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A AN N EE X XP P LL O OR RA A TT II O ON N O O FF N NA A TT U UR R EE II N N TT H H EE SS A AN N FF R RA AN NC C II SS C CO O B BA AY Y A AR R EE A A
Mount Tam S P EC I A L S ECTI O N & P ULLOUT M A P
Accessible East Bay Parks iNaturalist 2.0 Rare Western Sycamores
october–december 2017
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Sometimes to save a river, you have to buy it. Northern California’s Scott River is the state’s most important river for wild coho salmon, which are threatened or endangered throughout California. Yet the Scott faces countless challenges, from diversion and diking to deforestation and drought. For its coho, the greatest stressor of all is lack of water. Although this year’s rains will help, the coho run is in rapid decline, and ample water remains a paramount concern. Western Rivers Conservancy has purchased a ranch on the South Fork Scott River, the largest, cleanest tributary to the Scott. In doing so, we have acquired a critical water right that will allow us to increase summertime flows in the South Fork Scott by up to 20 percent—water that is crucial to imperiled coho. Learn more and support our river conservation efforts throughout California at www.westernrivers.org.
contents
october–december 2017
Features 42
special section
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MOUNT TAM An icon of the North Bay, a peak that orients us, and a home to many, Mount Tamalpais is the “west hill,” as translated from Coast Miwok, that defines a region. In partnership with the Tamalpais Lands Collaborative, Bay Nature writers explore the 53,000-acre area and how some of its most vital denizens are faring.
Lech Naumovich
George Ward
Kathleen Richards
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HIKING WITH DAD Journalist Kathleen Richards got the call that her father had suffered a stroke. She flew home to Berkeley, and they started on the long road toward healing, which included exploring East Bay parks and their accessibility. by Kathleen Richards
DAVID LOEB, CO-FOUNDER OF BAY NATURE After 17 years at Bay Nature Institute as Bay Nature magazine’s co-founder, editor, and publisher, David Loeb has bid office life adieu to spend more time exploring the nature he’s brought to readers through 67 issues. In conversation with author Mary Ellen Hannibal, he reflects on his past and what’s next. by Mary Ellen Hannibal
Departments Bay View
Letter from the publisher
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Letters & Comments
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14 Conservation in Action
22 Elsewhere
On the Trail
Sycamore Grove Park Just south of Livermore, there’s an expanse of wild western sycamore trees whose leaves, every autumn, turn ocher and drop. For a glimpse of our native fall color, explore Sycamore Grove Park and its centuries-old trees. by Sylvia V. Linsteadt
Controlling Cape ivy with an exotic fly by Alison Hawkes
Feedback from our readers
Opening Shot The first images from the seafloor a mile deep in the Cordell Bank National Marine Sanctuary by Ocean Exploration Trust
Currents • Big birds are back • The new AI-enhanced iNaturalist • The man behind the name Steller • Bill’s Backyard opens • Perspective: A tale of two buzzwords • Signs of the Season: The smell of Bay Area fall
16 Tri-Valley
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Buena Vista Park; Baylands Nature Preserve; Quarry Park
Ask the Naturalist Do hummingbirds have a sense of taste? by Michael Ellis
62 Naturalist’s Notebook
Swift migration by John Muir Laws
VISIT US ONLINE AT WWW.BAYNATURE.ORG
Illustrations by Maggie Chiang
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would be indifference. Mission Peak can handle twice the current visitors or more. It just needs better management, starting at the very top of EBRPD. Anonymous, San Jose
The East Bay Regional Park District is excellent at acquiring land, but then tends not to manage it well. There are a few bright spots, like Redwood Park, but Mission Peak is like most EBRPD parks: its visitor routes are a combination of old ranch roads and almost-nevermaintained “trails” that, when not entirely overgrown, are in a deteriorated state. That’s why you have the hikercaused damage—when EBRPD doesn’t provide an adequate trail network, people improvise, with bad results. The EBRPD board and general manager are preoccupied with acquiring land and are good at it. But they have no vision for that land once they’ve got it. This is the voters’ fault, because the voters return the same board members to office year after year, decade after decade. (Usually, no one even runs against the incumbent and he or she doesn’t even appear on the ballot.) But all’s not bad at Mission Peak. The fact that people are swarming all over it, despite its inadequacies, is better than the alternative, which
letters & comments The Last Frontier in Birding I was fortunate to participate in another Alvaro Jaramillo tour to the Farallons recently. Not only did we excitedly spot gray, blue, and humpback whales, we were fortunate to have a rare Laysan albatross head straight for our boat and fly over our heads—binoculars not even necessary. In addition to his worldwide expertise, Alvaro has the patience to inspire even the novice to experience a closer connection with the universe through birding. Your article was an enjoyable representation of the same kind of experience. Thank you. Gail Stevens, Half Moon Bay Are We Loving Our Parks to Death? This is an excellent article. We need more journalism like this. Mr. McInerney’s comments are spot on.
The Charms of Tolay Lake I’m so moved by this wonderful piece about Tolay Lake and its history of stones and indigenous peoples. Thank you for expressing yourself and your past in this moving, relevant article. I am planning to visit this lake and feel the power so explicitly described in this writing. Margaret Murray, Pinole
b a y v i e w continued badger. While you are breathing in this wonderful fresh fall air you can actually smell the season, and we will tell you more about what your olfactory sense is telling you in Signs of the Season. I look forward to getting to know you and the things you cherish or wish for in your relationship with Bay Nature. I’d love to hear from you at regina@baynature.org.
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opening shot
FIRST LOOK An exploration group deployed robots to peer into parts of the deep sea
Bodega Canyon, a 5,200-foot-deep chasm approximately 20 miles
beneath the Cordell Bank National Marine Sanctuary for the first time
west of Bodega Bay. Octopuses and fish darted through the headlight
this August, beaming back live video of massive corals, giant-eyed octo-
beams. Cliffs, ledges, and rock formations rose out of the gloom.
puses, and overgrown canyon ledges like vast undersea hanging gardens.
Yet close in under the lights was a world of surprising color: pink
government and academic scientists spent three days in the roughly 1,300-square-mile sanctuary north of the Golden Gate, using two
anemones and glittering red hydroids, giant orange sea stars and crabs, and billowing purple and yellow coral. Read more about the Nautilus’s deep-sea research and the ongo-
unmanned submersibles to illuminate and explore the seafloor.
ing presidential review of the sanctuary’s boundaries at baynature.org/
Moving slowly in near-freezing water and total darkness, the ROVs
nautilus. Find a calendar of upcoming Nautilus expeditions and view live
hovered over the muddy seafloor in previously unexplored places like
explorations at nautiluslive.org. —Eric Simons
b ay n at u r e
october–december 2017
Ocean Exploration Trust
The private nonprofit exploration ship Nautilus and a team of
news & notes from around the bay
CURRENTS
Big Birds Are Back
Big predatory birds have been in the news this year for establishing nests in unusual human places. This spring a pair of bald eagles successfully hatched chicks in a redwood tree overlooking a Milpitas elementary school, plucking food from the city of San Jose’s nearby wastewater treatment plant. Peregrine falcons nested at the top of the UC Berkeley Campanile in April. Ospreys are living it up at the former naval shipyard on Mare Island. It’s no fluke, says Glenn Stewart, the retired longtime director of the UC Santa Cruz Predatory Bird Group. These birds were all close to extinction 40 years ago, and now they’re back in a big way. “In 2000, the only peregrine nest that I could tell people about that existed in the Bay Area was a nest on the roof of Oracle headquarters in Redwood Shores,” he says. “Today I can name 20 public places like that. What’s going on is all these birds have recovered from the effects of DDT.” When Stewart joined the predatory bird group, there were only two pairs of peregrine falcons in the state. Now, thanks to captive breeding, environmental regulation, and slowly receding effects from the pesticide DDT, he estimates there are more than 300. There were no bald eagles in California south of Shasta in the 1970s. Now Stewart says there are probably 40 or 50 nesting pairs in Central California alone. With such a population boom, it’s also no surprise both falcons and eagles are looking for new nesting sites, and they might have to settle for less optimal locations than their preferred cliffsides or tall trees in a forest. Stewart says he knows of two pairs of peregrine falcons that have made nests on drawbridge counterweights. They also use harbor cranes, and one enterprising pair adopted San Jose City Hall. “But the eagles in Milpitas, that really floored me,” he says. “Around such a concentration of humanity.” But the eagles have abundant food and a tall tree. They chose the site, Stewart says, so the surroundings must be acceptable so long as no one approaches the nest. If there’s something to be concerned about, he says, it’s not the choices the birds make, but our own. “The cautionary tale here is that 50 years ago we did the right thing,” he says. “Look around today at what’s happening. We’re talking about modifying or getting rid of many of these regulations, we’re talking about neutering the very agency that banned DDT. The question I ask is, what’s the world going to look like 50 years from now if all these regulations go down the tubes?” —Eric Simons
A new iNaturalist instantly suggests a species ID Over the last few years professional natural-
Bald eagle nest in Milpitas,
ists and a curious public have added five
April 2017.
million photographs of life on earth to the California Academy of Sciences’ citizen science app iNaturalist in a quest to learn about the natural world around them. They
Sally Rae Kimmel; flickr.com/people/sallyraekimmel
have snapped shots of everything from nudibranchs and raptors to whales and earthworms around the globe, with tens of thousands of experts cataloging and verifying the identifications. This summer the iNaturalist developers used this unparalleled database of indentified photos to add a new feature to the iNaturalist app: an artificial intelligence trained on the database (continued on next page)
october–december 2017
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Help Us Protect 100,000 Acres Make a difference for the future of Marin’s local family farms, a healthy environment, scenic working landscapes and a bounty of local food that feeds the Bay Area. To date we have protected over 49,000 acres and 80 family farms.
Become a MALT member today. www.MALT.org
Colors May Change with the Seasons, but ...
Join us in protecting the land of Sonoma County forever: sonomalandtrust.org
october–december 2017
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CURRENTS
play & commentary
Courtesy of San José Children’s Discovery Museum
Bill’s Backyard Opens
The Children’s Discovery Museum of San José is opening a new outdoor exhibit this fall to give kids a place to play in nature. Bill’s Backyard: Bridge to Nature is designed to be a hybrid between a playground and a nature park, where children can choose their own adventures, and parents can feel comfortable letting them. The half-acre exhibit includes large tree-shaped structures connected by sky bridges, a grassy hill and slide, a dig pit, and a fort-building area suitable for forts or fairy gardens. “Today when kids are outside, they are with their parents at an outdoor playground or in structured sports,” says Children’s Discovery Museum Executive Director Marilee Jennings. “While those both are wonderful experiences, some of these things that we believe as an organization are really critical skills are best developed when the child gets to choose what he or she wants to do.” —Emily Williams
Perspective: a Tale of Two Buzzwords It was the most sustainable of times, it was the most resilient of
something like, well, “most likely it will survive again.” A recent Yale
sure it was an age of neither, since what do we speak of but what we
E360 piece about the San Francisco Bay argues “resilience, in a nut-
desire? And what do we desire but what we lack?
shell, means preserving options.” The “Resilient Silicon Valley” project
Sustainability and resiliency: The last two decades have seen these
created a seven-part definitional “resilience framework” emphasizing
once little-regarded words spread like an algal bloom. But there was a
the power of place and time. A Google profile in Fast Company identi-
sense sustainability had run its course when it appeared 14 times in a
fies “resilience science” as “the new study of how wildlife can adapt
2016 New York Times article headlined “The Greening of Superyachts.”
to a changing climate”; Google itself calls it “data-driven strategies to
The conservation world needed a better buzzword.
promote diverse and enduring habitats.” The May 2017 Open Space
Enter resilience, which pops up often in regard to climate change
Council featured a panel discussion in which participants, all Bay Area
and disasters, but has lately been applied to such topics as drug addic-
ecological experts, were asked their own definition; POST Conserva-
tion, body fat, the Oscars, midlife crises, and American political institu-
tion Science Director Nicole Heller said, “My definition of resiliency
tions in the Age of Trump, including a Los Angeles Times editorial that
relates to the capacity of the system—whether it is the built envi-
worries, in part, about the resiliency of the rule of law and tentatively
ronment, a natural area, or the two considered together—to absorb
concludes, “Most likely, it will survive again.”
changes and reorganize to persist in core functions and attributes.”
The word’s been a kind of Leatherman, an everything for everyone,
Creative Commons
The search for a definition for ecological resilience leads you to
times. At least, those words were on everyone’s lips, so we can be
Unlike its partner “sustainable,” “resilient” isn’t yet used to sell
in ecology, too. In 2000, Emory University environmental scientist
much except parenting manuals and vinyl flooring. But it fits with the
Lance Gunderson noted in the journal Annual Review of Ecological
spirit of the times. Sustainable was the word for the optimistic late
Systematics that “ecological resilience” was largely in the eye of the
‘90s, when we might have kept things the same. Resilient is a word
beholder. Multiple meanings, Gunderson wrote, would lead “to very
for when you know it’s too late. Resilient is a word that says disaster is
different sets of policies and actions.”
coming and asks if you are ready. —Brendan Buhler
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signs of the season
Peter H. Raven Library / Missouri Botanical Garden
The Smell of Change
CURRENTS
Why fall feels different in the Bay Area
terms, “crisp” refers usually to a lack of Autumn in the Bay Area: syrupy light splashing on red bifragrance; the physics of cooler air means gleaf maple leaves; cool mornings and blazing afternoons; that fewer scent molecules make it up the scent of gold-dead grass mixed with the slightest charour noses, Dalton says. And any coal cologne of some far-off brush fire. At a time when Bay Area native knows that momuch of the rest of the country bundles up, the Bay strips ments of true crispness are few down and sweats it out, and the heat has a scent palette all its and far between, even in the fall. own. You’d be forgiven for grumbling about passersby wearOne is more likely to encounter the ing too much perfume when, oops, it’s just a nearby herb— pennyroyal, perhaps, or tarweed—in full and flagrant bloom. pungent scent of the last wisps of fog “A sense of maturity, or at least of endured experience, is lifting or the brisk, bright smell of pine conveyed, for some reason, in the smell of autumn,” writes and eucalyptus in an early chill. Anthony Powell in A Buyer’s Market, a 1950s novel of British That morning moisture actuhigh society and its social-climbing marriages. The novel takes ally heightens scent, rather than place in a season that is green and damp, with what might apdeadening it, Dalton says: “The pear to be little relation to the fiery autumns of the Bay—unless humidified nose smells better.” you think of San Francisco as the highest-society damsel of them Then, the heat of the later day all, her autumn finery as flirtation meant to beckon the winter rains further excites scent molecules closer. Still, olfaction scientist and biological psychologist Avery Gilbert into a frenzy, a sensory match for noted the line recently as he read his way through Powell’s Common madia (Madia elegans), a fragrant Fall- the fall colors so famously on blooming tarweed. 12-novel series A Dance to the Music of Time, saying he apprecivisual display elsewhere. That’s ated in particular the author’s use of smell as literary shorthand. part of why the smells of Bay Area fall Gilbert, who grew up in Northern California, recently published two fictional short are so potent: baked sage and fallen leaves stories about an olfaction scientist living in Berkeley; he notes that not many writers use underfoot in an oak woodland; warm seasonal smells to set a scene and considers that a lost opportunity. “We’re not particularly earth and ripe fruit in a pumpkin patch; good as a species at identifying individual smells, seeking them out, parsing them one from or the sidewalk perfume of late-bloomthe other,” he says. “But we’re good at having smells generate context.” ing flowers. Fall is the time for tarweeds, Now based in Colorado, Gilbert hails the “toasted” smell of the Central Valley as the whose thumbtack-shaped glands happily scent that generates autumn context for him. Fall, he notes, is “the initial start of decay, extrude a musky mineral smell in retort to for most places in the world.” The smell of baking fields hails a slide from verdant life into the sweetness around them. Buckwheats silence and sleep. spread their fragrance with abandon; Bay Area autumn is an outlier that denies cliché and defies expectation. It’s too dry for California fuchsia keeps its scent to itself, what Gilbert calls the “mushroomy, composty” smell of wet leaves so common in the east. sharing it only with the hummingbirds. It’s too hot for the traditional scents of impending winter. It’s too filled with the riotous And the ever-present perfume of the Bay fragrance of flowers, the musty sweet tang of redwoods, the odd herbal tones of those damn laurel tree takes the hills and doesn’t give invasive fennel heads. “Botanically,” Gilbert says, “it’s strange.” them back until December. Scent processing is part of our limbic system, which is why odor memories tend to By then, the rains have arrived, the be emotional, according to Pamela Dalton, an olfaction scientist at the Monell Chemical seasons wheeled, the weather cooled. Even Senses Center in Philadelphia. That means our feelings about other things can get tangled in the unconventional Bay Area, the wild up with sensory memories and experiences, especially in a “botanically strange” place like smell of autumn abandon prefaces transthe Bay. Take fall, which is often a period of abrupt adjustment in habits, activities, and ritu- formation. Lurking underneath those als. “Fall has more of a break in it,” Dalton says. “There’s that first morning when you wake scents, Gilbert says, is something “vegetal up, and it’s just different.” Some people find that sudden hiccup into newness exhilarating; and organic, the smell of decay.” Perhaps for others it’s melancholy or scary. that’s what struck Powell when he wrote We sew these changing seasonal smell-scapes together with words, metonymies that evoke about the smell of autumn in A Buyer’s the season with just a few syllables: “crunch,” for example, or the ever-present “crisp.” In fact, Market. It’s the scent of change. to describe a fall morning in the Bay as smelling “crisp” is to play with platitude. In scent —Alissa Greenberg october–december 2017
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BY ALISON HAWKES A vial containing Cape ivy gall flies before they
conservation in action
were released at a test site near Mountain Lake in
xxxx
Alison Hawkes
San Francisco.
