calhoun Cut Ecological Reserve, accessed from Highway 113, I went with Department staff down what was barely a road to the location of the south berm levee breach, which opened the main southern channel of Lindsey Slough, south of Calhoun Cut, to tidal action. It was in the late afternoon on a rather chilly day in April, and the goal of this trip was to take a couple of kayaks down the restored channel and listen for the rare and secretive California black rail, a State Threatened species. This was a case of the "if you build it, they will come" philosophy of restoration--in many cases it doesn't work, but in this case it was successful. The black rail had been detected in the restored wetland. The black rail is a tiny marsh bird that is rarely seen, even by the biologists who study them. They are mostly identified by sound. I had never seen or heard one before, but the biologists I was with had and they recognized its call. We parked the kayaks on some high ground and listened closely. Through the distracting shrill of red-winged blackbirds claiming breeding territory and other noisy neighbors, the soft squeaks and growly purr (Ki ki Kerr) of the black rail could barely be heard. But I heard it and that was a thrill of a lifetime. As late afternoon started to turn towards early evening, we quickly paddled our kayaks back to the truck so we wouldn't get caught in the rapidly approaching darkness of night. We spotted a river otter who swam well ahead of us almost the whole way back to Calhoun Cut. We made it before dark, but the cold had set in and I was wet, and my feet were a bit scratched and cut from wearing Tevas in the tall vegetation. But a little cold and a little pain is just a small part of an exhilarating field visit.

My next visit to Calhoun Cut Ecological Reserve was with a larger group of people on another restoration field trip. This visit was in the middle of the afternoon on a very hot day in the middle of June in 2015. On this day, we hiked from Highway 113 along the part of Lindsey Slough that had been turned into Calhoun Cut. We enjoyed levee-top views in bright daylight of the newly watered and vegetated channels that were starting to make a comeback. The destination of the hike was the same south berm levee breach that our kayaking trip started from a month earlier; but in broad daylight from a different vantage point. We stood at the head of the newly created channel, where our friend the river otter frolicked to the delight of the onlookers.

Breached levee between Calhoun Cut and Lindsey Slough

New dredged channel restores Lindsey Slough

Though the last trip was a little cold, I had the opposite field mishap of a mild case of heat stroke. I laid down with my head on my pack while much discussion about the restoration project continued, and my friend and colleague nurtured me with her ice cold bottle of water. As my friend and I started to slowly trudge back to the highway under the hot sun, our host rescued us in her truck and took us back to the air-conditioned van.

I started this blog by saying how fortunate I am to go places where the public doesn't or cannot ordinarily go. However, the Calhoun Cut Ecological Reserve is not completely closed to the public. Through boat access from Calhoun Cut, waterfowl hunting and fishing is allowed. A boater that reaches the breach site may be lucky enough to be greeted by the friendly resident river otter, and if very quiet during the early touches of twilight, hear the faint but distinct call of the rare and secretive black rail.

Snow Geese - Winter Migration Stopover in Pleasant Grove

The lesser snow goose (Anser caerulescens caerulescens) breeds in the Arctic tundra, and each year migrates on about a 3,000-mile journey to winter in the temperate climates of California and Mexico, then returns to its northern breeding grounds in late winter or early spring. In California, we see two migrating populations, the western Arctic population and the Wrengel Island population, make their way along the Pacific Flyway. During this long migration, like all migrating waterfowl, the geese pick "rest stops" along their route--and California's Central Valley is extremely important for providing such stops with ample forage to fuel the rest of their journey. It is also where the Wrengel Island population of snow goose makes its wintering home. The Central Valley is a very threatened habitat for migrating geese. Most of the natural wetlands in California have been converted to urban or agricultural development. Wildlife-friendly agriculture and managed seasonal wetlands typically found in wildlife refuges have become the substitute for stopover sites, where food is subsidized with waste grains and fallow corn stubble, and water is manually pumped in for appropriate flooding. However, these sites may also be threatened by lack of available water, due to California's severe drought. 

When snow geese are seen at a migration stopover or on a wintering ground, they are sometimes seen as blankets of white flocks numbering in the thousands. Mixed into these flocks are the similar looking Ross' geese, which have an overlapping distribution and migration route with the lessers. It's very difficult to tell the species apart, and in some cases flocks contain hybrids between the two. 

