GGRO’s 25 Years Getting to Know Raptors

2009 marks the 25th anniversary of the Golden Gate Raptor Observatory (GGRO), the Marin-based organization that tracks the movements of birds of prey during their annual migrations over the Marin Headlands. Since 1984, more than 1,500 volunteers have logged 40,000 hours alongside GGRO staff and outside scientists to tabulate, band, radio-track, and otherwise monitor raptors along one of the most trafficked migratory routes in the western United States. Along the way, GGRO has tallied more than 580,000 individual raptor sightings, and contributed immeasurably to our understanding of these predatory birds and the ecosystems they shape.

The GGRO’s patient accretion of data has revealed a picture of the lives of migratory raptors that turns many blanket scientific assumptions on their heads. For one thing, says Allen Fish, GGRO’s director for nearly the entire quarter century, migration paths through the Bay Area are much messier than the standard south-in-winter, north-in-summer model. Driven more by changing prey densities than by major swings in temperature, raptors have been tracked heading east, staying in one area year-round, and even doubling back to perform a reverse migration. Additionally, local geography conspires to funnel the flow of migratory birds right over GGRO’s Hawk Hill facility, allowing them to count a significant proportion of all the migrating raptors in California. This finger on the pulse of raptor movements has provided excellent data on how population sizes change over time. And that, Fish says, is the such a long-term record is so uimportant. “It’s not that we discover something exciting every year, but over the course of five, 10, 20 years, we discover a lot.”

: Close up of northern harrier facial disc and soft brown eyes. Photo (c) Siobhan Ruck.

The GGRO’s techniques have become increasingly refined, as has the focus of its research. “In 1985, we had really simple questions: how many [raptors] are there, and where are they going?” Fish says. “Today our questions are better.” These newer avenues of research include how raptors read prey concentrations (for example, by seeing the UV rays reflected by rodent urine), how to combat the problem of rat poison (which can have devastating consequences for predators like raptors), and determining how flexible different species may be in the face of climate change.

To tackle these questions, GGRO volunteers have expanded their toolkit beyond simple binoculars and leg bands and have begun radio tagging birds to track them across country, staking out nests to observe breeding and parenting behavior, and taking blood samples for genetic surveys. The latest innovation is the satellite tag, which is just becoming light enough to track nearly anything over long distances and periods of time.

Of course, all those volunteers are drawn to the program for more than just the science. “I’ll give you the standard line, which is that raptors are a good barometer of environmental change, because they’re at the top of a food pyramid and need clean food sources and open spaces to survive,” says Fish, “but really, they’re just fascinating animals.”

Fish’s lifelong fascination with raptors began with his visit as a child to the Coyote Point Museum and a “lovely” great horned owl. It’s this charismatic presence, he says, that engages so many people with GGRO’s work. Once in the program, volunteers find themselves part of an extended family of citizen scientists, all driven by the same visceral fascination, and it’s a bond that can be deeply satisfying for everyone involved. “This work is great for nature,” says Fish, “but it’s doing an immense thing for humans.” Once hooked, volunteers tend to stay hooked: more than a quarter of the volunteer corps has been at it for at least a decade.

: A large Hawk Hill weekend crowd awaits the raptor flight Oct 3, 2009. Photo (c) R. Pavek.

As GGRO embarks on its next 25 years, volunteers and staff will keep doing science in much the same way they have for the last 25: by watching raptors, and keeping careful records of what they see. Though perhaps unglamorous, the process of counting birds as they wander back and forth with the seasons provides invaluable information in the fight to secure a future for raptors everywhere. Borrowing a phrase from a university course syllabus, Fish asks, “How can you save the environment if you don’t know what it is?”

The Golden Gate Raptor Observatory is celebrating its silver anniversary with an open house this Saturday and Sunday, October 24-25, 2009. Activities include banding and radiotelemetry demonstrations, presentations on the results of GGRO research, and crafts for kids. No registration required–visit http://www.parksconservancy.org/our-work/ggro/ for details.

