Tomales Bay Wetlands Hike with David Wimpfheimer

Sunday December 14 Pamalah and I  hiked to the Tomales Bay Wetlands from the Coastal Access Trail just north of Pt Reyes.  The group outing was organized by noted naturalist David Wimpfheimer of Inverness.   Also accompanying us was David Hurlocker, who is a naturalist with the Marin County Open Space.  There were about 8 of us in the group all together.   

Having just

 paddled the

 wetlands the day before we were thrilled to be revisiting the area with these "heavy hitter" naturalists to get a more in-depth perspective on the restoration project, the wildlife, and the ecological issues involved.

The hike over to Tomales Bay from the Trail Access is only a little over a mile so we had little ground to cover and lot's of time.  On

 the way we checked out the local birds.  David is an incredible birder - he can id every bird and knows it's call as well.  I was pretty impressed when he "called out" the sparrows from a stand of chaparelle.  He stood in front of the bushes, mad some bird calls, and they all just popped up to see what was up.  

We proceeded down to a small irrigation pond that the ranchers had built by damming up 

a creek and saw an egret and a lone Bufflehead (we all speculated on why he was ostracized from the rest of his buddies)

When we hiked over the hill we got the same breathtaking, pretty much the same vantage we had the day before, and watched the flooding by the rapidly incoming tide.

In the not-yet flooded higher portions  we could see stands of egrets, lots of them maybe 20 in a group.  David explained that the flooding of the pasture land had displaced thousands of rodents, mice, voles and gophers, and that had brought in "apex predators" in large numbers - egrets, herons, hawks.

One issue that has come up with this scenario is that a  small bird called the Black Rail which lives in the brush is being taken by the same apex predators, and the Black Rail is a threatened species.  To address this the Park Service has constructed special berms called "Rail Ref

uges".  These are above the flood level, and the park has planted a ground cover for them to hide in.  These berms are highly visible by the bright green plantings.

We saw huge rafts of ducks in the flooded portions, mostly Pin-Tails and Widgeons.  Interestingly they were all south of the hunting demarcation of the State park game refuge.  Smart ducks!

Two Peregrine Falcons circled high overhead eyeing the duck.  We saw one do a swooping dive in an impressive aerial display.

On our way back to the trailhead we stopped to watch a Northeren Harrier feeding on top os a piling.  We were so close we could clearly observe his yellow eyes and markings, and the huge tail.  A very impressive bird!  We also saw a pair of river otters swimming behind him in the marsh.

All in all this was a successful hike.  We say a lot of wildlife and felt more connected to the land.  More to Come!