People come from all over to see these amazingly large flocks of geese, and festivals are organized around the phenomenon, such as the annual snow goose festival that takes place in Chico, California. While that sounds like a few days loaded with fun, I didn't need to attend such an event to see the migrating geese. All I needed to do was be a good daughter and offer to help my parents, who live in Magalia, California, haul large piles of pine needles off of their property. When I travel, I generally like to avoid crowded highways and freeways and take the scenic routes that are a bit off the beaten path. Between the busy highways of State-Route 99 and State-Route 160, from the Sacramento area to Marysville, is a very pleasant ride through the agricultural fields along Pleasant Grove Road, which we access from Baseline-Riego Road out of Roseville. Just north of the little community of Pleasant Grove and the road to Nicolaus, we and a few other motorists came to a dead stop at the sight of the enormous flock of snow geese foraging in one of the fields. The numbers were undoubtedly in the thousands, the calls were thunderous, and the nearly synchronized lifts from the ground when the geese were spooked painted the sky with strokes of black and white emerging from the solid white base of roosting birds on the ground. 

Though it made us slightly late for pine-needle duty, we managed to get a couple of photographs and a little bit of video. Seeing is believing, but it was really one of those "you had to be there" moments. This five-minute sidetrack certainly whetted the appetite for spending time at one of those week-long festivals. 

Flight Over the Delta

It's one thing to stare at satellite imagery on Google Earth or  a GIS map and another to look at the landscape from the air. Not as high as a commercial jet and not so low that I can't get a good birds-eye view--but from a perfect height. I spent a February day in a 4-seat Cessna plane to get a general survey of the land I am working to help conserve: California's Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta.

I could call it a perk from working for the State or work to get a good solid view of the habitat that is there and that is not there. So  two of my colleagues and I met the pilot at South Sacramento's Executive Airport, and we took flight. I had an eye out for riparian habitat for rare plants and wildlife, which exists only in narrow strips of trees along waterways in the Delta. Instead I saw far more vineyards and orchards that don't provide habitat for any species. But it was a beautiful day and not the time to be depressed about lack of habitat. I had never taken a flight like this before and it was quite exciting.

The sun was mostly out, but the central and southern end of the Delta were completely fogged in. Flying over Suisun Marsh was off limits because it was within the radius of President Obama's flight path from San Francisco. Figuring out where I was geographically from the plane was a little challenging, but with help from the pilot and later from the iPhoto information panel placing pins on the photo/video site location based on the iPhone's GPS location service, I can share some photos and video that will chronicle a bit part of the journey.

We started by following the course of the Sacramento River south, and flew over Liberty Island and the Calhoun Cut and Cache Slough area. Then we cut east to fly over the Cosumnes River Preserve, where all the nice big blocks of beautiful, thick-canopy riparian habitat does exist, and then back west over the Stone Lakes National Wildlife Refuge. Then we flew over the Yolo Bypass, catching views of the City of Sacramento, the deep water ship channel, the Sacramento River, and some vernal pool wetlands. Next we headed north over the northern part of the Yolo Bypass and Fremont Weir, and followed parts of the Sacramento River in the southern edge of the Sacramento Valley. My colleague and I wanted to see the vast acreages of vernal pool grassland east of Sacramento and it was an amazing sight from the air. This kind of habitat is also lacking in the Delta, but we hope more will be created or restored. With our Delta surveillance duty more or less done (i.e, requesting to fly over certain locations we refer to many times in our work), our pilot decided to take us on a little detour over the Sierra Nevada foothills, northeast of Sacramento. We toured over Folsom Lake and a bit of the American River. It was good to see the water level in Folsom Lake was a little higher than during the devastating low during the most severe part of California's drought. Our two hours were up, so we  flew over the greater Sacramento urban areas back to the airport.

Everyone told me to take Dramamine; I might get sick. So I took it. The ride was almost as smooth as a jet plane and I didn't need it. Going back to work after the flight was the bigger challenge because I was so drowsy, I could barely keep my eyes open to look at my computer screen.