New Submarine Explores California’s Sea Floor

On September 25, 2009, the Nature Conservancy unveiled the neweststar in its research lineup: a submersible remotely operated vehicle(ROV) named the Beagle. The new ROV was christened in honor of Darwin’sfamous research vessel today after a national online naming competition.

The refrigerator-sized robotic submarine is equipped withhigh-resolution cameras to image seafloors more than half a mile deep.It has a manipulator arm for taking samples and removing commercialdebris, and a suite of instruments from sonar to pH sensors to laserrangefinders. What’s more, the science package of ROV is completelycustomizable. “That’s what’s really exciting about working with acutting-edge instrument like this,” says Mary Gleason, lead marinescientist with the Nature Conservancy. “We can use it for any type ofmission we design.”

: Nature Conservancy scientist Mary Gleason with the new Beagle ROV. Photo courtesy the Nature Conservancy.

The new ROV, which has already gone through several months of testdives, began its research mission in earnest today in Morro Bay,controlled by scientists aboard the Monterey Bay National MarineSanctuary research vessel Fulmar. The research team, composed ofconservancy staff along with scientists from a host of regulatory andresearch groups, will use the ROV to study the impact of bottomtrawling on seafloor communities. Cooperating fishermen in Morro Baywill be tracked by the Beagle, and the impacts of different trawlingtechniques and recovery of trawled areas measured by the research team.”This is the first time a controlled study like this has been done inCalifornia,” says Gleason. “It’ll really help us to think about how tosolve marine conservation problems.”

The Beagle will also see service this year around southernCalifornia’s Channel Islands, where it will measure the effectivenessof Marine Protected Areas already established there.

Learn more about the Beagle and its mission at www.nature.org/rov

Watch a video of the new ROV in action.

Join in for Coastal Cleanup Day!

: Trash in a creek near Petaluma. Photo courtesy California Coastal Commission.

Thousands of volunteers from around California will converge on beaches, lakes and rivers for the 24th annual Coastal Cleanup Day on Saturday, September 20. They will join many more volunteers taking part in the larger International Coastal Cleanup, which spans more than 70 countries and involves hundreds of thousands of volunteers, making it the world’s largest volunteer event. All those people will be working to mitigate the impact of the billions of pounds of trash that get dumped into the world’s oceans every year.

The California portion of this international effort began in 1985 with 2,500 participants. Since then, the program has grown significantly, setting a record last year with more than 60,000 participants. Since 1985, volunteers have cleaned up nearly 12 million pounds of trash and recyclables. The cleanup has also moved far inland over the last 23 years, expanding its scope to include trash in rivers, lakes, and creeks that eventually would wind up in the ocean.

Bay Area residents have played a large part in this effort, and it’s easy for you to join in. Last year alone, nearly 17,000 Bay Area volunteers cleaned up more than a quarter-million pieces of debris. The California Coastal Commission projects an even higher turnout this year.

To sign up to volunteer or for more information, go to the Coastal Cleanup website or call (800)COAST-4U.

Coastal Cleanup Day also kicks off Coastweeks, a 21-day statewide series of talks, hikes, and restoration projects designed to connect Californians to the coastline and enlist their help in protecting it. Find out more here.

Perseid Meteor Shower

Late summer in the Bay Area often brings the first warm nights of the year, and with them a yen to be outside long after dark. Fortunately, the season also gives a perfect excuse to do just that: the Perseid meteor shower. Named for the constellation Perseus, from which the meteors appear to radiate, this display is among the most spectacular of the annual meteor showers. This year, the viewing is good August 8 to 14, and best on August 12.

This annual light show is fueled by debris from comet Swift-Tuttle, which orbits the sun every 130 years. The sun’s rays evaporate ice in the comet’s nucleus, which expels a steady stream of flotsam. Much of this material settles into the comet’s oblong orbit, creating a vast oval-shaped path of dust and ice. In mid-August, the earth plows through a segment of this oval.

Cast-off comet particles, most no bigger than grains of sand, hit our atmosphere traveling between 30 and 40 miles per second, producing a shockwave with enormous pressure and heat. It is this heat (up to 3,000 degrees Fahrenheit) that creates the bright, fiery streaks in the sky. When the particles are larger, about the size of a piece of gravel, they can “splatter” on impact with the atmosphere. The resulting fireball leaves a lingering trail, and its popping, spluttering passage across the sky can sometimes be heard from the ground.

