There is a palpable difference in the air at Blue Oak Ranch on Audubon work days. It is pungent with the sugar and butter Susan Hamilton uses to bake the banana bread and cookies she brings the crew. Susan lives and works on the 380-acres with her children and her mother Marion. Their ranch,in the dry hills outside of Winters, is surrounded by rows of walnut trees and clumps of grazing sheep.

Buying the land was the culmination of a dream for University of California at Davis ecology professor Bill Hamilton. He and his wife, Marion, acquired Blue Oak Ranch in 1976 with the hope of restoring the oak forests that used to line the creeks of this land.  Bill passed on in the early 2000s, with progress made on his goal of supporting his beloved birds. Bill’s family continues the work he began. Marion and Susan secured Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) funding to expand their riparian restoration, and Audubon California’s Landowner Stewardship Program is assisting them carry out the planning, installation, and maintenance of those plantings, helping Bill’s family fulfill his dream. 

 “When we went to NRCS they told me that our Audubon projects are what my father had originally envisioned,” says Susan, “that was great news.”

Blue Oak Ranch became a living experiment and, like all laboratories, a place of learning. Some of the best lessons came from failures. During the first summer, the Audubon team discovered that when water native trees and shrubs are planted in a dry rangeland environment it provides an oasis of water for thirsty rodents. Meadow voles and ground squirrels chewed the young, green plants and punctured the irrigation lines in search of a drink. The plantings, understandably, failed to thrive.  Audubon now protects new plantings with rodent-proof tubing and buries drip lines under the soil. 

Today, when Susan goes out to survey her land she is greeted at every turn with a successful restoration project. “I’m always seeing new species of birds,” says Susan. “Dad would be so pleased.”

Photo caption: Marion, Susan, and Emma Hamilton are fulfilling a dream of conservation.