The long dry summer doesn’t faze California native plants once they’re established, but during their first two or three summers, a bit of added hydration can ensure their survival. On Saturday August 17, Chavez Park Conservancy Volunteer Coordinator Bob Huttar called for a Stewardship Day to provide that boost of water where needed, and to trim back weeds where they’d invaded the young native plants’ territories. With 300 feet of garden hose hooked up to a faucet at the picnic area northeast of the Native Plant Area, volunteers can reach almost all the new native pollinator plants put in the ground in the past three years. Volunteers also worked to clean up dead vegetation and other debris that surfaced after removal of the sprawling Myoporum laetum tree in the course of recent landfill gas repair work. Showing up to work were Virginia Altoe, Jutta Burger, Helen Canin, Karen Dabrusin, Bob Huttar, Marty Nicolaus, and Lee Tempkin. A pizza lunch followed.

A crew from Cal Engineering & Geology ran what looked a bit like an oil drilling rig near the west end of Spinnaker Way on Monday morning August 19. They weren’t drilling for oil but for soil. We’re taking soil samples for the new bathroom, crew members explained. The point, apparently, is to check whether the soil is firm enough to support the concrete base of the new structure. The City has announced plans to construct one permanent restroom on the site of the existing porta-potties near the parking circle on Spinnaker Way sometime in 2025. It was good to see actual work being done toward that project, which so far has existed only in the form of generalities on paper.

It’s a rough neighborhood out on the breakwater west of the park. The mother gull shown here sat on and hatched three eggs. Then one of the little fluffballs vanished, and there were two. This week, when I checked in after an absence of a few days, only one is left. It still has the spotty head and neck of a new hatchling but it’s much bigger and it looks like it’s nearly ready to fly, as its wing feathers look fully grown. Both its parents are still with it. Meanwhile the surviving chicks from the other two gull nests on the breakwater, that hatched weeks earlier, have all fledged and flown off. Because of the great distance and wind noise, regrettably the birds’ vocalizing isn’t heard on the video.

Evolution shows a lot of imagination. It produces not only practical birds like gulls, with short sturdy legs and heavy beaks that can crush crab shells, but also fanciful creatures like the Black-necked Stilt, with beaks delicate as needles and legs of straw. With that fragile equipment, how does it manage to survive? Very well, apparently. Three of them foraged on the mudflats by the Schoolhouse Creek outfall on Friday 8/23, along with a Long-billed Curlew, two Marbled Godwits, and a Willet, see below. I haven’t seen one here since 2017, which may account for my mistakenly identifying it as an avocet in the original version of this post. Thanks to Peter R. and Cynthia S. for their comments correctly naming the bird.

I’ve seen the Long-billed Curlew — possibly this same individual — several times before in this spot recently, but I never saw it foraging in water. It always forages on sand or mud. Yet here it was, belly deep in water, and scoring, too. How in heck does it spot its prey? It’s difficult enough to spot something edible buried inches deep in mud. This bird can spot its prey even when it’s buried in mud and also covered in water. It has amazing visual sharpness and powers of analysis that beat AI. Especially when you consider that it isn’t a full-time waterbird. Long-billed Curlews grow up in grasslands and get fat on a summer diet of grasshoppers and earthworms.

Marbled Godwits used to be abundant all along the shores of the North Basin, the body of water that separates the park from the Berkeley mainland. In recent years they’ve become scarce. I was pleasantly surprised to see two of them on the mudflats by the Schoolhouse Creek outfall. Genetically they’re a close relative of the Long-billed Curlew, and share also their breeding ecology in mid-continent grasslands. That’s been a problem historically because much grassland has been converted to cropland, but current populations are thought to be stable. Like the curlew, the godwit forages selectively, plunging its beak at spots where it believes edibles lurk. It isn’t always right, but it’s a different strategy than the small sandpipers that peck randomly at high speed, counting on the law of averages to come up with nutrition. Unlike most shore birds, godwits will also dig out and eat marine tubers. Once they reach adulthood they can live more than 25 years.

News reports speak of Brown Pelicans in trouble up and down the California coast. No signs of trouble have appeared here in the past couple of weeks. Large numbers of these big birds, sometimes well in excess of a hundred, gather early in the morning on the North Basin. There they seem to be feeding by dipping their beaks in the water. As the morning advances, around 8 am or so, they begin to take off and fly first west, then south, to destinations unknown. They seem to be thriving.

Wild Turkey breeding season is obviously over and the hatchlings are up and about. A flock of the kids escorted by three moms checked out the kite field on the west side of the park this week, pushing aside the pigeons that had settled there for their breakfast. The dads were off somewhere else, probably up to no good.

The park has been under intense scrutiny by the Air District this year. Now it’s the turn of the Water Board. The City has called a public meeting for a “State Water Board Survey” on Tuesday Sep 10 at 1 pm in the City building at 1847 Center Street, basement. This is in person only, no Zoom. Present will be Public Works and Engineering staff.

The City’s website indicates that the meeting will announce an upcoming drone survey of possible radioactivity in the park. The drone will carry a suspended Geiger counter and will crisscross the park at dawn for two hours for a total of five days. They’ll close the park while the drone is up. The exact schedule has not been announced.

Based on the available documentation, the claim of possible radioactivity in the park has very low credibility. The issue has been discussed several times on this website and in the commercial press. See “A Geiger Hike in the Park,” Jun 14 2024. A walking tour with a Geiger counter covering every trail and gathering spot in the park turned up no levels of radioactivity above normal background. Yet the Water Board has mandated that the drone survey must proceed, and so it will. At City expense.

The National Audubon Society in New York faced a staff walkout Aug 17 over mistreatment of its workers and over its name. The National Labor Relations Board ruled Aug 14 that the Society discriminated unlawfully against its unionized staff members. It shorted the union members on health insurance, salaries, holidays, sick leave, parental leave, and other issues in an effort to bust the union. Unionized members also highlighted John James Audubon’s history as a slave owner and urged the national society to change its name, as many of the local chapters have done. Details on the conflict here. For more background on Audubon and his track record with birds, check out this book.

Robert Cheasty, head of Citizens for East Shore Parks (CESP), announced on Aug. 21 a breakthrough in the struggle to save Pt. Molate from commercial development. He wrote:

After 20 years of work, Point Molate is saved. Point Molate is on its way to becoming a park of the East Bay Regional Park District.

The most important steps are now in the books.

At this point the critical “Letter of Intent” for the creation of the park has been signed onto by the three critical parties: 1) the owners – the Guidiville/Upstream group; 2) the buyers – the East Bay Regional Park District; 3) the local approving authority with interest in the sale proceeds – the City of Richmond. Now the matter is ready to be submitted to the California Coastal Conservancy and that submission will protect and access the funding so the sale can go through.

Among the people who did the heavy lifting to save the park, Cheasty credits attorney Norman La Force, a founding director and former board chair, now retired, of the Chavez Park Conservancy.

For more details, go to the CESP website.

Summer Schedule

This post comes on the Summer Schedule, where posts drop whenever there’s material and motivation, which may be more or less often than the usual regular Friday at 5 pm publication schedule.

Similar Posts:

• Park Week 10/6/23
• Park Weekend 11/06/23
• Park Week 5/17/2024
• Park Week 3/24/23
• Park Week 3/15/2024
• Chavez Park Conservancy Annual Report 2023
• Park Week 2/16/2024
• North Basin: The Video
• Conservancy:  Annual Report 2022
• Park Week 12/22/23