Controlling Cape Ivy with an Exotic Fly Scott Portman is letting loose a South African fly into the wilds of California. That might seem disconcerting—after all, land managers spend a lot of time and money driving out species that don’t come from here, in an effort to revive our native ecosystems. But this fly has one mission: get rid of its compatriot host plant, a South African creeper called Cape ivy (Delairea odorata) that’s strangled 10,000 acres of coastal California in a twisty mass of vines and leaves. A landscape engulfed in Cape ivy is difficult to take in. The vine overwhelms and dominates low-growing vegetation with a sea of green, sending tentacles skyward to encircle trees in its suffocating embrace. Little can survive under Cape ivy, and it’s even toxic to animals. Rare and endemic species around rivers and streams, where Cape ivy gets its moisture, are at highest risk. Portman, an entomologist with the USDA, hopes the invasive weed will finally meet its match with the b ay n at u r e
Cape ivy gall flies flitting around. “The flies will be nonnative, but beneficial,” he says as we stroll over to a greenhouse where he’s housing the Cape ivy gall flies for testing. We’re on the neatly trimmed grounds of the USDA Agricultural Research Service in Albany, where Portman and Patrick Moran, another research entomologist in the Exotic and Invasive Weeds Research Unit, devote their efforts to stopping weed incursions into natural lands with solutions involving biological means of control. Biocontrol, the method of suppressing one species with another, has a long and somewhat troublesome history. Some of the early attempts showed epic ignorance. Indian mongooses, for example, were brought to Hawaii in 1883 to kill off the rat population, but mongooses are omnivorous and among other species turned their attention to endemic birds. Fortunately, some lessons have been learned, and nowadays the research and
october–december 2017
permitting process to release a biological control agent is lengthy and involved. Portman assured me, “Biocontrol is not done like it used to be,” adding that today it employs rigorous scientific methods. The place in Albany is a who’s who of California’s public (plant) enemies. We pass by a couple pots of French broom, a Mediterranean shrub that Bay Area conservationists devote thousands of hours to pulling out by hand every year; Moran is testing whether a French beetle might subdue it. In another corner, a big tub of water hyacinth, a beautiful, meddlesome Amazonian water plant that’s destroying the Delta, grows while Moran’s team subjects it to a weevil that chews away its leaves and a plant hopper that sucks its juices. More than 65 species of biological control agents—almost all insects—have been released in California since 1945 for weed control, with some good results. But the Cape ivy project represents the first federally approved release in nearly two decades of an agent developed specifically for California wildlands. “This is high impact,” says Doug Johnson, the executive director of California Invasive Plant Council (CalIPC). “Cape ivy is one of our top weeds, but it’s fairly geographically constrained. Coastal watersheds are an important habitat and that’s where Cape ivy takes off—we want to protect those.” Portman holds up a little glass jar containing a dozen or so frenetic Cape ivy gall flies (Parafreutreta regalis). “These flies use wing-waving displays to attract mates,” Portman says. On the same table, Portman has placed a sickly looking Cape ivy plant with yellowing leaves coiled around its support stakes. “The fly slows the plant’s growth and spread,” he explains. As the plant sends out new growth, the fly invades the shoot tips and lays eggs inside the stem. Once hatched, the fly larvae feed on the plant tissue. In response, the plant forms a purplish gall to seal the flies off from causing further damage. But in a
fly (aka P. regalis) and a species of moth, which is also being tested in Albany. Cape ivy isn’t closely related to any California native plants, which may be why our native insects pose little threat to it. Part of the federal approval process for releasing biological control agents like the Cape ivy gall fly includes testing their impact on our local flora in a quarantined lab. Researchers in Albany have examined the gall fly’s effect on 99 different plant species, including 40 in Asteraceae, the sunflower family, where Cape ivy resides. “In all cases, the insect was able only to feed and reproduce on Cape ivy,” Moran says. That part wasn’t all that surprising. Gall-inducing insects like P. regalis are often host specific, given the way they’ve coevolved with their host plants. Beginning late last year Portman and Moran began test-releasing P. regalis in sites across the state inundated with Cape ivy, including six Bay Area spots, among them Mission Peak and the Presidio. They say the scientific community is behind them, but the public response hasn’t been uniformly positive, given that any introduction of a nonnative species carries a risk of unintentional harm to ecosystems. Recently, a beetle that had been released decades ago into several Western states to suppress the invasive tamarisk shrub spread much farther than predicted and, in an unintended effect, began taking down habitat for the southwestern willow flycatchers, an endangered desert bird. Cape ivy envelops a landscape just northwest of Bolinas Lagoon in Marin County.
Johnson said no similar risk is anticipated for the release of the gall fly, and if it works it will help coastal watersheds. “There’s a strong native seed bank that will rebound,” he says. One sunny morning in June, Portman and a couple of assistants arrive at a spot near Mountain Lake in San Francisco’s Presidio. Hauling a cage lined with netting, he sets it in a big patch of Cape ivy along a hillside. “I think this site is ready to have some flies in there,” he says. Lewis Stringer, a Presidio restoration ecologist, is there to watch as one of the assistants pulls a vial of gall flies out of a cooler, zips open the cage, and taps out the sluggish, cold flies. Stringer has overseen thousands of dollars in efforts to remove Cape ivy from the park through herbicides and yanking it up. It’s a tedious process, and missing a tiny bit of the stem or root system means the plant could easily start growing all over again. Even having it grow here is a risk to other areas of the park, like the restored coastal bluffs along the Golden Gate, he says. “I once saw a red-tailed hawk over the coastal bluffs drop something that spiraled to the ground in front of me. It was Cape ivy!” Stringer says. The flies disperse under the cage, where they will get to work on the Cape ivy. In 10 days, Portman will bring back another batch of flies to let loose, and then the next time he returns he will remove the cage altogether. Then the flies will likely be here to stay, just another part of California’s complex interplay of species.
Charles Kennard
kind of evolutionary arms race, the flies have adapted to use the galls as a larvae incubator and food source and chew a hole partway through the wall of the gall; when they mature, the adults break the remaining “window” to emerge. And then the next round of egg-laying begins. Laboratory tests show that one generation of flies decreases a Cape ivy plant’s biomass by 50 percent, Portman says. “Cape ivy may never go away completely,” he says, “but we’re hoping to maintain it at a lower level so it’s not an ecological problem, or it’s a smaller problem.” Getting to this point of releasing the flies took more than 20 years and an international effort. In 1995, Joe Balciunas, an Australia-based entomologist with the USDA, transferred to Albany and began getting to know California weeds. Fortuitously, he was booked to attend an international symposium in South Africa on biological control of weeds and planned to explore Cape ivy while he was there. Cape ivy, commonly confused with invasive English ivy though the two are unrelated, has been in California since at least 1892, when the earliest known specimen was collected in Berkeley. It made it onto Cal-IPC’s first inventory of plants in 1996 as highly invasive. “The one thing that impressed me is that Cape ivy, unlike other weeds like yellow star thistle, had invaded fairly intact ecosystems,” says Balciunas, now retired. “If we controlled it, we’d get it back to a more pristine-type habitat.” Apparently, Cape ivy is well-behaved in South Africa. During his trip to the weed symposium, Balciunas found it mainly restricted to two provinces on the Indian Ocean. Given that Cape ivy is weedy in California, that got him thinking that something was keeping it in check in its home range. With about $50,000 collected annually by California Native Plant Society and CalIPC from various donors, he launched a research project investigating Cape ivy’s natural enemies through South Africa’s USDA equivalent, the Plant Protection Research Institute. They eventually arrived at two options—the Cape ivy gall
october–december 2017
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on the trail
the tri-valley’s sycamore grove park
Sycamore alluvial woodland depends on the silt, sand,
WESTERN SYCAMORES SPEAK OF AN OLDER CALIFORNIA
purposes.) Livermore’s Sycamore Grove Park is among the few preserved alluvial woodlands left in the East Bay, and as such it provides us a window into an older California. Before heading back to the Arroyo del Valle Regional Trail, I stopped on the Olivina Trail to visit an old sycamore known to park personnel and visitors as “the hobbit tree.” It’s not hard to see why—from the outside, the tree resembles a fantastical teapot with a window, and what’s more, it’s partially hollow, with an arching doorway that opens into the tree’s interior. Someone placed a stump just inside, and I sat there for a long time, looking up into the sycamore’s hollow trunk, into darkness, trying to imagine the life of such a tree, roots down in the alluvial gravel of the old Arroyo del Valle, tall branches clattering in the breeze and home to countless birds, insects, and mammals.
by Sylvia V. Linsteadt | Photography by Andrea Laue On a hot July day, I sat in the generous shade of an old western sycamore to eat my lunch, and the tree seemed to quietly speak. A warm breeze made a leathery susurrus of leaves against one another and the tree’s branches. The sycamore’s bark was smooth against my skin. I ate leisurely, listening. The air smelled a little sweet, and dry with summer dust. After a time I walked on again, slow in the midday heat, wending my way along the trails in Livermore’s Sycamore Grove Park through golden oak woodland and the now-rare habitat known as sycamore alluvial woodland. Grand old sycamores grew well-spaced amid flat grassland on either side of two stream corridors. I took a detour along the narrow, dusty b ay n at u r e
Olivina Trail to put my feet in the Arroyo del Valle’s cold water. The stones below my sandals were smooth and tawny, the gravel bars shaded here and there by silvery willows and fast-growing mule fat. Such wide, graveled banks are a classic feature of sycamore alluvial woodland, and they’re integral to the trees’ health and longevity. A distinct and vital ecosystem in California, sycamore alluvial woodland is characterized by summerdry streambeds that branch and braid out through the sandbars, silt, and gravel beds deposited by winter rains and floods. (My feet cooled in water that fills the arroyo year-round now, managed by the Del Valle Dam for agricultural
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and gravel deposited by winter rains and floods.
I and the arroyo are one, a single motion of water and wood. I and the arroyo and
California’s native western sycamore trees can live for
In Lydia, they say, he saw a large specimen of a plane tree, and stopped for that day without any need. He made the wilderness around the tree his camp, and attached to it expensive ornaments, paying homage to the branches with necklaces and
hundreds of years; the park’s oldest sprouted some 300 years ago
be after a long march. Nor indeed the impression a very large specimen can make upon the senses. For there is something hauntingly human about a
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T R A I L
Something about the way sycamores grow, the places in which they thrive, the way the wind moves them, the quality of their shade—all of this has captured the human imagination for millennia. There are 11 officially recognized sycamore species—known more commonly as plane trees, part of the Platanus genus— in the world; the western sycamore (Platanus racemosa) is native to California and Baja California. It is said that in ancient times an image of Dionysus, god of green life among the ancient Greeks, was found inside a fallen sycamore tree beside the Meander River, which was left split in half after a storm. And to Xerxes, the famous Persian king who marched across Asia Minor to conquer mainland Greece in the fourth century BCE, the sycamore’s curving form and substantial canopy inspired an almost feverish devotion. Herodotus was first to tell the story—how Xerxes was waylaid for a day and night by the sight and luxurious shade of a sycamore tree, and that later he had the tree’s likeness cast on a medal of gold, so that he could always carry its form with him.
By all accounts he was ridiculed for this seemingly strange behavior, but perhaps the historians who wrote about him did not consider how welcome the broad shade of a sycamore would
sycamore’s smooth, skin-like bark, about the voluptuous curves these trees often develop at the waist and roots as they age. Some resemble elephant legs; others remind me of melted candles the size of titans; now and then very old individuals look strikingly like broad-hipped women with two or more pendulous breasts. These seeming breasts are in fact burls, round protuberances whose cause is unknown. In the Barbareño and Ventureño languages spoken by the Chumash from central and southern California, the word for sycamore and the word for wooden bowl—khsho’—are the same, because the trees were so prized for their beautiful round burls, which were carved into lightweight and lovely vessels. Trees are rarely harmed by burls, and they can continue to transport water and nutrients through the twisted skin and onward throughout their trunks and branches. The sycamores in the park are more vulnerable to a fungal disease known as anthracnose, which causes leaf spotting and deformation, cankers, sudden leaf drop or twig dieback. In July the shade under the park’s generous-armed sycamores is a relief. Not only is their shade cool and dense and the warm breeze in the leaves a kind of hymn; their bark is cool too. This is because it is quite thin and is constantly exfoliating throughout the year. Scientists and arborists are not quite sure why, but they theorize that thin-barked trees
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bracelets. He left a caretaker for it, like a guard to provide security, as if it were a woman he loved. —Aelian, 3rd century AD
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the kingfisher know the same old words. My roots touch cold underworlds; they sing of ancient winter floods and long summers dancing in full leaf. —Sylvia V. Linsteadt
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»w i n d » Two wild turkey mothers eyed me warily, herding their ungainly poults into the coyote brush with quiet clucks as I walked farther down the Arroyo del Valle Regional Trail, toward an old almond orchard and a loop along the edge of the historic Olivina Winery. All around me, the high summer winds made the sycamores sing across the alluvial plain. To the right, a straight road lined with walnut trees stirred, dark to Livermore
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autumn as the powerful summer winds soften, the trees’ leaves fall gently, like great bronze hands across the ground, making a dry hush. As a girl I saw their relatives on the eponymous Sycamore Avenue in Mill Valley as the first sure sign of fall. I loved to leap through the leaf piles; I would pick my route down the street based on where they had fallen, most often in the gutters. I loved the sound of their crackling underfoot. The dry sweet smell of those dead leaves is all tied up in my memory with the first rain and the first cold nights near Halloween. At Sycamore Grove Park, the wild autumn sycamores will surely welcome the coming rains and the hopeful possibility of floods, when their round, softly spiked seedpods will be carried off downstream. Then the brisk winter winds will call forth the harsher clack and rattle of bare twigs and branches, singing a kind of underworld song.
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green. It was a hot wind, full-bodied as the wines from nearby vineyards. The smell of dry oat grass and warm stones, California dust, and the faint syrupiness of slow water in the streambed—all of this came on that summer wind and swung the sycamore leaves into words, a tender, round murmur. It was the strong, warm wind of summer afternoons in the Bay Area that builds as the hot inland temperatures along the Central Valley pull the chilled air rising off the vernal Pacific’s coldwater upwelling through the Golden Gate and east. Hot air rises, and as the saying goes, nature abhors a vacuum, so the colder air off the summer ocean is forever rushing inland as the coast cools in the afternoon. It seems to me that in every season sycamore trees speak differently. In
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like sycamores exfoliate in order to rid themselves of harmful pests that thicker bark would keep out. Others postulate that the bark beneath freshly shed skin can photosynthesize, even after leaves have dropped. This allows a longer growing season for a tree that is adapted to hot weather and intermittent water.
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The body of the western sycamore is an expression of the way water runs over and under the earth, of flood and scour, of deep groundwater and summer drought, of the true nature of old California’s rivers and creeks. Although once widespread, only 2,000 acres of extant sycamore alluvial woodland have been mapped by biologists in all of California; this is a habitat uniquely adapted to the hydraulic patterns of the Old West, and as such it has suffered significantly over the last 200 years. Sycamores thrive on a good December inundation—the kind of winter rain that comes maybe once every decade. Such flooding replenishes groundwater, helps carry fresh alluvial sediment and silt to new areas along with the sycamore’s own seeds, which often germinate after the ground is cleared by such floods. Sycamores need these winter floods to flourish and to grow healthy seedlings; there’s no other way around it. They need freed rivers, uninhibited streams that swell and recede in their own and ancient manner. Arroyo del Valle runs through the middle of Sycamore Grove Park,
D E T A I L S
a single-channel stream still rich with willows, red dragonflies, and omnipresent kingfishers whose calls can be heard ringing far through the trees. Once, the Arroyo del Valle was a braided network of smaller creeks that carried water deeper into the sycamore woodland, with more sandbars and gravel beds throughout. But in 1968 the arroyo was redirected into Del Valle Dam, which releases water steadily and without much variation all year round throughout Livermore’s agricultural lands. The arroyo’s management is a microcosm for the control of rivers, streams, and groundwater that has altered California’s landscapes. “Most of [California] is relatively dry, and its rivers are like the fingers of beneficent gods to the farmers living here,” wrote Elna Bakker in her classic An Island Called California. “These streams ensure an underground water supply from artesian wells, and impounded behind dams they become power and water resources without parallel.” When I imagine the California of old, I see the endless tule channels of the Delta, winter floods so big they turned half the Sacramento Valley to a lake, riparian corridors dense and fecund with summer green and wild with winter rains, unbridled, unmanaged, unpredictable, sometimes flowing in single carved channels, other times meandering in lazy snaking bends. Never wholly fixed. Something like this 1850 description of the sycamore woodlands around the South Bay’s Pajaro River, by author Brayard Taylor:
blooms & garden
The park is just 5 miles south of downtown Livermore, with entrances at the two ends of the park—Wetmore Road (north) and Arroyo Road (south). There’s a $7 parking fee (you will need exact change) and picnic tables and bathrooms at the entrances. Horses, bikes, and leashed dogs are welcome. Park website: larpd.org/open_space/sycamore.html
The park supports a rich array of wildflowers, and park volunteer Wally Wood created an extensive digital guide that lists the species, their bloom times, and habitats. www.larpd.org/open_ space/documents/SGP_Wildflowers.pdf. There’s also a native plant garden just past the northern entrance with four areas: ✹ Ohlone Section features plants
favorite trails ✹ For a lovely, child-friendly walk, take a
left on the Olivina Trail from the Arroyo del Valle Regional Trail and visit the hobbit tree. Just down from the tree you can cross the creek (or play in the water), then wander back along the Creek Trail to the Magpie Trail through open sycamore-dotted grasslands. (Roughly 1 mile round trip.) ✹ For a more strenuous hike, follow the
Winery Trail along the vineyard fence line, past hundred-year-old olive trees from the Olivina Estate, to the Wagon Road Trail and the Valley View Trail, which will take you on a loop up into the hills overlooking the sycamore alluvial plain and greater Livermore. Visit the observation deck by Cattail Pond to look for dragonflies, western pond turtles, and waterbirds. (2 to 4 miles round trip, depending on route.)
important to Livermore’s indigenous inhabitants, such as yampah, elderberry, red bud, toyon, wild rose and willow. ✹ Butterfly Section for native pollinators. ✹ Grassland Area to help foster iconic
perennial grasses, such as purple needlegrass and june grass. ✹ Sensory Section with sweet, resinous,
and tactile plants, such as pearly everlasting, sticky monkeyflower, and black sage.
conservation & research ✹ Sycamore Grove Park is part of the
Livermore Area Recreation and Park District, and is owned by the LARPD Foundation, a community non-profit. Volunteering opportunities in the park are offered through the LARPD, and local Girl Scouts have helped with native plant garden work, trail maintenance, species guides, and more. ✹ In April 2017, the LARPD partnered
with the Volunteers for Outdoor California to begin creating 1.1 miles of new trail in the park. Called the Harrier Trail after the beautiful raptor so often spotted nearby, the trail will connect with the existing Valley View Loop. ✹ Biologists with the San Francisco
Courtesy Creative Commons (2)
The meadows were still green, and the belts of stately sycamore had not yet shed a leaf. I hailed the beautiful valley with pleasure, although its soil was more parched and arid than when I passed before, and the wild oats on the mountains rolled no longer in waves of gold. […] As we journeyed down the valley, flocks of wild geese and brandt, cleaving the air with their arrow-shaped lines, descended to their roost in the meadows. On their favorite grounds, near the head of Pajaro River, they congregated to the number of millions […].