Cosumnes River Preserve

Following is an excerpt of my photo and video log of our flight. As it was my first time trying to take video with an iPhone 6 Plus from a plane, I can't vouch for the quality of the videography, especially where the wing or other parts of the plane, or a refection in the window, obscured part of the view. OK, so I'm not ready to shoot scenes for a BBC-style documentary yet. But it's a start.

Stone Lakes National Wildlife Refuge near Elk Grove, CA

Yolo Bypass Wildlife Area - A lot of wetlands for birds

Sacramento and the Deep Water Ship Channel as seen from the Yolo Bypass

Vernal pool wetland in Yolo Bypass

Foothills east of Sacramento, near Sloughhouse

Folsom Lake -- with water!

Now for the videos:

North Delta, Sacramento River, near Clarksburg

 Sacramento Valley - Nicolaus to Woodland

Sacramento River in the Sacramento Valley

Vernal pools of the Yolo Bypass

Restoration and Trail Art in Sonoma County

Another business trip involving restoration, but this is a really neat one. As part of the Western Section of the Wildlife Society 2015 annual meeting for wildlife professionals like myself, Point Blue Conservation Science's STRAW Program offered a field trip for conference participants to spend a morning helping restore floodplain and riparian habitat on private ranch land in Sonoma County, California. The STRAW Program (Students and Teachers Restoring a Wetland) involves conservation scientists and landowners working with teachers, parents, and students (generally K-8) to give school kids and local communities an opportunity to learn about and participate in habitat restoration.

On this particular project, the STRAW program teamed up with the Gold Ridge Resource Conservation District and Prunuske Chatam, Inc. to revegetate the banks of lower Green Valley Creek, a tributary of the Russian River. The restoration project will provide winter habitat for sensitive fish species such as the federally threatened Chinook salmon, endangered Coho salmon, and threatened steelhead trout. The restoration will stabilize the banks with vegetation and create floodplain habitat and low-flow areas for the fish to take refuge from high, fast flows during peak flooding events. The floodplain restoration will provide an environment that increases bugs and insects for the fish to feed on while they hang out there. Over time, the planted trees will mature into a riparian forest that supports terrestrial wildlife as well.

Early on the morning of January 27 we were taken to the Thomas Creek Ranch near the small community of Forestville, off of Highway 116 west of Santa Rosa, California.

The Thomas Creek Ranch is a coalition of landowners, ranchers, and farmers that collaborate with conservation groups to improve the ecological value of their property. The day was special because it wasn't just us professionals and college students showing up to do the work, but also a couple of bus loads of 8th graders full of energy and enthusiasm. STRAW staff explained the reason we were there, gave us some safety tips, and showed us how it's done. Then we set out in groups planting trees and grasses and building up the landscape.

Tree planting demonstration

Students at work

Planted trees on the bank

Green Valley Creek and tributary

After a morning of working we were given a catered lunch of sandwiches and after wrapping up, taken back to Santa Rosa. I won't bore my readers with details of the conference, besides being upgraded to a king-size room with a jet tub at the Hyatt Vineyard Creek Hotel and Spa to relax in solitude after long busy days. I will point out a couple of highlights in downtown Santa Rosa, though. One is the Prince Memorial Greenway, otherwise known as the Civic Artwalk. I started from behind the Hyatt on Railroad Avenue and walked along the Santa Rosa Creek trail, which connects downtown and the greenway and meets up with the Joe Rodota trail to Sebastopol. Some day I want to take that 8-mile bike trail, but for this evening stroll I needed just a little exercise and serenity. Besides the nice scenic views of the creek,

mallard on the rocks

I enjoyed the work of talented artists who turned walls and concrete bridge pylons and foundations into canvases. The trail was like a free outdoor art museum, with gorgeous murals, paintings, and colorful collages.

dragon wall

The other Santa Rosa highlight was lunch at the Russian River Brewing Company. I didn't get a chance to sample the artisan beers (I was driving after that unfortunately), but locals say there is one brew that is served nowhere else and only on one particular weekend--so rare that people line up around the block just to get inside and get a pint. And then people are kicked out after a few hours to make room for the next eager folks waiting to get into the door. Now those are die-hard beer lovers. I might not go that far. But perhaps on the day I return to take the 8-mile trail, I'll top that trip off with some crafty brews. And that's just a few things the great town of Santa Rosa has to offer.