The Perseids are best watched against a dark sky while you’re sitting in a comfortable chair. Meteor showers are most impressive after midnight, and ideally a few hours before dawn: Before midnight, we’re on the “trailing” side of the globe, and this year the moonset on August 12 isn’t till 1:30 a.m. After that, skies will be darker and we’ll be facing into the oncoming stream of particles and will generally see many more meteors. At the peak night of the shower, as the earth enters the densest part of the stream, you should be able to see 60 or more meteors per hour.

So, get away from city lights, look for Perseus rising in the northeast just before midnight, and settle in for the show!

Charting the Course for Bay Area National Parks

What direction should our parks take over the next two to three decades? That’s the question facing National Park Service personnel who are reaching the mid-way point in the general management planning process for Bay Area parks, including much of the GGNRA and Muir Woods National Monument. Until August 1, you can add your input to the hundreds of comments already received through response cards, emails, and open houses. See the end of this article for links and more information.

This process, which will have lasted four years by the time it’s completed in 2010, aims to create a blueprint for conservation, recreation, and historical preservation in the parks. Since 1980, the last time such a plan was drawn up, GGNRA has more than doubled in size by absorbing new territory from Marin to Half Moon Bay.

When it was created in 1972, the GGNRA was tasked with offering “national park experiences to a large and diverse urban population while preserving and interpreting the park’s outstanding natural, historic, scenic, and recreational values.” These two competing interests–making the parks available to as many people as possible while conserving what makes them special–can conspire to create headaches for park planners. Thirty-two endangered species call the planning area’s parks home, while its 47,000 acres and 28 miles of coastline attract an ever-larger throng of hikers, bikers, dog owners, and tourists. “It’s not an easy balance to set,” says Brian Aviles, senior planner with the National Park Service, “we need to think carefully about what the condition of the parks will be in years down the road.”

Rather than tackle this problem piecemeal in each park, the planning team has taken a regional approach. “We wanted to develop a philosophical approach to the parks above a site-by-site level,” explains Aviles. Looking at the system as a whole allows planners to balance use, conservation, and preservation by playing to each parcel’s strengths. When two guiding principles clash, Aviles says planners use a strategy he calls “choosing by advantage”: looking at which use of the park will give the most bang for the buck. Thus, heavily trafficked areas like Alcatraz and the Marin Headlands may continue to get heavy use, while more sensitive parks like the newly acquired Rancho Corral de Tierra might have more restricted access.

To create this holistic picture, the planning team has devised three preliminary concepts which delineate distinct visions for the future of the parks. The first concept, “Connecting People with the Parks,” emphasizes the public-use aspect, increasing outreach and transport options and rehabilitating existing structures for a variety of uses. A second concept, “Preserving and Enjoying Coastal Ecosystems,” focuses on conserving and restoring habitat for native wildlife, and encourages low-impact visitor use. The third concept, “Focusing on National Treasures,” seeks to immerse visitors in the history of the parks by offering an array of interpretive and educational opportunities.

So far, public comment hasn’t clearly favored any one of these three concepts. “I think what will come out of this process is a hybrid of the ideas here,” says Aviles. That, after all, is what the planners want: to whittle down these general concepts into one cohesive vision. Says Aviles: “We’re focused on making this a shared decision about what the future of this park should be.”

Getting Involved:

Want to help shape to future of Bay Area parks? Head to the planning website to read the details of the planning process and submit a comment form. For more free-form responses, email your comments to goga_gmp@nps.gov or leave a voice message at (415) 561-4965. To stay up to date on the emerging plans, sign up for the planning newsletter by clicking the yellow “Join Now” button at www.nps.gov/goga/parkmgmt/planninglanding.htm.

Coyote Valley: Another Drive-By Extinction?

As we report in The Checkerspot Comes Home, Coyote Ridge southeast of San Jose is one of the last refuges for the endangered bay checkerspot butterfly. A good deal of that habitat is protected, but the checkerspots here should keep their antennae tuned to unfolding events in the neighboring Coyote Valley.