GETTING THERE
Estuary Institute are hard at work running field experiments and collecting data to help protect and restore sycamore alluvial woodlands throughout the greater Bay Area.
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»m e n ag e r i e»
Laurie Search, laurie-search.pixels.com
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But water is gold in California, where summer drought is the norm, and if you control the water, you hold the power. Such plains as those around the Pajaro River have been long since transformed. Wherever you see vast tracts of agriculture—the historic vineyards of Livermore just the other side of the boundary at Sycamore Grove Park, the Central Valley’s endless fields, the historic fruit orchards of Santa Clara—you are looking at the transmutation of old floodlands and rich groundwater into crops. After Del Valle Dam was built, the health of Livermore’s sycamore woodlands declined significantly. The dramatic flood events that happened once every 10 to 20 years vanished entirely. At capacity, roughly 77,000 acre-feet of water are held behind the dam’s great concrete walls, a boon for modern agricultural irrigation and municipal water distribution, but a death knell for sycamore trees in the old alluvial woodlands. The drought years from 1987 to 1992 further damaged Sycamore Grove’s trees. But it wasn’t just the drought that damaged the trees; for years water was pumped through the highly managed creek beds. Sycamores that adjust to summer water never grow deep roots that reach down to the groundwater. When drought struck, the trees in the park were unable to access the aquifers deep below the gravel beds. Those growing right along the Arroyo del Valle creek were most heavily damaged, and healthy seedlings have been slow to regenerate naturally.
lot of silt and plants that have built up over the last 20 years and returned the streambed to the exposed gravels I remember from when I was a kid,” Wolitzer says. “Hopefully this cleared out the anthracnose and will help our sycamores thrive and maybe allow for new seedlings to germinate.”
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Like many old sycamore trees, the hobbit tree in Sycamore Grove Park is hollow due to its heartwood rotting away. Hollowed out sycamores house many animals, including the human kind now and again.
But rangers and scientists are working together to manage water flow from the dam to more closely mimic the ebb and flood that sycamores prefer. Seedlings are being planted as well, protected carefully in little wire cages, and anthracnose-infected leaf litter is routinely cleared. “We’ve seen almost no young trees come up on their own in the last 20 years,” says Amy Wolitzer, one of Sycamore Grove Park’s most devoted rangers. And then in the 2016-17 winter, thanks to historic rains, Arroyo del Valle underwent massive flooding, the most significant inundation since 1997. “The weeks of water flow washed out a
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A thriving expanse of sycamore woodland is truly something to behold, to celebrate, protect, and sustain. Walking through Sycamore Grove Park with a breeze in the treetops and acorn woodpecker families calling from atop snags, you can for an afternoon imagine an older California. Many trees here are more than a hundred years old by now, and they grow in ancestral rings, with small shoots sprouting up from a central old trunk until eventually the “mother” tree hollows and dies and the youngsters each grow into their own sinuous height. Though individuals may fall, the root systems beneath the ground that sustain these sycamore families are thousands of years old, Wolitzer says. Single trees can live as long as 500 years; the oldest sycamore in the park, dating back almost 300 years, was a seedling before the Spanish arrived in 1776. Such aged giants provide home and sustenance for a menagerie of animals. Once, monarch butterflies overwintered in sycamore branches in great numbers, and bat colonies roosted in the caverns. In the 1920s, one naturalist observed 41 great blue heron nests and 28 night heron nests in a single 7-foot-wide sycamore—a veritable village! Inchworms, wood-boring beetles, lizards, snakes, squirrels, and barn owls will all take refuge in (continued on page 52)
NEW FROM HEYDAY
The California Field Atlas Obi Kaufmann
This lavishly illustrated atlas takes readers off the beaten path and outside normal conceptions of California, revealing its myriad ecologies, topographies, and histories in exquisite maps and trail paintings. Based on decades of exploring the backcountry of the Golden State, The California Field Atlas is the ultimate road trip companion and love letter to a place. Flexibound paperback, 5.5” x 7.5”, 552 pages, full-color illustrations throughout.
Available at your local independent bookstore or at www.heydaybooks.com
SAIL WITH YOUR WILD NEIGHBORS
Eco Tours Whale Watching Sunset Sails Birding on the Bay Team Building Private Events
Schooner Freda B boards in downtown Sausalito, CA
www.schoonerfredab.com 415-331-0444
october–december 2017
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peninsula
Buena Vista Park The hill above the Haight-Ashbury district has seen a lot of history over the years as San Francisco’s oldest park. In its newest incarnation, with money and energies brought in by the city and neighborhood to spruce up the park, Buena Vista has plenty to offer everyone these days, including 360-degree views, a rebuilt playground, and a tree-shaded dog run. There are numerous entrances, but the most straightforward is through the southern gateway where West and East Buena Vista Avenues meet. A paved path crests the top of the hill, where a grassy patch, inevitably windy, makes for a nice picnic spot with Bay-to-ocean glimpses through pine and cypress trees. You’ll be tempted to wander along the many, splintering trails, and doing so will almost certainly get you lost in these 37 acres. Don’t worry! When you’re done exploring, simply head downhill toward the street and a paved walkway circumnavigating the park will eventually bring you back to where you started. Look for the marble remnants of Gold Rush–era tombstones laid into the cement gutters like mosaic fragments along the paths. When San Francisco relocated its cemeteries to Colma in the early 1900s there was apparently some leftover building material. Other highlights include one of the few remaining coast live oak stands in the city, situated alongside the dog run. And all the trees and shrubby understory make Buena Vista a year-round birding hot spot, a bit of an urban refuge for creatures and us alike. DETAI LS: There are no restrooms or designated parking spots. Accessible. —Alison Hawkes
sa n mat e o c oast
Dan Hill
Creative Commons
san francisco
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Baylands Nature Preserve Imagine we could fly back in time over San Francisco Bay on an autumn day before the development boom that followed the Gold Rush. We’d likely see expanses of brilliant red fall color around the Bay shore, not on trees, but on the ground: pickleweed’s fall display. This gray-green ground-covering marsh plant survives salty tidal inundation twice a day by moving salt into cells near the ends of its segmented succulent stems. But by fall, the accumulated salt kills the cells, and the segments turn red before dropping off. You can experience pickleweed’s fall color in many marshy areas of the Bay, but Baylands Nature Preserve on the Palo Alto shore is among the region’s largest intact salt marshes. Here 1,940 acres offer 15 miles of family-friendly level trails for hikers, runners, and bicyclists. Also visit the Lucy Evans Baylands Nature Interpretive Center, and pause to listen: if you’re lucky you might hear the clacking call of an endangered Ridgway’s rail. Baylands offers world-class birding throughout the year, and fall brings in thousands of migratory birds as well as comfortable hiking weather on this sunny expanse. For a glimpse of their 1 numbers, choose a route that heads into the marsh or along 3 a slough to bring you closer to large flocks of birds. The busy small-plane airport next door reminds you of the surrounding metropolis, but the birds and the pickleweed don’t mind, and the noise level drops the farther you go. DETAILS: Restrooms and water available. Dogs welcome on leash. —Sue Rosenthal 1
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Quarry Park Apparently a lot of people haven’t heard of this county park, enlarged to 517 acres in 2014, tucked up behind the coastal town of El Granada. On a sunny summer Saturday we hiked for two hours and met a mere handful of dog-walkers, exploring an unusual eucalyptus forest where damp sea air nurtures a lush understory. The vegetation is unfortunately made up mostly of invasive species and escaped ornamentals, truly a basket of deplorables: English ivy and morning glory drape downed trees and snags; unfamiliar exotics vie for space with a rogues’ gallery of the usual suspects; wild—or at least feral—flowers flourish in the dappled shade. It’s an interesting alternate universe if you can suspend judgment and enjoy the happy chlorophyll riot. Trail maps are online and posted at the entrance, showing loop walks ranging from one to several miles. Vista Point Trail takes in the eponymous gravel quarry, now the site of a large labyrinth traced in loose stones, but the viewing platform up the hillside is closed due to erosion, so the best views are from the undeveloped bluffs of Mirada Surf Park. If you have the nerve to cross the highway, the Coastal Trail also will take you the halfmile north to Surfer’s Beach. DETAILS : From Hwy 1 in El Granada, take Coronado St. and follow the signs about a half-mile to the entrance at Santa Maria Ave. Water and toilets at trailhead; dogs and bikes OK. —Ann Sieck
d i s c o v e r m a n y m o r e t r a i l s at b ay n at u r e . o r g /t r a i l f i n d e r b ay n at u r e
october–december 2017
POINT REYES
OPEN STUDIOS Every Thanksgiving Weekend and Memorial Day Weekend Next Open Studio 11 am to 5 pm November 24, 25, 26, 2017
Come visit 25 artists in their workspaces WWW. POINTREYESART.COM
october–december 2017
b ay n at u r e
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nia Alpine Club
A hiking club for people who love to explore, enjoy and protect the outdoors www.californiaalpineclub.org
• Guided Hike every Sunday 9:30 a.m. from Alpine Lodge on Mt. Tam • Alpine Lodge open house most Sundays, year around, 9:30-3:00 • Club Lodges at Mt. Tam and Echo Summit CAC Alpine Lodge 730 Panoramic Hwy, Mill Valley, CA 94941 CAC-feedback@msapiro.net www.californiaalpineclub.org
Dan Ryan Photographer
Restoring California ecosystems since 1981. Conservation Planning Habitat & Wetland Restoration Design Biology & Special-Status Species Mitigation Solutions Permitting & Agency Consultation Spatial Analysis & UAV Mapping
Cool Raptor Fact: Swainson’s Hawks are known as Aguilucho Langostero during their annual migration to Argentina due to their focused diet on grasshoppers.
Visit Hawk hill! Come to the Marin Headlands this autumn for daily migration watching and to learn MORE cool raptor facts.
Docent programs at noon on weekends Learn to ID raptors. See a banded hawk. 10 am - 2 pm in September and October
Info: 415-426-5290 or www.ggro.org Bay Area | San Diego | Fort Bragg | Denver www.wra-ca.com b ay n at u r e
october–december 2017
The Golden Gate Raptor Observatory is a program of the Golden Gate National Parks Conservancy in cooperation with the National Park Service.
Photo ©David Harper
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C a l i fo r
PRODUCED BY BAY NATURE FOR THE TAMALPAIS LANDS COLLABORATIVE
A Mountain of Stories
George Ward, georgeward.com
An update on the health of Mount Tamalpais and its denizens
Mount Tam 26 Badgers 28 Dipsea Trail 30 Trail Map Owls 32 Theatre 34 Stickleback 36 Rare Plants 38 B A Y
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Meet the Mountain
Courtesy of the Lucretia Little History Room, Mill Valley Public Library.
cre for acre, Mount Tamalpais might just be the bestloved peak in the San Francisco Bay Area. If so, it’s not because of scale. At 2,571 feet, “Tam” is far down the list of regional high points. Ruggedness doesn’t explain the attraction, either; other peaks are craggier. Wildness doesn’t explain it. With its many roads and reservoirs, not to mention its hordes of cars and hikers, the Tamalpais neighborhood is much tamer than the slopes of Mount Diablo, say, or Mount Saint Helena. But Tam is close to a great many people, and this hillock is sculpted to call attention to itself. Many Bay Area peaks show themselves to us as long ridges, seen from the side. Tamalpais lies across the grain of the hills, its east peak breaking off abruptly toward San Francisco Bay. The mountain mass is foreshortened into a cone you might imagine is a volcano, its hulking frame visible from much of Marin County and the East Bay. Also, we have a kind of boiling-down of beauties: great variety in a small compass. On some 60 miles of state park trails the landscape is always changing, near and far: from city to sea to inland lakeshore, from fog to sun, from intimate to expansive and back again. When you’re in the shade of the conifers, they seem likely to go on forever; but five minutes later you will be walking in an open meadow with running springs, or on a serpentine patch, seemingly barren but rich in unfamiliar flowers. Biotic
b ay n at u r e
b ay n at u r e . o r g / m o u n t t a m
by John Hart
communities fluctuate with soil, elevation (the upper slopes, above the fog, are typically drier), and orientation to the sun. Tam was among the first high points in the region to draw tourists. Between 1896 and 1929, the Mill Valley and Mount Tamalpais Scenic Railroad, “The Crookedest Railroad in the World,” took guests to a summit hotel. Even as cars became popular in subsequent decades, hiking clubs claimed the mountain as their strenuous playground. This was also one of the very first spots in the region to attract the ardor of conservationists. The pioneer champion was William Kent, a patrician, progressive Republican leader who dreamed of turning the whole of the privately owned mountain into a public park. “Need and opportunity here are linked together,” Kent told the conservation-star-studded initial gathering of what he christened the Tamalpais National Park Association. “What would New York or Chicago pay for such an opportunity?” That was in 1903. In 1905, his resolve was tested at the place then called Sequoia Canyon, a moist, wind-sheltered valley on the mountain’s southern flank that still held a stand of towering virgin redwoods. By the turn of the 20th century, such groves had become rarities. Now long-delayed logging threatened it. Other options exhausted, Kent stepped forward to buy the land himself. Then a local water company tried to seize the canyon as a reservoir site, so William and Elizabeth Kent donated the heart of the parcel’s redwood forest to the federal government. In 1908, President Theodore Roosevelt declared it a National Monument. Kent insisted that the new park bear the name of famous conservationist John Muir. The next piece of Kent’s park plan was carried out by indirect means. In 1912, with his backing, a public vote established the Marin Municipal Water District to replace private water companies. In the next several years, the district bought up the long, verdant canyon of Lagunitas Creek on the opposite side of Tamalpais. The water district domain has provided drinking water and secondarily functioned as parkland ever since. Muir Woods National Monument and the water district lands did not adjoin. In the 1920s, subdivision threatened to keep them separate forever. Kent, the Tamalpais Conservation Club (which he had helped to found), and the state joined forces to plug the gap with a new preserve, which in 1928 became Mount Tamalpais State Park. The next pulse of preservation came in the 1950s and ’60s, with a new ringleader: Edgar Wayburn of the Sierra Club. Thinking not in terms of trees but of watersheds, the courtly San Francisco physician
BAY NATURE / TAMALPAIS LANDS COLLABORATIVE
(First page) Mount Tam at sunrise from San Anselmo. (left) A gentleman stands in the shade of redwood trees circa 1900. Mount Tam rises in the background with the Tavern visible near the peak and the railroad cut below. (right) Derica Jackson takes in
and his wife, Peggy Wayburn, set out to protect the whole ocean-facing side of the mountain. His campaign succeeded in more than tripling the size of the state park before refocusing on a grander goal: creation of a vast greenbelt to be called the Golden Gate National Recreation Area. Authorized by Congress in 1972, the GGNRA would amass the remaining undeveloped parcels on the Tamalpais coastline. Something resembling Kent’s desired Mount Tamalpais National Park had in fact come into being. Or had it?
Tom Kaliski / Derica Jackson
the 21st century evening view from Mount Tam’s East Peak.
