Yolo County Libraries Encourage
Young People to Go Birding!
Nolan Burton, 14, and Brice Burton, 10, birding with their grandmother ©Ann Brice
We’re excited to share with you that our new Birding Kits have been delivered to the seven Yolo County public libraries as part of the Yolo Bird Alliance’s effort to reach young birders and their families. The kits will be available to check out at each library branch as soon as they’re catalogued by the librarians, and the Davis branch already has a waiting list of four people.
Each kit comes in a backpack and contains two pairs of binoculars (one youth sized and one for an adult companion), a bird field guide, and laminated sheets with photos of frequently seen local birds in both English and Spanish. The packs also contain lens wipes, a checklist of the birds of Yolo County, information on birding ethics, and other birding resource information. Many thanks to the team who worked hard to put the kits together, which includes YBA board members Sonjia Shelly, Autumn Turner, Kirk Ehmsen, and Kelli O’Neill. We are also very grateful to Marlene Hernandez for her assistance in translating resource materials into Spanish! Please let your family members and neighbors know that the birding kits are available to borrow from the library. If you do try them out, we welcome your feedback as this will be an ongoing project.
Restoration Work at
Pacific Flyway Pond
SLEWS students planting natives along the banks of the Pacific Flyway Pond ©SLEWS
The first year of the Wildlife Conservation Board’s grant to the City of Woodland entitled “City of Woodland Pacific Flyway Pond Shorebird, Waterfowl, and Tricolored Blackbird Habitat Enhancement” has been completed. The Pacific Flyway Pond was formerly called North Regional Pond and still is by many in the birding community. It’s part of a stormwater drainage system belonging to the Woodland-Davis Clean Water Agency. The city has largely finished the construction portion of the project, which includes reshaping and enhancing banks of the pond, as well as constructing two loafing islands for a variety of birds such as migratory waterfowl, shorebirds, gulls, ibis and pelicans. There is also one shallow water habitat island to be planted with cattails to encourage Tricolored Blackbird nesting as well as other wetland dependent species later this fall.
The Yolo County Resource Conservation District is in charge of the extensive vegetation portion of the grant, and with the help of SLEWS students, hundreds of native species have been planted along the banks of the pond and the new islands. Weeding and summer irrigation is a major and essential part of the ongoing project and will be continued in the second and third years of the grant.
Yolo Bird Alliance will host a work day at the pond in the winter, so stay tuned for pertinent information if you’d like to join us. YBA will also be assisting in the development of educational signage. Other good news is that the City of Woodland has agreed to put up “No Dog” signs around the pond, especially important during the nesting season.
–Genevieve Colborn and Ann Brice