Since 2002, the city of San Jose has been working on a long-term strategy for this 7,000 acre swath of undeveloped land. The Coyote Valley Specific Plan encountered an unexpected setback on August 1, 2007, when Dan Horwedel, San Jose’s director of planning, building, and code enforcement, determined that the draft Environmental Impact Report (EIR) for the planned development needed to be extensively revised.

The determination came in response to an unprecedented 1,300 pages of responses, many of them scathingly critical, from environmental groups and government agencies at all levels. Many, including the federal Fish and Wildlife Service and California Department of Fish and Game, criticized the draft EIR for underestimating or failing to take into account a number of potential impacts, ranging from water use to greenhouse gas emissions to the potential effects on threatened and endangered species, including the bay checkerspot.

As currently conceived, the plan would divide Coyote Valley into three sections. The northwestern section, closest to the present-day limits of San Jose, would be zoned for industrial campuses. The central area would be a dense, mixed-use urban zone. The remaining 3,600 acres, though they include some of the most developed areas today, would be designated as a semi-rural “greenbelt,” designed to encourage small-scale agriculture. This plan lost one of its most influential supporters in January with the departure of Mayor Ron Gonzales. Chuck Reed, the current mayor, has advocated a slower approach to development of the valley, resisting calls by some on the city council to amend a regulation forbidding construction of new residences before a minimum threshold of jobs exist in the area.

This regulatory trigger, designed to reduce long commutes by Coyote Valley residents, underlines another difficulty of creating a major new population center on the fringes of the urban core. Though the Specific Plan aims to create a community centered around mass transit and pedestrian corridors, it still foresees a quarter of a million automobile trips per day generated by 80,000 prospective residents. Given its proximity to Coyote Ridge, such a new mass of humanity threatens local bay checkerspots with the same “drive-by extinction” through nitrogen deposition that eradicated the Edgewood population. Though the revision of the draft EIR will not be completed until at least the middle of 2008, and development of the Specific Plan may be pushed back even more significantly, momentum seems overwhelmingly on the side of the eventual development of a significant portion of Coyote Valley.

There is a ray of hope for the bay checkerspots, however. The federal Fish and Wildlife Service recently proposed declaration of critical checkerspot habitat on nearly 20,000 acres of serpentine soils in San Mateo and Santa Clara counties, including Edgewood Park and the length of Coyote Ridge. Such a designation would require any federal agency funding or permitting activities in the area to consult with Fish and Wildlife and prevent damage to the habitat. While it would not have a binding effect on the ongoing revision to the Coyote Valley draft EIR, such designations are often taken into account in the planning process. Public comments for the critical habitat proposal will be accepted until October 20. Email to express your views.

For more information on the ongoing planning process, visit the website of the city of San Jose.

San Francisco Bay Oil Spill Resources

The November 7 oil spill in San Francisco Bay has us all looking for information on how to help. At this point, most of the immediate clean-up work is done, but there are still a number of reources available online, as well as important opportunities to get involved with training and restoration programs all over the region.

To report oiled wildlife, call (877)823-6926 (for oiled animals in San Francisco, dial 311). In the East Bay, you can also call (510)981-6720.

To report oil in or along the water, dial (985)781-0804.

Several governmental entities at the local and state levels have created websites with safety advisories and news about the ongoing cleanup.

Visit the Cosco Busan Unified Command page for updates on the cleanup.

The city of San Francisco has volunteer opportunities and news posted here.

The city of Berkeley is posting water quality advisories and boating information here.

The California Department of Fish and Game Office of Spill Prevention and Response has updates on the official response to the spill and tidal and weather conditions affecting its spread. Also available are maps of the oil slick spreading over time.

The Oiled Wildlife Care Network is an alliance of organizations and facilities that care for animals exposed to oil spills. As we saw, organizations involved in cleanup were overwhelmed by offers of assistance in the days after the spill. Hundreds of potential volunteers had to be turned away due to the impossibility of training so many in safe cleanup procedures in such a short time. It’s time to start thinking about the future. Visit OWCN’s volunteer page to learn about training sessions and organizations whose pre-trained volunteers can be quickly tapped when the next disaster occurs.

