Sacramento Bee ed board: "The coastal showdown that no one can win"

Great editorial by the Sacramento Bee editorial board about the ongoing controversy at the California Coastal Commission, where pro-development commissioners are trying to oust the agency's executive director:

"Whether he stays or goes, the relationship between commissioners and staff will be beset with distrust and dysfunction. Anyone with business before the commission will have to factor in the conflict. And any replacement for him will be automatically suspect. At this point, the commissioners could hire Poseidon as executive director, and it would be assumed that he was there to turn Big Sur into the Jersey Shore."

Look who's back

Our friendly Bald Eagle is back at our Richardson Bay Center & Sanctuary, this time using the newly restored Aramburu Island shoreline.

Marie Cerda's birder vest

"I love birding because I love the outdoors and it gives me a way to interact with the natural world that is active and keeps me learning. It's like a scavenger hunt. I started the vest because a friend and I made up birding nicknames when we ran a birding blog and I had a lot of patches from various parks, etc I had visited while birding. I often wore the west while birding anyway and I thought it would be fun to have a sort of birding biker vest."

Marie Cerda
Alameda, CA 
@_primalux_

Brigid McCormack op-ed: It's always a drought for Central Valley birds, even when it's raining

Audubon California Executive Director Brigid McCormack speaks today in Water Deeply about the continuing problems that Central Valley birds face due to a lack of watered habitat:

"Finding habitat in California’s Central Valley wasn’t a problem for migratory ducks and geese 150 years ago. There weren’t wildlife refuges – but they didn’t need any. The Sacramento and San Joaquin rivers created a vast green floodplain that hosted up to 40 million birds.

Habitat for the valley’s waterfowl today – even though their numbers have fallen to around five million – is much harder to find. Water has been diverted. Wetlands have been carved up for farms and communities. Drought has parched the landscape.

The rain we’re getting now will help. But it’s important to remember that, these days, it’s a drought for ducks and geese even when it’s raining."

New bird species seen at Sonoma Creek Marsh

Yesterday was the first survey the Audubon team was able to do since construction ended at the Sonoma Creek Enhancement Project. In the marsh and along the newly formed channel during a high tide (>5’), the group counted:

• 600 small shorebirds (Western/Least Sandpipers/Dunlin);
• 117 Greater Yellowlegs;
• 69 Willet;
• 2 Long-billed Curlew;
• 5 Black-bellied Plovers;
• 1 Wilson’s Snipe. The Snipe was never seen in the marsh during surveys prior to construction.

Later during a ‘low’ tide, the group encountered smaller numbers of birds but spotted a rare Lesser Yellowlegs among a group of Greater Yellowlegs.

The group counted a couple of Northern Harriers scouting the area for meals, as well as a White-tailed Kite.