The California Central Valley is among the best agricultural areas on the planet. In response to Wikipedia: “On lower than 1 % of the entire farmland in america, the Central Valley produces 8 % of the nation’s agricultural output by worth.”
Nonetheless, the agricultural productiveness of the area has resulted within the lack of roughly 95% of the historic wetlands within the valley. These wetlands supported hundreds of thousands of migratory birds – notably waterfowl and shorebirds – that transfer alongside the Pacific Flyway yearly.
A number of nationwide wildlife refuges lie inside the Central Valley however the total variety of protected acres is modest. In recent times, nonetheless, the Nature Conservancy and different non-profits developed a program known as BirdReturns, which pays farmers to flood their rice fields longer than they in any other case would. This leads to tens of 1000’s of acres of habitat to help birds. (NPR’s Planet Cash podcast has a great 10-minute abstract.)
The crucial points are location and timing, i.e., ensuring that habitat exists the place birds are and once they want it. Addressing these points required in depth analysis, together with evaluation of eBird checklists. This system prioritizes an important occasions and places:
BirdReturns scientists use a mix of satellite tv for pc imagery and on-the-ground observations from group scientists to find out when and the place birds will collect every season. We then pair the satellite tv for pc photographs and knowledge from NASA sensors with the hundreds of thousands of observations uploaded month-to-month to eBird, a Cornell Lab of Ornithology program. Along with our long-time collaborator Level Blue Conservation Science, we’ve got constructed a solution to analyze these knowledge to find out when and the place birds are prone to land. The Migratory Fowl Conservation Partnership additionally makes use of satellite tv for pc imagery to confirm that the habitat promised by our farmer contractors is being delivered.
The outcomes seem very profitable, notably for shorebirds:
[S]urveys on the BirdReturns fields confirmed greater than 220,000 birds representing 57 species, together with each migratory shorebird species within the Central Valley. Recorded shorebird densities averaged effectively over 100 birds per acre in March, 10 occasions the variety of shorebirds present in different areas exterior the challenge
On a latest vacation journey to California, I birded two nationwide wildlife refuges within the northern Central Valley, Colusa NWR and Sacramento NWR. Each help massive numbers of wintering waterfowl. These photographs are from Sacramento NWR.
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is ending a brand new headquarters and customer heart (photographs under) and the refuge has lengthy had a well-liked auto tour route (eBird hotspot). As soon as the landscaping grows in, the brand new constructing needs to be beautiful and it’s nice that FWS is investing in these refuges.
In December there are enormous numbers of Snow Geese, but additionally quite a few different species of geese and geese. The video under illustrates the large variety of Snow Geese.
My eBird guidelines is right here and a visit report for your entire day (I visited three refuges) is right here. The eBird observe displaying the agricultural space surrounding Sacramento NWR is under.
Good birding in 2025!