BayKeeper has a long history of tracking environmental insults to the Bay. Their website is a good place to look for information about the spill and cleanup efforts as well as volunteer opportunities, including recently scheduled HazMat trainings. BayKeeper also has information on how to clean your oiled boat.

Wildcare, a San Rafael wildlife rehabilitation center, is assisting with the triage of oiled animals. They are currently looking for volunteers to help transport animals and supplies to cleaning facilities. To register, and for updates on their efforts, visit their website.

Golden Gate Audubon Society is soliciting volunteers to help with its 2007 Christmas Bird Count. Participation in this yearly population census will help environmental organizations and government agencies to assess the scope of the spill’s impact. Check for updates online.

Join Save the Bay on one of their frequent Bay habitat restoration projects to build up ecosystem health against this and future spills.

The Richardson Bay Audubon Center and Sanctuary, in Tiburon, is looking for volunteers to help monitor the area. Going forward, they will be looking for help in their restoration work. Their site also provides maps and other information about the spill’s effects on Richardson Bay.

For updates on bird rescues, background on the spill, and comparison to other spills, visit the web page of the International Bird Rescue Research Center.

For public advisories on the spill collected from various government entities, visit Incident News

Earth911 has maps showing water quality warnings and beach closings by county.

The Cattle Baron and the Elk

The 19th-century cattle baron Henry Miller (not the noted California author of the same name), who once had an estate on Mount Madonna (the subject of our July-September 2007 On the Trail feature) is not generally remembered for his conservation efforts. In fact, he was at the forefront of the endeavor to drain and plow the San Joaquin Valley, where he owned vast stretches of land.

But in the process of that “reclamation” work, Miller did develop a nostalgia for the valley he was working to transform, and that nostalgia may have been the saving grace for dwindling populations of tule elk, the subspecies of elk that once ranged from north of Red Bluff down to the southern Central Valley.

Miller first saw tule elk in the early 1850s as he surveyed the San Joaquin basin for ranchland. Already the elk population was in rapid decline: Competition with horses, cattle, and farmers had pushed them out of the choicest grasslands, and market hunting for the hide and tallow trade further drove down their numbers.

The Gold Rush all but sealed their doom as an exponentially expanding human population sought meat from wherever it could be obtained. Tule elk are the smallest subspecies of elk, but at an average of 400 to 500 pounds each, they still made appealing targets for hungry Forty-Niners. An 1854 law limiting elk hunting in several counties did little to arrest their decline, and when elk hunting was banned outright in California in 1873, many people believed the tule elk had vanished altogether.

And so it was that in 1874, when Miller’s workers discovered a lone pair in a swath of marsh they were draining, he gave instructions that the animals be spared. His men continued to drain the marshes and discover more elk: In 1895 there were 28 known remaining elk, most on Miller’s land, down from an estimated half-million in pre-European California. Over the remaining two decades of his life, Miller continued to protect them, and the elk soon numbered in the hundreds. Such a sizable herd quickly began to wreak havoc on nearby farms, and it was this damage as much a spirit of preservation that drove Miller to ship the elk all over California. Of the herds that Miller established, two remain today, one at Cache Creek (east of Clear Lake) and another in Owens Valley (in Fresno and Tulare counties).

People often point to the tule elk, which today number about 4,000 in more than 20 herds, as a conservation success story, inasmuch as retaining less than one percent of a population can be counted a success. Competition for habitat is a major hurdle. Lake Tulare, so called for the same tall marshland sedge that gave tule elk their name, is long since drained. Much of the elks’ former range has continued to be co-opted for agriculture and housing, the very forces that so diminished their numbers in Miller’s day. When ten tule elk were introduced to Point Reyes National Seashore in 1978, they were kept bottled up behind a fence on Tomales Point to avoid drawing the ire of local dairy operations. A census of the Point Reyes herd taken in early 2007 counted 518 individuals.