Seventy years of effort had produced not one park but several, with several custodians: the National Park Service, the Marin Municipal Water District, the California Department of Parks and Recreation, and (after 1972) the Marin County Parks’ Open Space District, which acquired important peripheral lands. Hikers and other trail users barely noticed these boundaries, but for bureaucrats they were real. Cooperation certainly occurred, but by special effort, and it ebbed and flowed with changing personnel. Over the decades there were stirrings toward consolidation. Records show bids to shift Muir Woods to the state, water district land to the state, Mount Tamalpais State Park to the federal government. None of these transfers occurred. Yet the need for joint effort was obvious, and nowhere more than along Redwood Creek, the stream that flows among the Muir Woods redwoods, where the preservation story had begun. A drop of water rolling off a shoulder of Ridgecrest Boulevard on the spine of Tamalpais finds itself first in Mount Tamalpais State Park, then on water district land, then in the state park again, then in the National Monument, then once more on state land, before reaching the sea in the GGNRA. By the turn of our century it was clear that this supposedly preserved watershed was in trouble. Soil erosion was a problem. Coho salmon, once the pride of Muir Woods, were in decline. Exotic plant species were spreading alarmingly. These problems were beyond the reach of any one manager. In 2003, the land managers teamed up with each other and the Muir Beach community to produce a foundational document called “The Redwood Creek Watershed: Vision for the Future.” But it took a state budget crisis to bring about deeper change. In the dark days of 2012, when it looked as if Mount Tamalpais State Park would have to close, GGNRA General Superintendent Frank Dean made an unprecedented proposal: to support the state park with a two-dollar increase in the Muir Woods entry fee. With that, old barriers crumbled. During this time, the Marin Municipal Water District and ( To p B o r d e r P h oto, A l l Pag e s ) B i l l A bb ot t
Marin County Parks were each independently exploring the creation of a friends organization comparable to the Golden Gate National Parks Conservancy that supports the GGNRA. But with so many groups in the field, so many good causes jockeying for money, was there really room for more? A wider conversation began. The time for a mountainwide partnership had come, yet its creation was no easy matter. The four agencies had different mandates, different cultures. Kevin Wright of Marin County Parks observes, “We might well have said at some point, Health Report ‘This doesn’t work, we’re just too different.’” It was also vital to bring along all those passionate groups and The agencies that care for Mount Tam— individuals who felt collectively referred to as the Tamalpais themselves guardians of Lands Collaborative—convened 60 scientists in 2016 to grapple with the question: the mountain and had How healthy are the plant communities firm ideas about what and wildlife living on Mount Tam? In should and should not answer to the question they produced a seminal report Measuring the Health happen there. Countless of a Mountain: A Report on Mount meetings were held even Tamalpais’ Natural Resources. before the final form of Overall, Mount Tam’s natural resources are in “Fair” condition. Scientists found the collaboration was that some of the mountain’s plants and unveiled. wildlife are thriving, while others have been displaced by invasive species, suffer Another skull-cracker from plant disease, fewer fires, and climate was how to define “Mount change. There are other species whose Tamalpais.” Geologically? condition remains largely unknown, and in 2017 the TLC began collecting data to fill Ecologically? By jurisdicthose gaps. tions? By public percepThe report provides a baseline of tion? The “area of focus” data from which scientists can track the changes—improvement, stasis, and that emerged from these decline—and make better-informed decidiscussions was “a hybrid sions about Mount Tam’s health. Read the of all these together,” says full report at onetam.org/peak-health. october–december 2017
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the Parks Conservancy’s Sharon Farrell. It goes well beyond the core of the mountain mass, finally comprising more than 53,000 acres, or 80 square miles. After two years, on March 21, 2014, a memorandum of understanding created a formal alliance of the four land agencies along with the Golden Gate National Parks Conservancy, called the Tamalpais Lands Collaborative (TLC). It would work with the community under the banner “One Tam.” The conservancy raised a million dollars in seed money, and the work of refining the vision and picking priority programs and projects began. Three years later, the record is impressive. The TLC has been able to offer regular staff support, for the first time, to youth and community programs, volunteer restoration work, and citizen science throughout much of the One Tam area. It published the first free, multi-agency trail map of the region, together with the sixth edition of Barry Spitz’s guide now renamed Mount Tamalpais Trails. In further aid to recreation, it is updating and improving
trail signage across the region. TLC’s website is remarkable for its clarity and openness—project and program budgets and actions are routinely posted there—with a stunning interactive image of the mountain to which people can pin remarks and photographs (one.tam.org/explore). A prime illustration of the agencies’ joint strength is their offensive against invasive species: They’ve engaged both volunteers and paid workers and set up an Early Detection Rapid Response program—167 miles of roads, trails, and streamsides have been screened and all of the known high priority patches are being managed. The TLC has also installed the continent’s largest array of automated wildlife cameras, yielding more than a million images, collected and catalogued by some 125 volunteers. But perhaps the proudest moment for the partnership so far was the release, late in 2016, of the comprehensive report called “Measuring the Health of a Mountain,” also available in boiled-down form under the title “Is Mt. Tam at Peak Health?”
“Y
In Search of a Badger
by Mary Ellen Hannibal
ou know it is very, very unlikely we will actually see a badger, right?” National Park Service wildlife ecologist William Merkle says, trying to manage my expectations as we hike through Roy’s Redwood Preserve in San Geronimo Valley in early spring. With Lisa Michl from Marin County Parks and Open Space District, we are headed to inspect the site where a motionactivated camera has recently documented a badger, its black-and-white triangular head making an instantaneous appearance in one frame among literally thousands of pictures of grass waving in the breeze. My own image of a badger has a lot to do with the gentlemanly host of the underground in Kenneth Grahame’s classic children’s novel The Wind in the Willows. “Badgers have become mythical to us,” Merkle notes, “because we hardly ever see them.” I persist in hearing the friendly banter of Badger, Rat, and Mole, even as I reflect that Taxidea taxus would in reality not give Rat and Mole a tour of his domain but instead consume them in one or two bites. Badgers are of special interest in the One Tam area, partly because of their scarcity and partly because they play an
Ken Hickman
An American badger triggers a camera trap near Half Moon Bay in the Santa Cruz Mountains in 2013.
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BAY NATURE / TAMALPAIS LANDS COLLABORATIVE
The peak health report goes back to questions the TLC encountered as it was reaching out to supporters and volunteers. As Farrell recalls, people asked, in effect, “Great, but what are we actually doing this for? Is Mount Tamalpais in trouble?” In trying to answer that question, the TLC undertook something new for California and rarely attempted anywhere (except for certain well-studied wetlands): the creation of a baseline inventory of the biotic condition of an entire substantial region. Excited by both the place and the concept, scientists from all the involved agencies, Point Blue Conservation Science, and the larger Bay Area proved avid to take part. Peers from other areas cautioned against waiting for new research, advising, “Take advantage of what you’ve got.” Accordingly, the team proceeded by distilling huge troves of existing data, building a mosaic from prior work on species of high concern, like the northern spotted owl and the foothill yellow-legged frog, and on broader communities, like grassland
or redwood forest or coastal scrub and chaparral. And the diagnosis? Mixed. Some species and communities on Tam are holding their own very well; some are declining, but still in a state where modest interventions can make a big difference. In a natural world that is rapidly changing, and rarely for the better, we can only welcome the tentative overall verdict: “cautionary, but fairly stable.” Important though it Ecological Health already is, this work will Indicator Key show its full value in the unfuture, as reassessments good poor fair known every five years track the Good Moderate Significant Unknown landscape’s evolution and Condition Concern Concern provide better guidance for the many willing hands and minds devoted Improving No Declining Unknown Trend Change Trend to this mountain.
important role in the grassland ecosystem that is their preferred habitat. Today, native grasslands are among the top ten most endangered ecosystems in the United States, according to the nonprofit Defenders of Wildlife, and in the top five in California. “We have less than one percent of our native grasslands,” says Andrea Williams, a Marin Municipal Water District botanist. Calling them “the old growth at your feet,” she explains that native grasslands are an ancient ecosystem tying us to a past California landscape that endures in remnants today. We have about 50 native grasses in the One Tam area, but what we call grasslands is also home to rich centers of diversity, including meadowfoam, clover, baby stars, and lupine—endemic wildflowers that in turn host endemic butterflies. “They provide forage and nesting areas for hundreds of species of native bees,” Williams says. “Birds like horned larks, western meadowlarks, and grasshopper sparrows also prefer areas of bare ground among grass clumps, which animals like badgers and other fossorial mammals create.” Fossorial means underground, and the fact that this is where badgers dwell is one reason we don’t know that much about them. They have also been hunted and persecuted for so long we don’t have a good picture of their history. Around Mount Tamalpais, there’s been no effort to understand their population until recently. As far back as 1937, famed zoologist Joseph Grinnell and his colleagues wrote that the California badger was threatened with complete elimination by an “overzealous campaign to remove all the native animals from the range because they might prove unfriendly to some phase of agriculture.” They cautioned that badgers act “as a check upon rodent irruptions” and ought not to be treated as “vermin.” Today, though the rarity of badgers gets the designation “species of special concern” in California, there is no limit on hunting them for more than a quarter of the year in the state. The challenges of puzzling out the badgers, their history in the landscape and their continuing impacts here, are increasingly coming into focus thanks to an innovative monitoring platform
called the Wildlife Picture Index (WPI). One Tam’s WPI project includes a grid of 128 cameras arrayed throughout the Lagunitas Creek corridor. Since September 2014, these cameras have borne witness to the wildlife doings in their purviews. They’ve documented a wide variety of mammal activity, revealing skunks, foxes, coyotes, bobcats, and deer, among others. Volunteers help maintain the cameras and identify the wildlife caught on camera. In 2016, volunteers catalogued more than 800,000 images from One Tam’s WPI project. My 16-year-old son and I occasionally assist in this gigantic task. One memorable afternoon we sat in the Sky Oaks Ranger Station looking at photo after photo on computers. The photo memory card assigned to my son that day revealed a veritable bestiary of species, while on mine I watched what appeared to be a single woodrat run around a tree trunk twice a day. I actually felt pretty fond of the critter by the time I was through. The Wildlife Picture Index sounds like a simple tool: put a bunch of cameras in a landscape and see what images they capture. “One thing we’re learning is that the medium-size carnivores are pretty much everywhere,” Rosa Schneider told me. Schneider is Community Science Program Grassland Manager for One Tam, and Schneider’s are the Communities eyes that first saw the badger caught on film at fair Roy’s Redwoods. Cameras can get triggered as a hiker walks by; one frame might show a backpack or a leg going forward, the next might then reveal a bobcat, a fox, or a coyote trotting past Declining Trend unbeknownst to the human who came before. The ubiquity of the carnivores signals a healthy American landscape. On the one hand, it means there is Badger plenty of prey for these animals. On the other, unit means we have sufficient predators to keep known those prey populations in balance. The presence Lack of data of these midsize carnivores is a heartening find october–december 2017
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that tells us the One Tam area is ecologically pretty healthy. This secret life of One Tam’s fauna is beguiling enough, but the WPI reveals much more. The platform is organized according to strict protocols so the data it collects can be used in sophisticated statistical analysis. For example, it can help pinpoint trends in biodiversity—is it increasing, decreasing, or stable?—and whether large tracts of landscape are well-connected with each other or not. WPI data can be sorted to measure the abundance of an individual species, like the badger, but can also reveal relationships among what biologists call “trophic” levels in the ecosystem. Trophic basically means food—who eats what, in what amounts, at what time of year—and is a fundamental way to assess landscape health. Among many other things (they are omnivorous), badgers eat rodents, and in doing so they help modulate rodent populations. Healthy rodent populations in turn help support other species. The badger and the spotted owl (for example), though they occupy different habitat types and don’t so much as say boo to each other, are thus intimately connected: This trophic relationship ties the health of the grasslands where the badger lives to the health of the forest where the owl lives. Merkle and I stop on a hillside and look at a camera aimed unobtrusively ahead. He points out a mound of unearthed soil, musing it could possibly be the work of a badger. Belonging to a mammal family called mustelids that includes the wolverine and the mink, badgers are considered ecosystem engineers because their digging aerates the soil, churns up the seed bank, and facilitates water flow. Their dens also provide shelter for other species, including burrowing owls, lizards, insects, and amphibians. In short, they help maintain healthy grasslands—an important part of a diverse habitat mosaic. Yet “we have relatively few acres of grassland, relative to forest and chapparal,” Merkle says. The grasslands we do still have here face myriad threats. Historically, native Californians controlled the vegetative and faunal succession unfolding on the landscape by periodically burning it. Today we don’t let a single spark fly if we can help it, but that means our grasslands are vulnerable to being taken over by chaparral, Douglas-fir, and invasive nonnative species like French broom. “We have to maintain our grasslands by physically removing encroaching species,” Merkle points out. A healthy population of badgers won’t solve all the grassland problems here, but it will provide another layer of ecosystem resilience to help the land stay healthy and functioning. The WPI project not only helps assess where badgers are today but also makes it possible to set a quantitative goal for their future existence here. Currently, we know there are at least two badgers in the One Tam area, but scientists suspect there are more they haven’t yet confirmed. One Tam would like to maintain at least six suitable habitat patches of greater than 1,000 acres in its area of focus and would like to “detect badgers at all camera locations in grassland or coastal scrub greater than 1,000 acres,” the Peak Health report reads. As Merkle and I look around at the grass and the redwoods beyond, I wonder who, exactly, might be watching us from where. b ay n at u r e
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The Nature of the Dipsea Race by Alisa Opar
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echnically, we’re cheating. Or we would be, if we were competing in the Dipsea Race, the nation’s oldest crosscountry running competition, dating back to 1905. The grueling 7.4-mile trail starts in downtown Mill Valley, climbs the slopes of Mount Tamalpais, and then drops nearly 1,400 feet to Stinson Beach. I’m hiking the famous trail a month before the June race with two National Park Service scientists. We skip the first two miles of trail, which crisscrosses paved roads, in favor of setting out on dirt near the Muir Woods National Monument visitor center. On my own, I’d focus on the old-growth redwoods and ocean views as I tackled the steep terrain. But there’s far more here than legendary trees and vistas, my guides tell me. The Dipsea passes through a shifting suite of habitats that supports remarkable biodiversity. You just have to look for it. We step onto the trail and enter the shaded redwood understory along Redwood Creek, a 6.5-mile waterway that begins in the peaks of Mount Tam and spills into the Pacific Ocean at Muir Beach. On race day, most of the 1,500 runners who pound over the creek on wooden planks won’t know endangered juvenile coho salmon are swimming in the inches-deep water below. Today the makeshift bridge is missing. The National Park Service removes it, every winter through late spring, to ensure it won’t impede the two-foot-long
BAY NATURE / TAMALPAIS LANDS COLLABORATIVE
(left) The verdant moss covering California bay laurel and oak trees along wooded sections of the Dipsea Trail is sustained by the fog. (right) The trail also traverses open
Martin Sundberg/Getty Images
lands in a couple of hours, when we reach the coast. Behind us are towering redwoods, and greengray shrublands cover a distant hillside. Immediately in front of us is a sweeping grassy hillside, called Hogback. In the One Tam area, grasslands comprise about 10 percent of the open spaces, providing herbaceous expanses for American badgers and dozens of species of songbirds to forage and raise their young. Forrestel explains that keeping meadows like this healthy requires intense vigilance and person-power. She points to a stand of Douglas-fir at the edge of the grasses; fires formerly prevented the trees from encroaching on and taking over the grasslands, but now land managers must remove them. Invasive plants are an even bigger challenge. French broom, for instance, the fast-growing evergreen shrub likely introduced to the Bay Area as an ornamental in the mid-1800s, today swiftly chokes out natives—from iconic purple needlegrass to rare star tulips. There’s no French broom in sight on Hogback, thanks to the staff and volunteers who clear the intruder by hand and keep close watch for seedlings. They concentrate on clearing invasive nonnative plants from trail edges, where humans unwittingly pick up, transport, and deposit seeds. (The quirky rules of the Dipsea race allow runners to take shortcuts, but Forrestel suggests sticking to the trail—if not out of concern for the ecosystem then for personal well-being, as poison-oak is rampant along the course.) We soon get some respite from the strong sun as we cross back into Muir Woods and enter a patch so noticeably sodden that runadult coho and steelhead trout that journey from the ocean to spawn ners nicknamed it “the Rain Forest.” Thick summer fog accumuin these shallow waters. Coho need all the help they can get. Habitat lates here, causing moisture to drip like rain off the redwoods, loss, pollution, and poor ocean conditions mean fewer than a dozen tanoaks, and Douglas-firs. These old-growth woods receive about adults return to Redwood Creek each year, despite restoration eftwice the annual precipitation of Stinson Beach, only a few miles forts. To boost their numbers, Michael Reichmuth, a fisheries bioloaway. Redwoods and other fog-dwelling plants have evolved to take gist for Point Reyes National Seashore, and advantage of the moisture by absorbing it Support Tam his team have partnered with the California through their leaves, not just their roots like Department of Fish and Wildlife, along with • Volunteer: Help pull invasive weeds, restore most flora. So far, the coastal redwoods have habitats, maintain trails, count wildlife, and other groups, to begin collecting juveniles survived the extended drought, but how the more: onetam.org/volunteer from the creek, rearing them to adulthood in trees will fare in the future is uncertain (in • Learn & Share: Take part in a bioblitz or ancaptivity, and then re-releasing them here to nual bird count, share sightings on iNaturalist, part because fog is tricky for climate modbreed. Reichmuth points out a couple young- or join one of many educational programs: one- els to forecast). If rising global temperatures sters—tiny silver flashes in the shallow water— tam.org/calendar lead to more frequent droughts or decreased • Care: Stay on designated trails to protect sensitive fog, some trees and organisms living beneath and we hike on. species and habitats and clean your shoes after Up, up, up we climb, moving out of Muir passing through areas with Sudden Oak Death. their soaring canopies could suffer—includWoods and into Mount Tamalpais State • Join: Become a member to support projects and ing coho salmon, which live primarily in the cool, shaded streams of redwood forests, Park—and direct sunlight. Alison Forrestel programs that help maintain and restore this stops us. I gratefully catch my breath as special place: onetam.org/join Reichmuth points out. Another concern, Forrestel, a vegetation ecologist with the Forrestel says, nodding to two dead trees in Golden Gate National Recreation Area, goes into detail about the front of us, is Sudden Oak Death. The pathogen, a mold that landscape. This seven-mile trail winds through many of the ecosystem scientists believe came over from Asia in the nursery trade (though types found within the 53,000-acre One Tam area. We’ll see oak woodthat remains unconfirmed), is killing tanoaks in Muir Woods and
Richard Johnstone/ flickr.com/photos/1flatworld
grasslands and reaches the sea at Stinson Beach.
