Eden Landing - it's for the birds

By Megan Kelso, Restoration Field Educator

As part of the South Bay Salt Ponds Restoration Project, Save The Bay is working to restore more than 600 acres of tidal wetlands at Eden Landing Ecological Reserve on the eastern shore of San Francisco Bay in Hayward. This effort, part of Save The Bay’s partnership with the California Department of Fish and Game (CDFG), will involve thousands of volunteers in hands-on restoration and stewardship projects to improve habitat.

To give you a bit of history, Save The Bay worked for decades to secure public ownership of the salt production ponds in South San Francisco Bay, which was accomplished in 2003. Since 2006, Save The Bay has been restoring and enhancing habitat at Eden Landing, helping to advance the largest wetland restoration project in the history of the Bay. The goal of the project is to replenish the Bay ecosystem, provide recreation opportunities for residents who historically have been walled off from the Bay shoreline and increase valuable habitat for endangered waterfowl, shorebirds and fish.

We are currently working along a levee that borders a former salt pond that has recently been opened back up to tidal action. Planting native seedlings here creates habitat for the thousands of birds that use this haven for feeding and nesting during the winter. On any given day one can see great egrets, godwits, sanderlings, willets, black-necked stilts and long-billed curlews.

Eden Landing is a birder's paradise, especially since millions of migratory birds on the Pacific Flyway stop to refuel in the wetlands of San Francisco Bay before continuing their long journey. Accessing this site before was tricky, but in the last few months Eden Landing has opened up public trails, so residents and Bay enthusiasts can now stroll along the shoreline and check out the wildlife.

And what's more, Save the Bay is expanding its project site to include a new section of the recently breached levee. Our first plantings went in at the end of last year, which means we are now actively working to restore and enhance 30 acres of habitat at this site. And this is good news because, well, more habitat is for the birds.

Click here to learn more about our Community-based Restoration program.

Fish out of water

By Chiara Swartout, Canoes In Sloughs Field Educator

It’s mid-afternoon at Bothin Marsh and we are approaching the turnaround point of our canoe adventure. It is at this moment that I realize I should have checked the tides more carefully, because I have no memory of this marsh ever coming even close to draining as I am seeing it now. We watch gull fights from the island newly exposed in the middle of the marsh as we head back, pushing our paddles off the mud rather than through the water to move back to the launch site.

It is a day where I particularly relish being in the lead boat with students, because the two girls in my canoe need no introduction or motivation to being fascinated by the natural environment, which includes serenading pelicans and a peregrine falcon fighting a crow overhead -- clearly, today is an epic bird day. We are met by two boats of kids who, undaunted by the sluggish task of paddling through mud, have taken it upon themselves to tie their boats together in the form of a raft to increase their power. “Row, row, row your boat!” they shout as they power back home.

I am thoroughly impressed by these kids as they are neither frustrated nor tired at the end of a thorough day of paddling. As we approach the beach, the shoreline jumps alive with what appear to be perch that have been driven onto shore by our boats! The two girls from my boat step out of our canoe and instantly jump over to the squirming fish, excitedly, but gently throwing them back into water, which is quickly filling up with an ever-increasing number of canoes of sixth-graders negotiating the narrowing channel.

I realize I am clearly not going to motivate anyone to carry a boat up to shore when they can be chucking perch back into water, running along the shoreline towards their yelling classmates, who are spotting perch from the water. So I watch and wait, taking in this beautiful demonstration of care in ensuring that these fish are thrown back to the water, shallow though it may be.

It was a teachable moment that required no explanation from the teacher. I know the students were just as struck as I was by the show of a vibrant ecosystem thriving in the wetlands in their backyard, and they demonstrated this understanding in their eagerness to discuss ways to protect it as we debriefed the day.

It is these days that motivate me to continue teaching day after day in the ecosystems about which we educate our youth. This setting creates unexpected and unrepeatable experiences for youth – who are often fish out of water themselves – to witness and enjoy, turning the San Francisco Bay from a mass of greenish brown waves and mud into an ecosystem to celebrate and protect.

Click here to learn more about our Canoes In Sloughs program.

Delta deals dozens of bird species

by Dave Seel, Education Specialist

Originally posted on November 18, 2008

As we stepped on to the Delphinius, the tule fog was thick over the still delta water. Pushing away from the dock, Ron Patterson of Dolphin Charters welcomed our group of birders, who had come to see the wonders of the Sacramento / San Joaquin Delta.

The trip--one of several Save The Bay sponsored outings--focused on the annual bird migration to the delta’s maze of waterways, islands, and corn fields. The delta, once a network of sloughs and wetlands, has changed dramatically over time by the increasing demand for more agricultural and cattle grazing land. Now, sloughs have been straightened and dredged and the wetlands drained. But still every year thousands and thousands of birds, from the Sandhill Crane to many species of ducks, stop in the fields and tule marshes as they migrate from the cold north to warmer southern climates.

Sitting on the top deck of the boat, we scanned the horizon with our binoculars, waiting and listening to our knowledgeable captain who pointed out the sites and sounds of the surrounding waterways. “Northern Harrier—one o’clock! Look at him work that cattle field. He’s probably looking for his morning meal.” All binoculars turned and gazed at the beautiful raptor gliding effortlessly over the landscape.

A bit later, we happened upon a flock of Sandhill Cranes just about to alight in a corn field. A dozen or so swirled and circled surveying their landing spot and then beat their large grey wings as they came to rest, perhaps after many hours of flying. Lit perfectly by the morning sun, the Cranes’ red crowns glistened against their grey bodies. The engine silented for a moment and we listened to their squawking, trying to understand what they had to say about their journey.

The day was a long one and we began to tire of looking for Green Herons or American Bitterns, only to find giant flotillas of American Coots. But just as we thought we’d seen it all, we saw what looked like a darkening storm cloud. But as we focused our binoculars, we saw thousands of geese and tundra swans, swirling upward from a far off field. In that moment, I realized the immense biodiversity that we have here in the San Francisco Estuary. For thousands of years, these birds have been returning to this spot, relying on it for food, water, and rest. Without these wetlands, these birds wouldn’t be here and we wouldn’t be able to share in their profound beauty.

Why I love the Palo Alto Baylands: It's a Feeding Frenzy!

by Alicia Moore, School Programs Manager

Originally posted on November 11, 2008

Save The Bay works with site partners at roughly 11 sites around the Bay to offer Canoes In Sloughs and Community-based Restoration outings to school groups, community and corporate groups, and members of the public. Each site is special, and offers endless gems, but one of my favorite sites is the Palo Alto Baylands.

The Palo Alto Baylands is one of our most tidally-dependent sites, as it is one of the shallowest and muddiest. But it is precisely this mud that makes Palo Alto one of my favorite sites: it is a treasure trove teeming with life. Within a handful of Bay mud, you can find up to 40,000 living organisms. Now, of course most of these organisms are microscopic (or else you’d have to have a pretty big hand), but all this life within the mud makes for a lot of life outside of the mud.

On any given day, you can go to the Palo Alto Baylands at a lower tide, and see mud flats imprinted with the tracks of avocets, black-necked stilts, great blue heron, western gulls, California gulls, curlews, godwits – the list goes on. Much of the time you will see these tracks ending at the bird that made them. This place is a jackpot for birders who come to feast their eyes on the birds that come to feast their beaks on the macroinvertebrates that come to feast their mouths and valves on the microinvertebrates that come to feast upon the algae, bacteria and detritus within the mud. That’s one big feast!

You can witness this feast as you help us restore this habitat, or you can head on down to the Baylands with a picnic to join this feeding frenzy yourself. Either way, don’t forget to bring your binoculars!