Several years ago a small group from the Tomales Point herd was transplanted a few miles farther south within the park, and nearly 50 elk now graze the hills between Drake’s Estero and Limantour. Park service personnel are closely monitoring this smaller herd on the “human side” of the fence; their current range brings them within a few miles of private property.

Well over a century after Miller decided to protect the remnants of California’s once-vast elk herds, the struggle remains between cattlemen, human settlement, and a small number of thoroughly managed elk. At Point Reyes, as at every other elk preserve in the state, both sides of the fence turn out to be the “human side” of the fence.

Further reading on tule elk and Henry Miller:

Bay Nature feature: Where the Elk and the Antelope Played (Vol.4, No.1)

by David Rains Wallace

For more information on the history of the tule elk’s recovery:

www.parks.ca.gov/pages/584/files/TuleElk2004.pdf (220k PDF, requires Adobe Acrobat)

The National Park Service’s page on tule elk: www.nps.gov/pore/naturescience/tule_elk.htm

Tule elk in Point Reyes: www.tomalesbay.net/wildlife_elk.html

For a semi-academic survey of Henry Miller’s role in the transformation of California, check out Industrial Cowboys, by environmental historian David Igler.

The Gopher Underground

Years ago, in my mother’s garden, an ominous mound appeared: a volcano- or horseshoe-shaped pile of earth with an off-center hole, plugged with loose dirt. Her response, echoing the response of generations of frustrated gardeners, was to reach for a shovel and try to destroy the burrow, but a season’s worth of bulbs fell prey to gnashing incisors. The culprit was a Botta’s pocket gopher, also called a western or valley pocket gopher, one of a family of rodents named for the fur-lined cheek pouches they use to store food while foraging. Though gophers are considered pests by people trying to maintain gardens and lawns, they’re just another part of functioning ecosystems in the wild habitats where they evolved and still thrive.

The word gopher is derived from the French gaufre, meaning corrugated or honeycombed, an apt description of their burrows. Gopher burrows are typically arranged around a central corridor, or runway, with numerous side chambers and passages for food storage, waste disposal, and nesting. All told, these tunnels can attain a total length in the hundreds of feet—quite spacious for a solitary rodent. And a single gopher can move upwards of a ton of dirt to the surface each year. (Vengeful gardeners, take note: your attempts to cave in passageways or seal up entrances are unlikely to slow them down a whit.) Gophers themselves are well suited to the burrowing lifestyle: small ear flaps and a body not much wider than their head keep them streamlined. Bristly whiskers, a well-developed sense of smell, and a tactile, nearly hairless tail help them navigate in the dark. To penetrate hard-packed substrate, they use robust claws and chisel-like incisors that protrude forward even when their lips are sealed to keep dirt out of their mouths.

Their ability to create a home for themselves under the ground wherever they go accounts for the diversity of habitats in which they can be found. Botta’s pocket gophers live all over California and throughout southwestern North America, in environments ranging from alpine meadows to arid valleys. Their preference for roots, tubers, and other moist plant parts means that they can survive when water is scarce, and the several meters of earth between them and the surface insulates them from harsh temperatures. Pocket gophers will even dig burrows under several feet of snow. Spring snowmelt often reveals gopher eskers—spiderwebbing trails of soil on the surface that once lined snow tunnels.

: Irrigated lawns often raise bumper crops of gophers-which in turnattract hungry great blue herons like this one, taking a detour fromits usual wetland habitat. Photo by Rick Lewis.

Though they are territorial and intolerant toward others of their kind (except for a brief breeding period each spring), pocket gophers frequently share their tunnels with a wide array of other organisms. Gopher burrows in moist earth make ideal shelters for amphibians, especially when vernal pools or other surface waters dry up. One study in Southern California found nearly as many tiger salamanders as gophers in the burrows. Additionally, abandoned gopher holes are usually quickly appropriated by snakes, lizards, and other rodents.

