Guest post by Meghan Hertel, Working Lands Program Director

Yesterday I considered taking the carpool lane to work. I wasn't headed to my usual Sacramento office but to a man-made wetland and my passengers weren't human, or even alive for that matter. What was in my passenger seat? Plastic Tricolored Blackbird decoys.

In our continuing quest to lure this imperiled species away from dairy farms and to more appropriate habitat, I spent the day helping install my special cargo on a private wetland.

Because Tricoloreds are colonial animals, our hope is that by establishing a "colony" at this safe site, we can encourage living, breathing birds to join them.

Who wouldn't mind having these guys as neighbors?