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beyond: The disease has infiltrated 90 percent of One Tam’s oak woodlands and killed tens of thousands of its trees. Besides tree loss, it’s worrisome because dusky-footed woodrats, the preferred prey of the endangered northern spotted owl, dine on acorns. I’m despondent to learn there’s no way to stop the pathogen, but my mind turns elsewhere as we approach the infamous Cardiac Hill. For years a “No U-Turn” sign at the base goaded runners, signaling they were about to trudge up the Dipsea’s steepest section. A sign marks the trail’s highest point, at 1,360 feet, and relates the history of the race, accompanied by a blackand-white photo of dozens of men dressed in suits, ties, and flat caps jauntily cresting Cardiac. We take in the Pacific stretching to the horizon, sip from the only water fountain on the trail, and then head (mostly) downhill for the final three miles. For half that distance we cut across hillsides, passing through grasslands and shrubland dominated by coyote bush; its fluffy white seeds look a lot like One Tam area that canid’s tail. We startle a deer of focus and her white-speckled fawn, and a lone turkey vulture wobbles overhead. Biological surveys of One Tam’s coastal shrublands reveal that they’re healthy, supporting a rich mix of songbirds—something that’s obvious even during the 53,000 acres over 80 square miles, non-birdy midday hours. Bushtits including Mount Tam. and orange-crowned warblers zip around low in the shrubs, and the insistent, bright “chip” of the California towhee pierces the air, though the large brown sparrow remains invisible. I cringe when I see the sign for our turnoff; if Cardiac Hill busted my lungs, Steep Ravine seems certain to strain my knees. We drop sharply through redwoods, and a few minutes later, the dirt trail becomes stairs, slick with moisture. I lose count somewhere north of 100, distracted by the recollection that top runners were rumored to take the steps four at a time. Finally, we reach Weill Creek at the bottom of the ravine. Reichmuth spots a rainbow trout. It’s the same species as the steelhead trout (Oncorhynchus mykiss) in Redwood Creek, he explains as we move on, but rainbows live only in freshwater, while steelhead take their chances in the ocean. Suddenly, we emerge from the woods onto a hill with a spectacular vista of Stinson Beach. We’ll soon make our way down to the sand to rest our tired legs and eat lunch. But first Reichmuth points out Bolinas Lagoon, a tidal estuary north of Stinson where leopard sharks prowl and harbor seals haul out. The marshy trough, he says, was formed by the San Andreas Fault, which runs directly beneath it. On a day filled with discovery, forced to slow down and observe my surroundings instead of breezing through, I’m struck by this revelation. The San Andreas Fault, born millions of years ago when the Pacific and North American plates first collided, shaped this landscape. Those ancient geological forces wrought the mountains, streams, and rugged coastlines we’ve traversed on the Dipsea, paving the way for abundant biodiversity within a few short miles. b ay n at u r e
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The Southern Range of Northern Spotted Owls by Jules Evens
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t’s late on a mid-March afternoon when we enter the shadowy forest on the north slope of Mount Tamalpais. Earlier surveys here have located northern spotted owls, a territorial species that favors core areas of intact forest. We walk with caution, stepping over fallen branches, trying not to disturb the silence by breaking the brittle twigs, all the while looking upward toward the middle tiers of the forest canopy where an owl might roost. After crossing an unnamed runnel and sidestepping a woodrat lodge, we come to a dense family ring of redwoods. The trees here are not uniform and straight, but somewhat gnarly, with bole cavities, broken-topped snags, and flat-topped candelabras. Such mature many-layered gallery forests—with overlapping branches, nearly closed canopies, tangled understories, and vigorous living trees as well as decadent snags—are classic spotted owl habitat. And there, next to the trunk of a massive tree, are two owls roosted side by side, still and silent, almost spectral. In the dappled light the birds’ coffee-brown feathering, speckled white, blends with the rusty bark. They appear to be aware of us observing them through our binoculars, but unconcerned, their dark, moon-shaped eyes reflecting the quintessential ancient spirit of the old growth forest. These luxuriant forests of upper Lagunitas Creek, Phoenix Lake, and Bolinas Ridge are critical sanctuary for the northern spotted owl (Strix occidentalis caurina). A medium-size owl, perhaps the most emblematic animal of the Northwest’s temperate coastal forests, it is listed by both federal and state agencies as “threatened.” The birds don’t migrate, commonly staying within the same home range year-round, rarely venturing far from the forest shadows. After forming a pair bond that may last a lifetime, a couple settles in a cryptic nest of sticks and lichen, often in the crotch or platform of branches of old growth redwoods and Douglas-fir, sometimes in live oaks and bays. In the early spring the female (slightly larger than the male) incubates a clutch commonly of one or two eggs, three when food is abundant. The male does most of the foraging and feeding of his mate for the four weeks of incubation. When they are about seven to nine days old, the downy young open their dark eyes. At about four weeks, the fluffy owlets are able to perch away from the nest (they’re sometimes called “branchers”), but still depend on their parents for food. Parents care for their offspring generally into September, when the young owls are finally able to forage for themselves and disperse in search of their own territory. This reclusive owl is a nocturnal “perch-and-pounce” predator. Dusky-footed woodrats (Neotoma fuscipes) are a primary prey species here at the southern edge of the owl’s range, which
extends north into British Columbia; flying squirrels (Glaucomys species) are the preferred prey farther north. Over the last 200 years throughout the owl’s range, suitable habitat has been reduced by some 60 percent. Mount Tamalpais’ heterogeneous forest conditions, extensive protected habitat, and abundant prey, coupled with a relatively mild climate, provide a unique sanctuary. The forests of West Marin are separated from those of Sonoma County by unforested grasslands and all manner of human infrastructure. This relative isolation has limited the gene flow between the Marin population and more northerly populations, and research has shown these local birds occupy a somewhat broader habitat niche than those farther north. Although Mount Tam’s sanctuary forests are relatively free from threats the owls face elsewhere, especially logging and extreme habitat modification, the owls here aren’t entirely “out of the woods” when it comes to survival. Mount Tam was identified as ground zero for Sudden Oak Death (SOD) in the mid-1990s and the disease has altered, and threatens to further alter, the structure of these forests. Tanoak (Notholithocarpus densiflorus) has been the primary victim of SOD, and its die-off has opened up the forests, creating a patchier and somewhat (left) Once northern spotted owlets leave the nest they hang around on nearby branches before learning to fly; this pair hatched in the Mount Tam area in 2017.
(left) Carlos Porrata; (right) Pamela Rose Hawken, PamelaRoseHawkenPhotography.com
(right) A young owl perches in a redwood forest at night within the Mount Tam area.
drier environment, not typically considered prime spotted owl habitat. And there’s an invasive species on the scene that could pose another threat to the spotted owls of Mount Tam. The barred owl (Strix varia), which thrives more in “edge” Redwood Second habitats (although it has occupied dense forest Growth Most of Mt. Tam’s fragments in the Pacific Northwest and Muir redwood forests are previously logged Woods), has expanded its range westward over second-growth stands, which are in fair the last half-century (or more) in response condition. to landscape-level changes in the continent’s boreal forests, resulting in a breakdown of fair ecological barriers that formerly separated the two closely related species. Although the barred owl has usurped and displaced the spotted owl Declining Trend throughout much of the Pacific Northwest, the story in Marin is somewhat more encouraging. Northern Spotted Owl Barred owls were first confirmed nesting in Marin in 2007, but so far they have not good established a firm foothold here as they have in spotted owl territories farther north, and there have been no successful barred owl No Change in Trend nests observed in Marin in more recent years. Exactly why is not yet clear to researchers, but they do confirm the status of these mixed conifer forests of (continued on page 40)
Maya Gardens Courtesy Creative Commons
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z. Never-Never Land. Brigadoon. The West Side streets of New York. Coast live oak. Douglas-fir. Serpentine. Acorn woodpecker and western fence lizard. This is one extraordinary crossroads of nature and culture. Welcome to Mount Tamalpais State Park and a forested slope at just over 2,000 feet elevation, where breezes blow in from Stinson Beach, hikers come and go, and wildlife abounds. Welcome also to the Sidney B. Cushing Memorial Amphitheatre, better known as the Mountain Theatre, where plays and productions have taken place outdoors in the park for more than a century, these days replete with live orchestra, special effects, elaborate temporary staging, and stone slab seating for 4,000 people. Listen in on a conversation at the theatre on Mount Tam with Bree Hardcastle, environmental scientist with California State Parks, and Sara Pearson, executive director of the nonprofit Mountain Play. Bree Hardcastle: Up here you realize that people watching a play are almost certain to also experience nature. I can’t imagine that you could sit here at a play and see what’s all around you, and feel and smell the air, and not let that get in at some level—have it move you. Sara Pearson: The power of this place is palpable. Some of the big rock outcrops and trees nearby have actually had roles in the plays! One really big oak used to be right in back of Open Canopy Oak Woodlands the stage and the actors could get some shade there. It was known as God’s Tree, because when fair God spoke in a play the voice would actually come from up in that tree! But the amphitheater itself is the biggest character we have. It’s a being. James Dunn, Declining Trend who directed our plays for 30 years, used to talk about walking the trails of Mount Tam when he was a boy. He said that directing the Mountain Play in this sacred space was the thing that touched his heart the most. Bay Nature: Just the stones that make up all these seats are fantastic. It feels like they’re growing out of the hillside. What kind of rock are they? BH: Some are serpentine—the state rock of California. SP: Look at the green in the rock, shining all along the rows. That’s one of the things I love—that you can see the colors. The blocks are actually huge; we’re only seeing the very tops. BH: And all the stone here was quarried from the mountain. There are multiple quarries in the state park because the Civilian Conservation Corps had multiple projects in the park in the 1930s. BN: So right now there are acorn woodpeckers and juncos calling, and I’m guessing some of the critters that live here may appear during shows. SP: They definitely do! We often have turkey vultures come in and fly really low over the action, checking out what’s going on. They’re really curious! BH: And they can smell from so far away. SP: We always get squirrels and chipmunks b ay n at u r e
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running around, and there’s one famous story. This squirrel came running right out across the stage, all the way to the center, and I swear he stopped right at the edge, facing front, and just stood there and put up one paw like he was hailing a cab! Of course the audience burst into laughter—and it was in the middle of a ballad. Also, some of these beautiful oak trees were planted by the designer Emerson Knight back in the 1930s to grow inside the amphitheater. They look like they’re sprouting right out of the rock. They’re important to us for another reason: shade. If you’ve been to a play here, you know it can get really warm by the middle of the afternoon. The first thing a lot of people ask for when they call for tickets is…shade. So it was devastating when a beloved tree that shaded the front orchestra section died. It succumbed to Sudden Oak Death. BH: It had to be removed, for safety. But one thing we could do here is plant new live oaks—that’s the species growing here—to take the place of some of the older ones that inevitably will die from old age or Sudden Oak Death. We could come out and collect acorns from these same trees. We’d select the sites to plant them to make sure that in 50 years we still have beautiful live oaks to supply shade. SP: I like that idea! I think the Mountain Play could get involved with that because we’ve spent significant resources trying to keep the trees that remain here healthy. Now we’re watching this oak— you can see we tucked a shade structure up underneath the tree. If we lost any of these huge limbs, we might have to double or even triple the size of that shade structure. Our shade structures actually cost about $10,000 to put up and take down every year. BN: This makes a person grateful for live oak trees in a whole new way. BH: Something we’re trying to do with One Tam is to go deeper and really encourage people to steward the mountain with us. To say, “Oak woodlands like the ones we see here are incredibly important, yet right behind the theater you can see dead tanoaks and madrone trees. This habitat is in decline, even here on the mountain, so it needs assistance!” SP: That’s also in our mission statement—that we are teaching people about stewardship of the natural environment in Mount Tam State Park. Maintaining and taking care of this space, which is spiritually important to us, is enmeshed in almost everything we do. Though I guess sometimes it may not look that way if you’re a naturalist or someone outside the Mountain Play’s history and culture. BH: We’ve been saying we need more capacity, we need more help, but it’s a much deeper and more meaningful collaboration when we can sit down and say, “OK, here’s where our needs and our missions and our goals overlap. How can we really work together to lift each other up?” SP: We’re really grateful for that collaboration. It’s just been so long needed. (clockwise) The Mountain Play performed Beauty and the Beast at the Cushing Memorial Amphitheatre in spring 2017; a giant native oak tree grows amid grasslands; at the empty amphitheatre, Mountain Play executive director Sara Pearson (left) and California State Parks environmental scientist Bree Hardcastle discuss the arts on Mount Tam.
Courtesy Andre Villeneuve
Franco Folini
O
BAY NATURE / TAMALPAIS LANDS COLLABORATIVE
Theatre Amid the Oaks
(Clockwise from Top) Mountain Play Association; Rosanna Petralia/California State Parks; Paul Myers/Parks Conservancy
by Claire Peaslee
october–december 2017
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A Fish Story
by Ariel Rubissow Okamoto
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norkeling off a coral reef is nothing like snorkeling in a shallow stream on the backside of Mount Tamalpais, Eric Ettlinger says. His job is to find out how the fish in Lagunitas Creek are faring and it sends him scrambling along banks, peering into pools, bobbing on traps, wading through riffles, and snorkeling in water so shallow he gets a crick in his neck. “In lots of places I’m dragging myself along the streambed with my mask turned sideways, moving upstream so the sediment I stir up flows away behind me,” the earnest biologist says. In other words, if he looked down he’d have a mask full of silt rather than an eyeful of salmon. Now, you might think salmon are big pink fish in need of deeper water, but the kind Ettlinger tracks are very young and still spending time in the freshwater stream of their birth. Ettlinger works for the Marin Municipal Water District, a partner in the One Tam initiative, monitoring each phase of the life cycle of endangered coho salmon and steelhead trout in their watersheds and experimenting with ways to improve fish habitat. Over the last century, dam building, logging, and development on Mount Tam’s flanks greatly diminished what was once extensive freshwater stream habitat: creeks, pools, and rapids overhung with willow, alder, and sedges and filled with fish, frogs, and otters. These activities drove the mountain’s five major creeks into deeper and deeper channels, separated them from their natural floodplains, blocked fish migrations and sediment redistribution, and spurred erosion. Today, about 850 acres of riparian woodland and forest remain on Mount Tam, shading and buffering more than 110 miles of streams. Three major streams—Olema, Redwood, and Lagunitas—drain to the Pacific Ocean. Twenty-mile-long Lagunitas Creek has the largest watershed, and it sustains the southernmost population of wild coho salmon in the world.
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Ettlinger built his first fish habitat—a pile of logs in the middle of Lagunitas Creek—15 years ago. But when he then dived under it looking for coho, his bright underwater lamp revealed the turquoise bulging eyes of an entirely different species. When alarmed, threespine sticklebacks lift their spines, locking them in place. With a fish that rarely grows longer than three inches, this may not seem very menacing. But if you’re a big hungry trout and you eat one, you might not do it again. Those spines interfere with easy consumption. Though Ettlinger spends most of his days chasing the fast disappearing coho and steelhead, he remains fascinated by the more common stickleback. He likens this “twitchy” tiny fish— with its bug eyes, armored plates, and habit of curling into a J shape—to the charismatic sea horse. “I still remember the first time I allowed myself to watch the sticklebacks instead of the coho. I noticed a school of all different sizes, young and old, all pointing their snouts in the same direction. When the sun hit them the reflection was so strong it was like an array of mirrors,” he recalls. Sticklebacks are one of the most common native fish in Bay Area streams and can tolerate a wide range of water qualities; if they aren’t in a creek, that may raise an eyebrow of concern about pollution. According to the One Tam report, 22 years of monitoring show the creek’s stickleback population is in good condition while the coho’s continues to be in pretty poor, if not critical, condition. (Indeed, the water district is about to spend $1.5 million to create better habitat for overwintering coho in the lower reaches of Lagunitas.) Current salmon monitoring by Ettlinger and others includes counting redds (gravel nests) in winter, snorkel surveying in summer, electrofishing in fall (in which adding an electric current to a patch of water briefly immobilizes fish so they can be more easily examined), and trapping in spring. Much care is taken to return fish to the water unscathed.
P hoto g r a phy by Pa u l Mye rs / Pa r k s Co n se r va n c y
(left) A threespine stickleback is among the smolt—there were salmon and steelhead, too—caught in Lagunitas Creek by Marin Municipal Water District researchers Brenna Fowler and Eric Ettlinger for monitoring. (below) The young fish, removed from the smolt trap, are weighed and measured before being returned to the creek.