Their propensity for moving so much earth (“bioturbation” to ecological vocabulary fans) also has important benefits for the soil and the gardeners who cultivate it. Runoff from rain or snow often collects in gopher burrows and sinks in to the earth, reducing flooding and erosion and providing natural irrigation. Scraps of vegetation and waste material mix organic nutrients into the soil, increasing fecundity. Loose soil from mounds or collapsed tunnels provides a porous medium for many beneficial organisms, including earthworms. My mother, dedicated as she is to her bulbs, may be forgiven her immoderate reaction. But gophers, like many of nature’s mixed blessings, are best dealt with through patience, understanding, and perhaps a bit of chicken wire.

More information on pocket gophers

www.sacsplash.org/critters/gopher.htm

www.enature.com/flashcard/show_flash_card.asp?recordNumber=MA0104

www.desertusa.com/mag01/jun/papr/gopher.html (pictures and videos of burrowing)

Bay Area Pond Walks

With the heat of summer not yet upon us, now is the best time to take stock of ponds all over the Bay Area. In every part of the Bay Area, there are great hikes that take you to a pond or small lake that is likely home, or potential home at least, to the species we cover in our April 2007 pond-life feature Islands in a Sea of Grass.

In the East Bay hills of Lafayette and Pleasant Hill, Briones Regional Park protects two oases: the Sindicich and Maricich lagoons, each made up of two separate ponds. Although all of the ponds are fed by runoff, the Sindicich also draw from a nearby spring, so they are well watered throughout the year. Among the Sindicich and Maricich’s inhabitants are California newts and California red-legged frogs, which breed successfully in this hill-top haven. In addition, the southern Sindicich pond supports a breeding population of Sacramento perch. For more information, visit the East Bay Regional Park District (EBRPD) Briones page.

Farther east, and a bit south, the Sunol Regional Wilderness has quite a few ponds. For a hike that passes up to four ponds, start at the visitor center and head up Hayfield Road to Cave Rocks Road and make a loop to Cerro Este and McCorkle Road, which returns to park headquarters. EBRPD Sunol page.

In San Francisco, head over to Mountain Lake in the Presidio, which we covered in our October 2006 article Unearthing Mountain Lake. To the south, take a stroll to Stern Grove, where Pine Lake, also known as Mud Lake or Laguna Puerca, hangs on as a bit of habitat in a highly altered landscape. The lake is natural and surprisingly shallow, a reflection of the high groundwater table. Over the last few years, the lake has experienced a drop in water level and has been repeatedly smothered by an invasive aquatic primrose (Ludwigia hexapetala) that carpets the lake surface, effectively choking out all other plants and wildlife.

In Point Reyes, head over to Five Brooks Pond. Five miles north of Bolinas Lagoon on Highway 1, take the signed gravel turnoff west of the highway for a quarter mile. During their winter spawning run, salmon can be seen from the bridge near the trailhead as they work their way up Olema Creek. The short trail to Five Brooks Ranch loops around the pond, which was originally excavated to transport timber from Inverness Ridge to the Sweet Lumber mill. Today it is a habitat for frogs and turtles, and a migratory stopover for green-backed herons, hooded mergansers, and grebes. For more, check out the National Park Service Point Reyes wildlife viewing site.

Also in Marin County check out Hidden Lake in Mount Burdell Open Space Preserve. Situated halfway up the oak-studded slope of Mount Burdell, the quarter-mile long pond frequently dries out completely during summer, making it one of the few examples of a true vernal pool in the Bay Area. This annual cycle in water levels makes the area perfect for a variety of specially-adapted native plants, including coyote thistle, quillwort, and Baker’s navarretia. Lovers of rare native flora should be sure not to miss it. Marin County Open Space District’s Mount Burdell site.

In the South Bay, visit Alpine Pond and Horseshoe Lake, a pair of ponds in the Skyline Ridge Open Space Preserve. Set amid coast live oaks and Monterey pines, both are fully wheelchair-accessible from parking lots on Skyline Boulevard, and are connected by a mile-long trail for those on foot. Visitors with children should be sure to visit the David C. Daniels Nature Center (open for the season starting March 31) on the shore of Alpine Pond. The center has exhibits with examples of local habitats and features some of the inhabitants of the pond and surrounding area. Take the half-mile loop trail around the pond and look for coots, crayfish, and western pond turtles. Midpeninsula Regional Open Space District’s Skyline Ridge page.