The Putah Creek Riparian Reserve, owned and managed by UC Davis, is a well-known birding spot. The publicly accessible Yolo portion is on the north bank of the creek, mainly between County Road 98 (called Pedrick Road in Solano County) and Brooks Road. The Reserve was established in 1983. We have a good picture of […]

Projects to map the distribution of breeding bird species in a given area have covered numerous California counties. Called breeding bird atlases, they describe abundance, timing of breeding, and aspects of life histories. Trained citizen scientists do the field work. Their observations are synthesized into species accounts and maps, which reveal a great deal about […]

From a modest office near downtown Woodland, the USDA Natural Resource Conservation Service (NRCS) and its local partner, the Yolo County Resource Conservation District, help farmers and ranchers with a range of business matters. More importantly for Yolo Audubon, they also help rural landowners create and improve habitat for birds. For example, in the ranching […]

A while ago I wrote about the marvelous success of the nest box installation program along Putah Creek masterminded by Yolo Audubon’s own Melanie Truan. Over the years, those nest boxes have produced nearly fourteen thousand fledgling Tree Swallows, Western Bluebirds, Ash-throated Flycatchers, House Wrens, and others. The effort has shown that demand for nest […]

The Yolo Habitat Conservancy is the County agency charged specifically with protection of native species and their habitats, as well as management of environmental permits for development in the County and its cities. Toward that end, the Conservancy spent several years developing a combined federal Habitat Conservation Plan and state-level Natural Community Conservation Plan (Yolo […]

The Burrowing Owl is the only bird of prey in the Sacramento Valley that nests underground, usually in abandoned ground squirrel burrows and most often on the edges of farm fields. Farmland on the border of cities is where most development occurs; Burrowing Owl nest sites are lost as building proceeds. It is lawful to […]

Over the past few years, the City of Woodland and a partnership of local nonprofit organizations, including Yolo Audubon, have been working to design a park and nature center along Road 102, just south of Woodland. Owned by the City, Woodland Regional Park occupies 160 acres at the site of a former model airplane park […]

An abandoned railroad trestle in the southern part of the Yolo Bypass Wildlife Area is getting a new look as part of a habitat restoration project led by the Yolo County Resource Conservation District. The earthen mounds originally designed to elevate a train track will now provide refuge from rising floodwaters for animals that otherwise […]

As noted here before, the conservation goals of Yolo Audubon are to protect and expand local bird habitat and ensure public access to that habitat, wherever possible. The situation at Fremont Weir Wildlife Area is unusual in that a formerly accessible public recreation area is now much harder to get to. Fremont Weir Wildlife Area […]

Projects that involve water or flood management are typically contentious almost anywhere in California. Nevertheless, a plan to widen the Yolo Bypass on its east side, in the lower Elkhorn Basin, is heading smoothly toward construction. It has support from the Yolo County Board of Supervisors and the affected landowners. The project was conceived about […]

Last winter I discussed the Cache Creek Parkway Plan and the Cache Creek Conservancy and Nature Preserve as parts of an effort to improve and expand habitat and public access along the reach of the creek between Roads 85 and 96B. I can now report on a second on-the-ground element of the nascent Parkway corridor, […]

The City of West Sacramento is in the middle of a major upgrade to flood protection along the Sacramento River. Rather than relying on the riverside levee that South River Road sits atop, it is building a much wider levee, and setting it back a hundred yards or so from the river. The intent is […]