Randi Joy's Travel Blog: 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.