On a spring day, I volunteered to help Ettlinger’s field crew with a phase of their annual fish monitoring cycle that hurts the knees more than the neck. A mile inland from Point Reyes Station, a break in a barbed wire fence next to a field of sweet peas and bell beans was our access point to Lagunitas Creek. When I first saw the screw trap, bobbing violently in a rush of brown water, I wondered if I was getting too old for this kind of field reporting. The trap is a steel raft holding a spinning drum with a corkscrew funnel that guides fish into a 3- by 3-foot metal tank with a lid. Ettlinger’s field crew checks and empties the trap seven days a week for two months each spring, just as the coho and steelhead get big enough (4-6 inches) to think about heading out into the ocean. Coho salmon, steelhead trout, and some stickleback are “anadromous” species, born in a freshwater stream or river, maturing out in the ocean, and then returning to their birthplace to spawn. While salmon and trout build redds in gravel hollows on the creek bottom, male stickleback craft their tubular nests with a combo of sand grains, plant bits, and a glue-like protein excreted from their back ends. When the male is ready to mate, his throat reddens, and he coaxes a female into the tunnel-nest where she releases her eggs. He fertilizes them, and then proceeds to court another six or seven likely ladies. He guards the egg hoard, fanning with his fins until they hatch. After that, unlike many stickleback, those in the Bay Area live out their one to two years in freshwater, while the average life cycle of coho can last three years and the steelhead’s two to four. Stepping onto the steel platform, Ettlinger instructed me in how to use a variety of nets to scoop out branches and leaves, then fish, without squashing them against the bottom
and sides. That day we netted 132 coho salmon and 24 steelhead and dumped them into orange buckets full of water and air bubbles, while sorting all other species into white buckets. That day’s selection included three Steelhead Trout sticklebacks, among others. Ettlinger clubbed poor a striped bass, a nonnative consumer of the species he’s trying to save. Back on the bank in a cloud of mosqui- No Change in Trend toes, the field crew sat on bucket bottoms and Threespine measured, weighed, and identified every fish— stickleback murmuring terms like “parr” (young) or “smolt” (ready to migrate) as they documentgood ed the different life stages. The visuals are a giveaway. Spots, speckles, and pink stripes help these fish blend in with the gravelly, No Change in Trend dappled environment of their streams. “The Coho Salmon more silvery they get, the farther along they are in the smolting process,” says Ettlinger. poor The maturing process silvers spots and loosens scales, preparing them for life in the salty Coho in Redwod Creek deep blue sea. are declining; Coho in Creek, while In all his years of monitoring, Ettlinger has Lagunitas more stable are still tenuous. only ever caught one stickleback he thought was coming back from the ocean. This particular one was “huge,” says the biologist, about the size of a bay leaf. Stickleback probably can’t grow that big without gorging on the abundant plankton of the Pacific. Ettlinger hopes more citizens will get involved with stream monitoring, and he thinks the stickleback—with its oddball looks and spiny charisma—could be a draw. “They’re pretty tiny but easy to see from the stream bank,” he says. “Just look for something twitchy, with a shape like a sea horse, swimming backwards.”
october–december 2017
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by John Hart
Charles Kennard
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f William Kent was a kind of godfather to preservation on Mount Tamalpais, its godmother might be the eminent botanist, Kent family acquaintance, and indefatigable hiker Alice Eastwood. Born in Toronto in 1859, transplanted in her teens to Denver, Eastwood developed her passion for plants without much formal education. She was already well known in botanical circles when she made her first ascent of Mount Tam, on a visit in 1891, instantly falling in love with the mountain. By the next year she had moved west and was working at the California Academy of Sciences, helping to bring order to its incipient chaotic collection of plant specimens. In 1906, she rescued her precious “type collection” of 1,497 species from the academy building on Market Street in the hours between its partial destruction by earthquake and its obliteration by fire. When the academy reopened in 1912, she returned to her post as curator of botany, a position she held until she retired, in 1949, at age 90. Though her botanical travels took her far and wide, Eastwood retained a special fondness for Tamalpais. Every Sunday, she and assorted friends would take the ferry and train from the city to the mountaintop, hike, cook lunch at Rock Springs on the ocean end of the summit ridge, hike some more, and return to the summit station in time for the six o’clock descent. A four-mile-anhour walker when there was a train to catch, she was welcomed into the all-male Cross-Country Club as an “associate member.” She and several trail-wise companions were dubbed the “Hill Tribe.” Always she was botanizing, describing her finds technically for one kind of reader and in clear and lively language for another. Some Serpentine of her popular writings about Tam plant life Barrens Endemics were collected in a still-illuminating booklet published by the Tamalpais Conservation Club, fair of which she (along with William Kent) was a charter member. One of her special local interests was the Declining Trend manzanita genus; she described nine species in Marin County, including five on the mounSargent Cypress tain. Another fascination was the plants that grow on the serpentine substrates that occur in good streaks and patches along the mountain mass. Serpentine-derived soils, poor in calcium and high in magnesium and heavy metals, discourNo Change age most plants, yet provide a special niche for some, including the rare Sargent cypress, the leather oak, and the Mount Tamalpais manzanita, an Eastwood discovery. For the modern managers of Mount Tamalpais, Alice b ay n at u r e
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photo. The location is unknown.
Eastwood is both an inspiration and a vital source of information. Her notebooks are still at the Academy of Sciences; her work of a century ago forms a baseline for all later assessments of the health and vitality of Tam’s plant life. One of those modern custodians is Andrea Williams of the Marin Municipal Water District (MMWD). On a cool spring day not long after late winter rains, she leads me to the broad back of Pine Mountain, the ridge that faces Tamalpais proper across the deep trough of the Lagunitas Creek valley. We stop in a section of sparse vegetation, an almost-desert place, drab perhaps to a hasty and untrained eye. Andrea’s eye, patient and trained, is finding a world of rarities. Easy to spot are two of Eastwood’s specialties, the Mount Tamalpais manzanita (Arctostaphylos montana ssp. montana) and the leather oak (Quercus durata). Underfoot is a wash of pale pink Calochortus umbellatus, the Oakland mariposa lily. “This is a great year for it,” Williams says. Like many rarities, this one was hard to find during the recent drought and hardly appeared at all in the spring of 2014. Here is Mount Tamalpais lessingia (Lessingia micradenia var. micradenia), a light purple flower of the daisy family. “It’s a rare species that’s extremely common here,” Williams says. “There are thousands of them here—and that’s it.” In a few steps we move from the merely severe to a seemingly lifeless zone of rock outcrops. Serpentinite boulders don’t even support much lichen. But right on the margin is a whole field of purple, orchid-like Mount Tamalpais jewelflowers, a subspecies of Streptanthus glandulosus. She bends for a photograph; I shift position to provide a shadow. Serpentine landscapes are bright. Green flags here and there mark the spots where exotic weeds have been pulled. Serpentine communities, like others, are prey to intruders from similar Old World landscapes. Here among the jewelflowers is one that was missed: a stalk of barbed goatgrass. Williams pulls on one glove to tug it out of the ground. Silica-rich hairs on the leaves will cut your hands. Three weed-pullers have been working downslope, near the line where a sudden wall of woods shows the change to more hospitable soils. They are professionals employed by the water district. With the arrival of the One Tam initiative, Williams notes, “more people are doing this kind of work.” “We’ll be back tomorrow,” they call. “We’ll be back tomorrow” could be the motto of the Tamalpais Lands Collaborative. It’s a work that can never end. Since she joined the MMWD staff in 2009, Williams has been working to redo a rare plant survey last updated a quarter-century ago. Her data fed into last year’s big study, “Measuring the Health of a Mountain”; she hopes this year to complete this latest link in the chain of inventories going back to Eastwood.
MSS. 142, Alice Eastwood Papers, California Academy of Sciences Archives, San Francisco, CA.
Tam’s First Botanist
Alice Eastwood sorts through specimens in this 1929
1) Rachel Kesel, One Tam; 2) David Greenberger; 3) Charles Kennard; 4) Raphaela E. Floreani Buzbee; 5) Scott Simono/ scottsimono.com; 6) Marin Chapter, California Native Plant Society
BAY NATURE / TAMALPAIS LANDS COLLABORATIVE
She is also pursuing a study on “serpentine endemic occupancy.” The populations of these serpentine forbs vary widely from year to year. “Lessingia may be here in the thousands, tens of thousands, or hundreds of thousands.” How alarmed should we be when counts are low? Perhaps not very. Many scarce species have returned in force with the rains. Pending further work, the state of the serpentine landscapes, which occupy a tiny fraction
of the One Tam area but have a much larger share in its biodiversity, can be assessed as good. “I kind of laugh at being called a descendant of Alice Eastwood,” Williams says. But like her predecessor, she is not hesitant to stick her neck out about conditions on the mountain. “We like to make bold but qualified statements.” Some won’t do that. There is value in “being able to not be afraid to be wrong.”
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Clockwise from upper left: 1) Serpentine barrens
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interrupt grasslands in the Rock Spring area of Mount Tam; 2) a Tamalpais bristly jewelflower (Streptanthus glandulosus ssp. pulchellus.) grows on San Geronimo Ridge; 3) an Oakland star tulip (Calochortus umbellatus);
4) Mount Tamalpais manzanita (Arctostaphylos
montana ssp. montana); 5) Mount Tamalpais Lessingia (Lessingia micradenia var. micradenia); 6) Sargent
cypress (Hesperocyparis sargentii).
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Mount Tam as an important refuge for the spotted owl. Intensive research, such as the surveys we’re conducting here for One Tam, has shown that in the watersheds around Mount Tam, the density of spotted owls is greater than elsewhere, reproductive success is relatively high, and a wider variety of habitats are used. Extensive protected public lands and the absence of logging are only part of the reason; in addition, other potential disturbances—recreational impacts, noise, urban encroachment, rodenticide use—have not been severe enough to cause population declines for this species, yet. Indeed, the 2017 breeding season was a productive one for the spotted owl, with 70 confirmed fledglings in Marin. So its population here appears to be stable, healthy, and sustainable, at least for the
(OWLS continued from page 33)
near future. We watch as the daylight fades and the owls begin to stir. The male slowly stretches one of his wings, then swivels his round head toward his mate. Soon the male begins preening (grooming) the female and she lets out a quiet purr. After a few minutes she turns to face her mate and they begin a ritual of mutual bowing and cooing. Then, suddenly, he flies off but returns shortly with a headless woodrat that he presents to her. This food exchange will initiate the nesting cycle that, if successful, will result in the hatching and fledging of chicks. Soon it’s getting too dark to see the owls, so we retrace our steps and leave them to their quiet hideaway, assured, at least for now, that they will survive and even thrive in their forested One Tam sanctuary.
writers John Hart is an environmental journalist and poet who has authored sixteen books and several hundred other published works. Mary Ellen Hannibal is an award-winning environmental journalist and author of Citizen Scientist: Searching for Heroes and Hope in an Age of Extinction. Alisa Opar is the articles editor at Audubon magazine. Jules Evens, a naturalist and writer, is author of The Natural History of the Point Reyes Peninsula and An Introduction to California Birdlife. Claire Peaslee is a naturalist, writer, editor, graphic designer, and improvisational theater artist whose home is Point Reyes. Ariel Rubissow Okamoto is coauthor of Natural History of San Francisco Bay and editor of Estuary. A Mountain of Stories was produced by Bay Nature magazine with the generous support of the Tamalpais Lands Collaborative for publication in the October-December 2017 issue of the magazine. Additional copies of this publication can be obtained by contacting Bay Nature Institute or Tamalpais Lands Collaborative.
BayNature
Bay Nature magazine is a quarterly publication of the Bay Nature Institute, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit media organization dedicated to inspiring people to explore and protect the natural world of the San Francisco Bay Area. For more information, or to subscribe to the magazine, visit baynature.org or email baynature@ baynature.org. b ay n at u r e
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One Tam is a community-wide initiative of the Tamalpais Lands Collaborative (TLC) to ensure the long-term health of Mt. Tam. The TLC is a partnership of the Marin Municipal Water District, Marin County Parks, California State Parks, National Park Service, and Golden Gate National Parks Conservancy. For more information, visit onetam.org or email info@onetam.org.
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s soon as my phone rang, I knew something was wrong. It was a Friday afternoon and I was sitting in my office at the newspaper where I worked in Seattle. My mother was calling, and I knew she wouldn’t bother me while I was at work unless she had a serious reason. Sure enough, my father had had a stroke. I told my boss I needed to go home and would be back the following week. I had no idea that I wouldn’t return. When I arrived at Alta Bates Summit Medical Center in Berkeley the next day, a stone-faced neurologist told me that my father had a totally blocked carotid artery that was preventing vital blood flow to his brain, that another stroke was possible— perhaps imminent—and that nothing could be done. The next few days were a whirlwind of doctors, nurses, social workers, anxiety, and spontaneous sobbing. But because I’m not someone who easily accepts being told “nothing can be done,” I began to brainstorm ways that I could help my dad, which led me to thinking about trees. As a journalist and avid hiker, I had been reading about studies that show exposure to nature decreases stress levels, lowers blood pressure, and reduces anxiety and depression, among other things. I also knew this to be true for myself. So I tried to incorporate nature into my dad’s life. In his first few days in acute rehab, I tacked a poster of a redwood
E X P L O R I N G T H E E A S T B AY R E G I O N A L PA R K S This story is part of a series exploring the natural and cultural history and resources of the East Bay Regional Park District (EBRPD). The series is sponsored by the district, which manages 119,000 acres of public open space in Alameda and Contra Costa counties.
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forest on his wall and arranged potted plants around his room. (One famous study published in Science in 1984 showed that patients recovering from a surgical procedure did so faster when they had a view of leafy trees compared to a view of a wall.) But my father was in a daze, and no amount of plants, it seemed, could help speed up his recovery. When he was finally discharged from rehab weeks later, he could barely stand. The plants had mostly withered and died. Feeling helpless and without options, I quit my job and moved in with my parents in Berkeley to help take care of him. Helping nurse my dad back to health was not easy, though the task was nothing compared to recovering from a stroke, which is an aggravatingly slow, nonlinear process. That was about a year and a half ago, and my dad can now walk a limited amount with a quad cane, but he doesn’t have much use of his left
hiking with dad
A daughter helps her father explore the accessibility of East Bay parks by kathle e n ric har ds | i l lustrati on by mag gie ch iang
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My dad has never been the outdoorsy type, but he has always had a love of plants, trees, and winged and furry creatures. So after he got home, and once he was less exhausted and more stable physically, I decided it was time to really get him outside. Nature has always been my salve, and I hoped it could provide him with some benefits, too. If nothing else, it would be something fun to do together. But while I’ve hiked plenty around the Bay Area, I’ve never done so while pushing a 74-year-old, six-foot, 175-pound stroke patient in a wheelchair (for comparison, I’m a five-foot-six, 125-pound woman). I wondered, just how accessible are East Bay parks? I visited the East Bay Regional Park District’s accessibility page for guidance. It includes information on parks that have beach wheelchairs (Del Valle, Lake Temescal, Lake Anza), accessible playgrounds (Roberts Regional) and piers (Quarry Lakes), and pools with accesKathleen Richards and her dad, Steffen Richards, explore Redwood sible lifts and changing rooms Regional Park. (Castle Rock, Roberts Regional). And while its “Trail Accessibility Reports” also contain very detailed information such as grade, cross slope, tread width, and trail surface, I’ll confess that none of it was useful to me. All I wanted to know before leaving the house: Was the trail flat enough and of a material that would allow me to easily push him? Are there bathrooms that have grab bars? Each park’s webpage has its own “Accessibility” section, which sometimes contains more helpful information than the technical specifications in the Accessibility Reports. And sometimes not. So I emailed Carol Johnson, assistant general manager of public affairs at EBRPD, to see what tips she could offer. Johnson wrote back to tell me the district is “deeply committed to building and retrofitting our park amenities and trails to meet ADA standards….We spend over a half-million Sally Rae Kimmel; flickr.com/people/sallyraekimmel
Kathleen Richards
hand and mostly sticks to his wheelchair outside of the house. Intellectually, he’s as quick-witted as ever, but he’s also impulsive, easily distracted, and a bit forgetful. I can also tell he’s starved for nature: Whenever we go outside he tries to communicate with the towhees, the squirrels, the crows, the neighborhood cat, and the neighbor’s dog.
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[dollars] annually exclusively on ADA compliance and retrofitting,” she wrote, “everything from benches to picnic tables, fishing docks, paved trails,” and more. As for advice on which trails are best for wheelchair hiking, she referred me to Bob Coomber, aka “4 Wheel Bob,” a Livermore city councilman, member of the parks advisory committee for the EBRPD, and an active wheelchair hiker. He’s also a strong advocate for making parks more accessible. “I’ve pushed myself everywhere,” Coomber told me. He’s not kidding. His profile photo on Facebook shows the 62-year-old navigating a rocky trail. He was the first man in a wheelchair to summit 14,246-foot White Mountain Peak, the third highest mountain in California. A documentary about his hiking efforts called “4 Wheel Bob” was even released this year. Coomber is obviously in much better physical shape than my dad—and, let’s be honest, than me, too. Although he’s been in a wheelchair for about 30 years, as a result of osteoporosis due to juvenile diabetes, he’s spent considerable time getting into tiptop physical shape to be able to navigate such challenging terrain. He gave me a list of parks that would be appropriate considering our limitations, told me to stick to trails with no more than a 5 percent grade, and recommended that I start lifting weights and, specifically, work my lower back, shoulders, legs, and trapezius muscles. So in the weeks leading up to our excursions, I did pushups, lifted tiny dumbbells, and did as many squats as I could. Here’s what happened:
Big Break Regional Shoreline, Oakley
Big Break Regional Shoreline sits along a small estuary at the edge of the San Joaquin River, home to at least 70 species of birds. It’s also the location of the park district’s newest visitor center, opened in 2012, and a very flat, very accessible paved trail. It sounded like a great place to start. Getting there, however, was another matter.
Redwood Regional Park, Oakland
Redwood Regional Park is thankfully much closer to home than Oakley, and although I’ve hiked this park many times, I hadn’t realized that a good portion of the trail from the main entrance is wheelchair accessible. Knowing how crowded Redwood can get on the weekends, we went on a Tuesday morning. On this particular day in May, it was not only fairly empty but also downright cold. After finding an accessible parking spot in the lot, we took a paved trail into the park. My dad was immediately interested in the flora and fauna. He got excited when we saw some cute little black-capped chickadees on the trail and began chp chp chp chp chp chpping at them. He pointed out the blooming buckeye trees and made me take a picture of a bush with white flowers in order to identify it once we got home. We saw a rabbit, heard some turkeys in the distance, and admired the abundant patches of cow parsnip.
Sally Rae Kimmel; flickr.com/people/sallyraekimmel
It was a solid 45-minute drive east from Berkeley, even on a relatively traffic-free Saturday morning. When we arrived, I was already somewhat exhausted. Getting my dad down the stairs in our house is an effort in itself, and then there’s loading the wheelchair—and him—into the car. When we finally arrived, we were greeted with a large, flat parking lot with plenty of spots, and I even found a shaded accessible parking space by an accessible bathroom. All seemed like good omens. But as I got my father out of the car and into his wheelchair, I realized I had forgotten something crucial—his footrests. I thought we were going to have to turn around and go right back home, but I decided we should at least check out the visitor center—it was only about 100 yards away and then we would have explored something. Luckily, my dad was able to hold his feet up and off the ground until we got there, and two very helpful park employees assisted us inside. When I told them about our dilemma, they had the most amazing solution: a wheelchair with footrests that we could borrow! Yes!! After my dad was transferred to the new wheelchair, we checked out the exhibits that give an overview of the Delta ecosystem and accompanying wildlife, then headed back outside to a short gravel path that led to a wide paved road. As we passed a small pond and low scrubby fields of Mexican sage, my dad marveled at the dragonflies, variety of birds, and various plants. At the waterfront, there was a giant relief map on the ground of the Delta region, as well as play areas, an accessible water fountain and bathrooms, shaded picnic tables, and a short pier. This is when I learned that my dad—who grew up in the Bay Area and has spent practically his entire life in the Oakland/Berkeley area—had never been to the Delta before. “I’ve imagined this delta for a long time but I’ve never been here,” he said. I was stunned. I rolled him out to the pier and watched the swallows speed out from underneath, flitting above the water and darting after insects. My dad, who was somewhat of a birder as a kid, tried to figure out if they were cliff swallows. “See the yellow? That’s a distinctive mark,” he said. “I used to know all the swallows.” After about 30 minutes, Dad was ready to go back, although there was more we could have explored. On our return, we saw a turtle slip into the pond and a hawk soar in the distance. At one point, the rustling of the cottonwood trees in the breeze and the che-weet che-weet che-weeting of the swallows gave me that warm, calm feeling inside. My dad seemed to have the same response. “That was nice,” he said, as we left. When we got home, he wanted to see his bird book and we looked up swallows, trying to identify which ones we had seen. And then we both took naps.
Portions of the Stream Trail, like the picnic area shown here, are accessible from the Canyon Meadow Staging Area in Redwood Regional Park.
This is also where I learned that even the slightest grade can be exhausting when you’re essentially pushing dead weight (or a “sack of cement,” as my dad put it). The paved trail roughly follows Redwood Creek, passing by accessible bathrooms and water fountains, playgrounds and picnic areas before entering the second-growth redwood forest. It’s a lovely place to get under tree cover, and to a fully mobile person the trail probably feels very flat. But getting to Trail’s End—a campsite marking the end of the paved portion of the trail, which involved a small incline—took all my effort. By the time we got there, only about 0.9 miles from the parking lot, I was sweating and had to peel off my sweatshirt and jacket. Luckily, we found picnic tables and had a quiet view of the forest while I caught my breath. october–december 2017
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Bill Helsel, billhelsel.com
Sitting in the peaceful solitude of the forest seemed to trigger my dad’s memories. He recalled a day camp in Oakland’s Dimond Park he attended as a kid and a subsequent hiking trip with his day-camp counselor and a friend to an area near the Eel River. The last time he had been to Redwood Regional was for the birthday of his best friend, who has since passed away. I also noticed something else about my dad in the park: He said “hi” to everyone who passed by. It’s not that my dad isn’t friendly, but something about the shared experience of being outside seemed to elicit stronger feelings of camaraderie. (Studies have shown that exposure to nature can help foster empathy and strengthen social ties.) When we came across a sign that read “no running or playing,” my dad responded, “What’s the use of going to a park if you can’t run or play?”
Castle Rock Regional Recreation Area, Walnut Creek
In a canyon adjacent to Diablo Foothills Regional Park lies Castle Rock, an exceedingly beautiful place, surrounded by golden hills dotted with oak trees and pronounced rocky outcroppings that reminded me of monuments. It feels worlds away and is one of the rare Bay Area parks where you can’t hear car traffic. b ay n at u r e
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The dramatic sandstone outcroppings at Castle Rock date back 30 to 55 million years and are visible from the accessible trail along Pine Creek.
We went early on Memorial Day, when it was cool and a bit breezy. The parking lot is small, but there are two accessible parking spots right near the entrance of the trail. After I unloaded my dad, we took a wide, mostly flat, paved trail that follows Pine Creek. There are gentle inclines here and there but by then I had learned that a running head start makes them a lot easier to navigate. There were also plenty of picnic tables and accessible water fountains along the route, as well as a bathroom that was wheelchair accessible. Castle Rock not only has peaceful views but also abundant birdlife, including bluebirds, mockingbirds, red-winged blackbirds, woodpeckers, and quail. For my dad, it was an opportunity to see some species he doesn’t often see on the other side of the hills. But after not too long the paved road gave way to a dirt one, which made for a bumpier ride for my dad and a harder push for me. I’m a determined person, so we forged on through the dirt until it turned into a sandy consistency and it was clear the wheelchair wasn’t going any farther, which was fine, because not too many feet away were a cattle gate and a steep hill. As always, I was disappointed we couldn’t continue, but also somewhat relieved. We could go home. “One day I’ll have to hike up there with you,” my dad said. I (continued on page 54) hoped that would be true.
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first person
David Loeb Hits the Trail by Mary Ellen Hannibal
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sense of moment, its significance created by all that has led up to now in his tenure, and all that will continue to unfold thanks to his vision. Full Circle
And right here, or very close by, is where David Loeb, a New York City born and bred easterner, fatefully merged his Harvard-schooled history and literature major sensibility with our local flora, fauna, rocks, and water. On a youthful visit to Limantour Beach in the 1970s, Loeb had a revelation worthy of the hippieish milieu. “Obviously,” he told me, “this was the place I was going to live.” He moved west. “I started hiking a lot,” Loeb said. “And wondered, ‘Wow, how was this landscape formed?’ I felt there was something much more powerful going on here than its just being beautiful. But I didn’t have an intellectual construct to really inquire into that.” After studying film for two years, Loeb joined the People’s Bakery Collective, making bread for collectively-run natural food stores in various San Francisco neighborhoods. His social justice and community-building instincts met up with the publishing world in the late ’80s and early ’90s. “The U.S. was actively destroying a people trying to live just and whole lives,” he told me, referencing the Central American wars in which we aided the Sandinistas. “That hurt,” he said. The publications he worked on at the time literally gave voice to the people themselves, particularly those in Guatemala. “Our impetus was to let people tell their stories in their own words, to stop that hurt—to help forge a real connection with people past the politics.” Eventually, Loeb felt he wasn’t effecting enough change. Ways of Seeing
Returning to his nascent desire to understand the what, when, and how of
october–december 2017
Bay Nature Archive
On a clear day in mid-August David Loeb and I paused on the beach at Point Reyes. “I wonder if that’s serpentine,” I said, as we considered a greenish outcropping jutting up from the dunes. Loeb and I had been hiking at a good clip punctuated with frequent stops to appreciate quail, white-crowned sparrows, and Indian paintbrush. Loeb demurred on the crumbly formation. We were possibly looking at granitic rock, he said, which characterizes much of the Pacific Plate the peninsula sits on. By contrast, “serpentine is associated with the North American plate. Of course the two plates meet right here at Point Reyes,” he added. Teasing out a geologic mash-up, puzzling over layers of vegetation and small mammal and bird communities, and reflecting on our own human presence in a singularly ravishing place, Loeb and I could have been hammering out the lineup for an issue of Bay Nature magazine. The publication Loeb cofounded 17 years ago and has edited until recently uniquely conveys the pleasures of a recreational hike informed by history, science, and conversation among friends. “You get the whole Bay Area gestalt on this one loop,” Loeb remarked. “It all comes together right here.” The same could be said of his magazine. We had begun one of Loeb’s favorite walks at the Laguna Trailhead and ambled through coastal scrub to the ocean. Stepping gingerly, we managed not to discomfit a flock of elegant Heermann’s gulls, their orange-tipped beaks showing a bit of finesse among big western gull interlopers. Shorebirds stopping over or taking up residency at Point Reyes have created their own generational loop here for eons, and their theme of eternal return has created as much a sense of wonder as the sight of an uncommon species. With Loeb departing from the daily doings of the magazine, there is a similar
the Bay Area’s natural world, Loeb pondered a local magazine devoted to the subject. He envisioned a vehicle for exploration that would help people develop a deeper bond with their own environment. Partnering with publisher Malcolm Margolin, now legendary emeritus of Heyday Books, he founded the magazine in 2001. From the beginning, Loeb’s concept included a mechanism for helping to protect the very landscapes he extolled. He took the idea of the magazine to scores of local environmental organizations, partly to mitigate any anxiety they might have that it would usurp their memberships. “Their feedback was, ‘This is great. Tell the stories about the lands we’re trying to protect, and we’ll do the campaigns.’ That fit perfectly with what Malcolm and I wanted to do.” One of Loeb’s favorite stories, looking back over these 17 years, appeared in the October-December 2001 issue, the magazine’s third. “The Dream Given by You: Welcoming the Salmon Back to West Marin” by Jules Evens is indeed iconic of Bay Nature. Evens puts the biotic world within the deep framework of the geology and hydrology of the Lagunitas Creek Watershed, describing the historic
magazine’s first issue was published, offering Bay Nature information to the public at the Flyway Festival
writers have come back again and again to write about subjects they are passionate about. “If you want to grab eyeballs and imagination, you have to have an extremely good visual quality,” Larry Orman told me. A longtime Bay Nature Institute board member and supporter, Orman founded Greeninfo Network, which, among other visual communication services, makes environmentally focused maps. Maps are a regular feature of the magazine, and Loeb has been a champion of developing them as a part of the story-telling language of conservation. He helped make maps that bridge the worlds of science and lay readers.
P E R S O N
on Mare Island.
F I R S T
David Loeb in February 2001, a month after the
All Together Now
weather patterns that developed here “perhaps 8 million years ago,” and says “the earliest settlers were salmon—coho and steelhead—along with salamanders and the redwoods.” The piece layers in personal story with poetry, science, and indigenous lore, gathering the ties that bind us in a seamless whole that is a pleasure to read. “I had plenty of time to work on that story with Jules,” Loeb recalled. “With some updates it remains relevant today.” It is an amazement to read 17 years of Bay Nature magazine and reflect that the stories it tells so entertainingly have also instructed so well. The regular Bay Nature reader today understands that natural processes unfold across multiple, interconnected scales, and that we humans have a vital role to play in their continuance. Not only does the magazine function as a guide to physical locations and how to visit them, it has also guided how we think about them. While environmentalists have argued passionately for and against the relative merits of pure wilderness and human-impacted nature, the magazine has unobtrusively negotiated a truce between these concepts and provided way-finding for readers curious about both.
Story Maps
Loeb’s leadership of the magazine was interrupted by cancer in 2004; fortuitously Dan Rademacher had just come on board and ran it for about nine months. “David and I overlapped for half a day before he went into chemo at the time,” Rademacher told me. “It was a big deal for me to take on this thing he had started—the relationships, the presence of the magazine in the community, and the way people responded when I called up as the new guy showed how people were trusting the magazine and David. He came back and we really collaborated over the next nine years,” Rademacher told me. “David was always wanting to go a bit deeper and truer to the values of the scientists and the naturalists we covered,” Rademacher added, emphasizing Loeb’s devotion to quality. “He has a driving curiosity, which he lived out every day in the office and on the trail.” Remarking that when Bay Nature began it was something of a “charity case” for established writers accustomed to getting paid more than the nonprofit could offer. He said Loeb’s steady gaze and caution are the reasons “the magazine is still here all these years on.” Many top-drawer
And, of course, a magazine, and Bay Nature’s other programs, really hits its mark when it helps create a community. “I love it,” Ellie Cohen told me. The CEO and president of Point Blue Conservation Science, Cohen is herself a maverick in the Bay Area environmental arena, and she was one of the very first recipients of Bay Nature’s Local Hero awards. “I love to read about places I’ve never been to and places I have. Everything about it is top-notch.” Cohen pointed out that the magazine does more than enlighten and entertain—it coheres not only nature, but people across scales. “Unlike other estuaries, we have 103 municipalities around the Bay Area that are really not unified by anything other than Bay Nature magazine!” Cohen said. “Ecologically we are all interconnected and the boundaries are all human-made. David found a way to bring us together and to understand ourselves as one ecosystem.” Noting that the Bay Area is home to many institutions at the forefront of nature-based solutions and ecosystem science, she added, “The “magazine helps the community come together, to learn from one another. There’s nothing else like it that is Bay Area-wide that can connect the practitioners, the researchers, (continued on page 50)
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Loeb has called climate change “exhibit A” in making the case that a perilous number of people carry out their lives with little or no awareness of our connection to nature. “We do still depend on the natural world and its resources for survival,” he has said, “even if we are separated from that reality by many layers of plastic packaging.” Bay Nature covers climate science in a way that brings highly technical and sometimes abstract-seeming concepts down to earth. It helps readers examine complex technological solutions and how they fit, or don’t, with more traditional nature-loving values. For example, a recent piece by staffer Alison Hawkes pondered the potential use of gene manipulation to control invasive species. At the same time, Loeb has circled back again and again to stories about
Lech Naumovich
P E R S O N
Back to the Future
David Loeb holds still while a mystery amphibian rests on his hand.
traditional life ways, what we can learn from them not only about the past but about making better choices going forward. “I’ve wanted to help create an alternative narrative,” he told me. “To give voice to people, to species, to landscapes we are often moving past without seeing or hearing.” He has reminded us that Photo © Jill Zwicky
SAVE BAY THE
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the policy makers, and the general public. And David deserves a lot of credit for focusing on climate change when others avoided it.”
(LOEB continued from page 49)
indigenous people first named the places we now call the Bay Area, embedding those names with stories that pass on important cultural information to subsequent generations. As we are at pains to read and understand that information today, Bay Nature has been and will continue to be an invaluable guide. And so too the man who founded it. “I’m still going to be hiking and birding and doing all the things I love to do,” Loeb said. “I’m just letting the hard job of putting out a high-quality magazine go to the next generation.” Loeb had intended to extend our hike down to Sculptured Beach, but once past the gulls we realized the tide was too high to get there. So we trucked up the beach and continued back around on our loop, heading into a verdant tunnel. “Now we get to go back along a riparian corridor,” he said with glee. “An entirely different set of species!” Song sparrows darted in the foreground and Loeb pointed: “A warbler?” Well, perhaps we would find out. We followed on as a flash of yellow disappeared into the green.
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T H E
一漀琀栀椀渀最 愀搀搀攀搀⸀⸀⸀ 一漀琀栀椀渀最 洀椀猀猀椀渀最
T R A I L
䜀伀䰀䐀
Andrea Laue, sparebeauty.com
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the hollows and heights of an old tree; acorn woodpeckers use dead limbs for nesting and granaries, and just this spring a red-shouldered hawk family raised three chicks in a grand and messy stick nest high up in the sycamore branches that shade the park’s native plant garden. Black-tailed deer happily bed down in the golden grass beneath the sycamore canopy on a hot day; when I visited the park I watched a doe startled from just such a nap by passing walkers. Gray foxes, consummate climbers, may scramble up the smooth cool trunks to snooze in a comfortable crook, leaving behind a telltale scat. These trees carry worlds in their wildly curving arms, their dark roots and hollows, and voices in their wind-sung leaves. What the western sycamore carries of an older California should not be underestimated, nor forgotten. Walk among them quietly, listening, and you will begin to hear their singular song. (SYCAMORES continued from page 20)
글
嘀攀最愀渀 昀爀椀攀渀搀氀礀 ☀ 最氀甀琀攀渀 昀爀攀攀℀ 匀栀愀爀攀 愀 最氀愀猀猀 漀昀 愀眀愀爀搀ⴀ眀椀渀渀椀渀最 眀椀渀攀 昀爀漀洀 䄀洀攀爀椀挀愀ᤠ猀 昀椀爀猀琀 漀爀最愀渀椀挀 眀椀渀攀爀礀⸀ 伀爀 最椀瘀攀 愀 最椀昀琀 漀昀 伀爀最愀渀椀挀 圀椀渀攀 䌀氀甀戀 洀攀洀戀攀爀猀栀椀瀀℀
䄀氀眀愀礀猀 昀愀洀椀氀礀ⴀ漀眀渀攀搀 ☀ 漀瀀攀爀愀琀攀搀 匀椀渀挀攀 㤀㠀
Sylvia Linsteadt is a writer, artist, and certified animal tracker living in the North Bay. Her work—both fiction and nonfiction—explores the realms of deep ecology, history, and myth.
䘀 刀 䔀 夀 嘀 䤀 一 䔀 夀䄀 刀 䐀 匀 㠀 ⸀㜀㘀 ⸀㌀㜀㌀㤀 䘀爀攀礀圀椀渀攀⸀挀漀洀⼀渀攀愀爀ⴀ礀漀甀
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(HIKING WITH DAD continued from page 46)
Coyote Hills Regional Park, Fremont
Coyote Hills was another park that neither of us had visited before, and although it’s a bit of a trafficky drive on a weekend morning from Berkeley, we were game to explore. Grass-covered hills rise up near the bayshore, surrounded by marshes filled with ducks and birds. After paying a $5 parking fee, we found an accessible parking spot in a dirt lot near the visitor center, where I picked up a map and asked a ranger about the most accessible and scenic route. (I took note of a wheelchair-accessible chemical toilet in the parking lot, and the visitor’s center also has an accessible bathroom stall.) Following his advice, we made our way onto the paved, mostly flat Bayview Trail, where we were treated to a beautiful view of the marshes and the East Bay hills. Almost immediately, a large deer appeared in the distance, leaping through the tall grass toward us. Dad wanted to “go say hello,” but a bicyclist came zipping down from the opposite direction, causing the deer to bound across the road and up a steep hillside. We forged up a small incline as my dad
took note of our surroundings: gulls crying in the distance, a plane making its way toward the Oakland airport, rocks that looked like they would tumble down the hill. He was fascinated by the geography of the area and stopped a man passing by to ask about the marshes. He told us they were freshwater and that the recent winter rains had flooded the area. As lovely as the surroundings were, it quickly became apparent that our visit would be short. After struggling up one small hill, and seeing more in the distance, I decided to call it quits. I didn’t have the energy to continue, and although (continued on page 56)
Robert Clay
The Alameda Creek Trail, paved on its southern route, follows the northern edge of Coyote Hills Regional Park.
THIS IS HOME
©Teddy Miller 2017/Coyote Valley october–december 2017
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we could have explored other trails—including a boardwalk over the marshes—I decided that my efforts were somewhat futile. We could never make it very far in Coyote Hills as long as I was the one pushing him and he was in a manual wheelchair. What we really needed was a motorized scooter. (The park district allows power-driven mobility devices within certain guidelines.) That’s not to say that our outings weren’t worthwhile. My dad seemed to reap the benefits of the outdoor exposure that I’d been advocating, while, ironically, I spent most of our hikes worrying. He had been much more present than I was on these (HIKING WITH DAD continued from page 54)
excursions. I kept asking him whether he was too hot or too cold, whether he needed water or to use the bathroom—while he was pointing out all the different species of birds and flowers and trees. I thought he needed help enjoying nature, but he was doing just fine on his own. He only needed assistance getting there. He’s eager to explore more parks, so I’ll keep up with the weight lifting, and next time we’re out there, I’ll try to let nature take its course. Kathleen Richards is editor in chief of the East Bay Express.
Kathleen Richards
Accessible Resources: • Access Northern California (accessnca.org) includes a long list of Bay Area trail descriptions. • The blog “Adventures from a Wheelchair” (irishsea-markvideos.blogspot.com) also reviews trails around the Bay Area. • “Wheelchair Rider’s Guide to the California Coast” is supported by the California Coastal Conservancy (wheelingcalscoast.org) and up-to-date. • If you want to start learning about grades and how to interpret them, consider downloading an inclinometer—an instrument that can measure incline—app to a smartphone and bring it in the field with you to get a feel for what a 3 or 5 percent grade means. Steffen Richards enjoying Redwood Regional Park.
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Earth Team teens working on French broom at Oyster Point, East Bay Regional Park District. Photo by Pamela Beitz
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SUPPORT FOR BAY NATURE
The Bay Nature Institute is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization that promotes exploration and stewardship of the natural world of the San Francisco Bay Area. Through tax-deductible contributions of $25 or more, the Friends of Bay Nature support this independent voice for local nature and conservation. Listed below are individuals whose donations were received between May 27, 2017 and August 31, 2017. All Friends receive advance notice of Bay Nature’s “In the Field” outings. Donors of $500 or more become members of Friends of Bay Nature $5,000+ Paul Epstein & Jennifer Traub* Virginia Loeb* $2,500+ Nancy Kittle* $1,000-2,499 Anonymous (2) Ron & Rosemary Clendenen* David Frane & Charla Gabert* Matthew Leddy & Gail Raabe* $500–999 Anonymous* Anonymous in memory of Robert Mersfelder Loretta Brooks & Chuck Heimstadt Dorothy Kakimoto Douglas Temkin in memory of Rhea & David Temkin Scott Van Tyle Bart & Nancy Westcott* $250–499 A. Crawford Cooley Anne & Mason Flemming* Linda Gass & Rob Steiner* Gary & Nicola Gordon* Andrew & Teresa Burns Gunther Mike Hammes* Dolores Hansen Frank & Sally Lopez Andrea Mackenzie & Jenni Martin* Jeffrey Mayer Ralph Mihan* Audre & Roger Newman* David Porter Janet & Victor Schachter* Susan Schwartz* Chris Tarp Mariquita West $100–249 Anonymous (2)* Anonymous Lee Ballance & Mary Selkirk* Julie Barney*
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Jorgen Blomberg Barbara & Robert K. Brandriff David Bridgman Marcia Brockbank* Joanne Castro Roseanne Chambers* Susan Chwistek Marvin Collins Kate & Peter Daly John Davis Kristin & Ronald Dick* Claire Eschelbach Gordon & Jutta Frankie* Marilynn Gallaway* Ira & Janet Gelfman Joyce & Marty Griffin* Lucile Griffiths Tom Hagler* Joe & Julie Heath* Claudia & Scott Hein* Elizabeth Hook* James Huang Karla Jones* Mike Kahn* Jonathan Karpf & Kathy Zaretsky* Eduardo Kneler Margaret Kolar* Kathy & William Korbholz* Dave Kwinter Joseph Laclair* Craig Lanway* David Larson* Linda Lee Dianne & Steve Leonoudakis* Shelly Lewis* Rich McDrew* Peter Metropulos & Katherine Simmonds Jess & Ross Millikan Stuart Moock & Arleen Navarret Alida Morzenti Christine Mueller* Robert Muller* David Nelson* Robin Phipps Penny Pollock Deborah & Richard Probst* Christopher Reiger* Loria Rolander Martin Rosen Jewell Schiess Faith & Ralph Schmidt* Igor & Shirleymae
Skaredoff* Steve & Wendy Smit Deborah Smith* Maury & Susan Stern* Delia & John Taylor* Chris Thorman* Samuel Thoron John & Tik Thurston Laurie Umeh Jennifer & Marshall White* JoAnn & Matthew Zlatunich* $50–99 Anonymous Alfonso Arredondo* Mike Banister & Nora Privitera George & Joanne Barnes Robert Berman* John Beviacqua Terrance Bergmann & Annette Billingsley Jan Blum* Douglas Brentlinger John Derdivanis* Deborah Elliott & Glenn McCrea* Carol Ferrieri Harald & Sabine Frey* Jean & Sara Gabriel* Erica & William Gibson Paul Goldstein & Dena Mossar Karen Greig Sue Haffner Bruce & Coral Harper Charles Haseltine Carole Hickman* Susan Hiestand Thomas Johnson Kleyton Jones & Rosalind Kutler Jane & Thomas Kelly Michael Koenig Hildegard Kural Jill & Piero Martinucci Ingrid Mau Lawrence Maxwell* Gladys McFarland Dale & Janice Mead David Michmerhuizen John Motter Peter Moyle Edward Munyak
october–december 2017
the Publisher’s Circle and receive invitations to additional special events and private outings. Bay Nature Funders are foundations and institutions that have contributed $500 or more over the past 12 months for general support or organizational development. To learn more about how you can support Bay Nature, contact Associate Director Judith Katz at (510)528-8550 x105 / judith@ baynature.org. You can also donate directly online at baynature.org/ donate. Thank you for your continuing interest and support.
Ilene Oba* Russell Miller & Kirk Pessner Kurt & Nancy Rademacher Sophia Reinders Jeanne-Marie Rosenmeier Steven Ruley* James & Marion Russell* Cynthia & Joel Sabenorio Bruce Schine Jean Schulz James & Patricia Scofield Charlie Sharp* Howard Shellhammer* Eleanor Segal & Charles Six Joseph & Sally Small Patricia Smith Robin Toews Sharon Tsiu Alice Webb* David Wegenka John & Paula Whitney Victor Wyman Marian & Peter Zischke Lewis & Patricia Zuelow $25–49 Anonymous Harold Appleton John & Marlene Arnold* Paul Babwin Joanna Biggar & Douglas Hale Susan Blumstein H. A. Bok Giana Borgman Deborah Brothers Joanne Bruggemann Joanne Castro* Bill & Susan Groechel Barbara Hall Mary Ann Hannon Zelda Holland Les Junge Pamela MagnusonPeddle Robert Mauceli William Milestone Julie Moed Maureen Olander Monica Padilla Elinor Smith
Edward Sullivan Trudy Washburn Rona Weintraub Pauline Yeckley Funders craigslist Charitable Fund Dorothy and Jonathan Rintels Charitable Foundation Golden Gate National Parks Conservancy Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation Horace W. Goldsmith Foundation Jewish Communal Fund Marin Municipal Water District Morgan Family Foundation Publisher’s Circle Anonymous (5) Daniel Alegria & Mary Hufty Elizabeth & Paul Archambeault Randy Arnold Marice Ashe & Larry Orman Brian Ashe & Cynthia Rigatti Carol Baird & Alan Harper Valerie Barth & Peter Wiley Louis Berlot & Joyce Cutler Barbara L. Bessey Douglas Booth & Margaret Simpson Richard Boswell & Karen Musalo Connie Bowencamp Stewart Brand & Ryan Phelan Daniel & Kathleen Brenzel Loretta Brooks & Chuck Heimstadt Phyllis Browning Mary Burns Roseanne Chambers Hortensia Chang & John Nelson Jon Christensen Ron & Rosemary Clendenen George & Sheri
Clyde Meg Conkey & Les Rowntree Gary Cooper & Brenda Senturia Cynthia Daniel & Doug Lipton Christopher & Kathryn Dann Thomas Debley Jacqueline Desoer Carol Donohoe Ed Ehmke & Mary Jane Parrine Paul Epstein & Jennifer Traub Jerome & Nancy Falk Elizabeth Fishel & Bob Houghteling Anne & Mason Flemming Eric Folmer Catherine Fox David Frane & Charla Gabert Harald & Sabine Frey Ilona Frieden & Mark Jacobson Norman Fritz & Fran Mueller Lou Gold Carolyn Greene Tracy Grubbs & Richard Taylor Jommer Gryler Rita Haberlin Margaret Hand & John Hartog Bruce & Leslianne Hartsough Claudia & Scott Hein Reed Holderman Jorgen Hildebrandt Louis Jaffe & Kitty Whitman Harriet & Robert Jakovina Carolyn Johnson & Rick Theis R. Jones Karla Jones Dorothy Kakimoto Jerry & Lola Kent Jaynie Kind Nancy Kittle Gudrun Kleist Craig Lanway Yvette Lanza & David Sacarelos Matthew Leddy & Gail Raabe
Ron & Sandy Linder David Lingren & Ilana Schatz Virginia Loeb Mark & Paula Lowery Andrea Mackenzie & Jenni Martin John & Valerie Metcalfe Mia Monroe Jim Morgan Russell Nelson & Sandy Slichter Jane & Richard Peattie Dan Rademacher & Tamara Schwarz Frances & John Raeside Maryann Rainey Margaret & Oscar Rosenbloom Sue Rosenthal Mike Sabarese Sara Sanderson & Eric Weaver Guy & Jeanine Saperstein Greg Sarris Bob & Brenda Schildgen Sam Schuchat Susan Schwartz Madeleine Shearer Virginia Slaughter Christopher & Livia Stone Douglas Temkin Scott Van Tyle John Waterbury Don Weden Bart & Nancy Westcott Jeffrey Wilson David Wimpfheimer In-Kind Donation Trader Joe’s Berkeley Whole Foods Market Special Thanks Andrea Campbell Jacqueline Gauthier Trish Hare Clark Mosher Phil Osegueda Layla Smith David Wichner An asterisk denotes that all or a portion of the gift was made in honor of Bay Nature co-founder David Loeb on his retirement.
Wildlife Linkages in the South Bay
Coyote by Pathways for Wildlife
Coyote Valley is a critical wildlife linkage between the Santa Cruz Mountains and the Diablo Range. Learn more about the Coyote Valley Landscape Linkage at http://hubs.ly/H08qfCK0
The San Francisco Bay Trail offers free smart phone audio tours narrated by Doug McConnell— host of NBC Bay Area’s Open Road. Download 5 of 12 tours and win a special edition Bay Trail on Tour t-shirt! See baytrail.org for details...then get out there!
COMMUNITY ACTION for land and each other
Multi-day Travels Across Land and Water • October 7 – 9: Russian River Trek • November 4 – 6: Woolly Weekend
Sneak Peek at 2018 • March: Spring Break Trek (teens) • April: Sonoma Mountain Trek • May: Bohemia to the Sea • May: Sonoma Coast to Ranch (families) • June: Russian River Teen Trek • October: Russian River Trek
Doug McConnell
october–december 2017
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California Flora Nursery Natives for Gardens & Habitat (707) 528-8813
Trails of Northern San Mateo County–Coastside, Skyline & Foothills Our classic trail map of the Pacifica and Half Moon Bay coast is updated with recent coastal trails. We’ve also added six gorgeous redwood parks along Skyline Blvd., plus flowery foothill canyon parks from San Francisco to Woodside. Complete trails, dog, transit, and camping info. It’s perfect for exploring! Available at many Bay Area bookstores, bike shops, and REI. Also by mail.
PEASE PRESS CARTOGRAPHY
www.peasepress.com/smn • (415) 387-1437
Birdfeeding Supplies & Binoculars Off Hwy 101 in Novato (415) 893-0500 wbu.com/marin Specializing in California Native Plants and Habitat Restoration Services
The Watershed Nursery
601 A Canal Blvd., Pt. Richmond www.thewatershednursery.com
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october–december 2017
ask the naturalist
q: “Do birds like hummingbirds have taste buds?” —Sarah Rabkin, Soquel, CA a: Birds do have taste buds, which help them avoid toxic foods and choose preferred food items. But they don’t have nearly as many as mammals do. For example, parrots have about 400 taste buds, whereas humans have anywhere from 2,000 to 8,000. And avian taste buds are mainly not located on the tongue, but mostly in the back of the oral cavity or, in some birds, at the tip of the bill. This enables ducks and shorebirds to easily identify choice items or poisonous ones before actually putting them in the mouth. Vertebrates share a family of taste receptors called T1Rs. Without getting into too much detail, the interaction between two of these receptors enables some vertebrates to detect savory elements like amino acids and proteins, which are present in things they may eat such as other animals and grain. The interaction between other members of this receptor family enables other vertebrates, for instance primates like us, to taste sugar. Birds evolved from reptiles, in particular the theropod dinosaurs. These carnivorous ancestors didn’t search out energy-rich sugars, but instead concentrated on eating fleshy organisms. Their taste buds apparently were sensitive to chemicals present in animals, but not to sugar. Because most theropods and most birds had no reason to detect sweetness in order to survive, it is thought that they lost the genes that produce receptors to
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Bob Gunderson, flickr.com/photos/bobgunderson
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An Allen’s hummingbird uses its long tongue to sip nectar from blooms in Golden Gate Park’s San Francisco Botanical Garden.
detect sugars. Generally, modern birds can only detect the savory chemicals that are present in seeds and insects. Hummingbirds, however, are an outlier among birds. They consume plant nectar equaling up to three times their body weight daily by visiting literally hundreds of flowers. They can distinguish between various concentrations of sugars in solution, and they also like some, but not all, artificial sweeteners. The poor things are fooled like the rest of us. Maude Baldwin, a researcher with the Max Planck Institute for Ornithology in Germany, has done extensive research on the hummingbird’s abilities. She found that there were apparently a
number of mutations in genes that switched hummingbird taste receptors from detecting savory substances to recognizing sugary substances. How did this evolve? Perhaps as ancestral hummingbirds were looking for insects and probing flowers they accidentally poked into the sugar-rich nectar of flowers. This superfood may have given those hummingbirds a reproductive advantage over hummers that stuck to the old food, thereby selecting for the ability to taste sugar. So hummingbirds began to concentrate on flowers and some flowers in turn coevolved to attract hummingbirds. There are several other avian groups that concentrate on nectar: sunbirds and tanagers, for example. Ongoing research will explore the mechanism for how those birds detect sweetness.
INK.PAPER.PLATE STUDIO & SHOP ART GALLERY, WORKSHOP, & ART SUPPLIES 11401 State Route 1, Point Reyes Station, CA (the gas station) http://inkpaperplate.com – http://sirimasataman.com october–december 2017
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j o h n
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A licensed firm in San Francisco, we specialize in native plants and modern materials, creating locally appropriate landscapes rich in color, texture, aroma, and natural symbiosis (birds and butterflies love our work too).
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Our clients break free from cliché with vertical landscapes, stormwater capture and reuse programs, architectural fences and decks, low-voltage LED lighting, high-density urban edibles, native low-water sedges and meadowgrass as alternative lawns, and other good ideas from our drafting table.
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375 Alabama St. #440, San Francisco, CA 94110 (415) 462-0489 • madrono.org • info@madrono.org
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es y uidado en un mundo atrapados e, nuestra os a otros dor, usted manda que sted es un ed vive en u relación veedor de familiar, diferente. años y proveedor ar, pero sobre el ador de emas que endientes extraño. UHW, ha ya durante ención de gidos por a Loretta campaña ndado de dico y los dores. En un grupo sido los uecido sus plan para
de marcar un hasta aquí, de nuevo, rompiendo la burbuja del pasado, siempre avanzando acercándonos,
“CUHW está rompiendo todos los mitos al enfocarse en los miembros.” conforme continuamos construyendo el “Puente Hacia un Mejor Futuro” Estamos reventando la burbuja cuando nuestro Comité de Constitución sugiere un cambio que combine el espacio de nuestro Secretario Tesorero y que cree una nueva posición, Vicepresidente segundo. El
a nuestro personal político, y asegure de que se nos haya dañado o se haya los servicios de los individuos que abusado de nosotros mentalmente. viven y respiran la política durante este tiempo critico en la historia del cuidado •Merecemos el derecho de que del hogar a nivel Federal y Estatal. se nos pague bajo el esquema del CUHW, al salir de la burbuja, Seguro Social por una vida de trabajo emerge con nuevas ideas ahora que por un miembro de la familia. estamos en período electoral este agosto. Nuestras elecciones estatales •Merecemos vacaciones pagadas, incluirán dos semanas en las que merecemos el derecho de que se nos puede votar en línea o llamando trate con compasión y respeto por las a un número sin costo, usando su número de celular o un teléfono fijo. Una vez más nos salimos de nuestra burbuja, hemos lanzado un Programa de Voluntariado de Incentivos para ofrecer descuentos a nuestros miembros en los negocios al mostrar sus tarjetas del Sindicatolo cual representa un ganar-ganar para todos. Hemos establecido oficinas en más de 9 de nuestros condados. La mayoría de las oficinas tienen bancos de llamadas y capacidad de difusión de web y cuentan con grandes pantallas. Contamos con otra acción que es también otra burbuja que se rompe, y estas son las actualizaciones por email y mensajes dificultades que enfrentamos en nuestros de texto que alertan a los miembros de trabajos por una paga justa, beneficios los últimos acontecimientos de IHSS. To End quiero the Age médicos of Wastyeoportunidades de educación, Yo personalmente al igual que las otras fuerzas de trabajo. salirme de la burbuja en la que se considera la reforma de IHSS en ¡No solamente lo merecemos, California y sugiero que empecemos con
URBAN RE