On the Fly – Sitting Quietly, Doing Nothing

In this “On the Fly,” I’ll talk about good places for birding in and around Martinez. First, a couple of online resources:  “Birding the Carquinez Strait Scenic Loop Trail” is an attractive pamphlet packed with details about birding spots, directions, and what birds you can hope to see in various locations around the Carquinez Strait. Also available online, thanks to the Mount Diablo Audubon Society, is Steve Glover’s excellent “Birding Contra Costa County.” And here are a few personal suggestions. If you’ve got a favorite spot you’d like to share, please let us know in the Comments section below.

Martinez Regional Shoreline Park and Martinez Waterfront Park, maintained by East Bay Regional Parks and the city of Martinez respectively: just head north on Ferry Street and you will get there.

There are other places nearby where you will see more birds, and possibly more unusual birds, but here’s what’s great about the waterfront: it’s easy to get to, it’s a nice place to walk, the views of the Carquinez Strait are always beautiful, and trees and benches are abundant. You can stroll along and see pelicans, herons, avocets, and the other large, flashy birds, but sitting quietly on a park bench is a great way to get to know the songbirds. Surprises abound. Sitting at the waterfront a few weeks ago and not really paying attention (having already been dazzled by the winter shorebirds), it took me several minutes to realize that the nondescript bird flitting around in the shade of a scrubby pine tree just a few feet away was actually a gorgeous western bluebird.

Snake Road. You won’t find Snake Road on a map, because its official name is Carquinez Scenic Drive. This is the road that used to go between Martinez, Port Costa, and Crockett but has been closed to through traffic since a landslide in 1982. It’s too bad that the route to Port Costa is so roundabout these days, but the tradeoff is that we get to watch nature reclaim the area. There’s still some car and truck traffic, and the landscape includes dumped cars and an abundance of non-native eucalyptus trees, but Snake Road and the Carquinez Strait Regional Shoreline offer an underlying quiet, great views of the water, and plenty of birds. In the winter you’re likely to see raftlike gatherings of common goldeneyes out on the water. You may also find unexpected native plant treasures—my favorite so far was the brilliant, shaggy, red-violet flowers of coyote mint.

You can drive up Carquinez Scenic Drive to get to the East Bay Regional Parks staging area, or you can take a steep but short uphill walk past the cemeteries. Once there, you can take the Hulet Hornbeck Trail up into the trees, or you can sit near the entrance and wait for shy woodpeckers to appear.  For more information and a trail map, visit the Carquinez Strait Regional Shoreline section of the East Bay Regional Parks website. 

Mount Wanda: At almost any time of year, as soon as you start up the mountain you’ll hear birds twittering all around you, in great variety. Farther up and back into the hills a bit, hawks are a likely sight. Experienced birders who can recognize calls and use their binoculars well are helpful here, and ranger-led walks are an excellent way to get to know this little mountain named for one of John Muir’s daughters. Information on Mount Wanda and the John Muir Nature Trail is available on the John Muir National Historic Site website. (My computer was challenged by these documents but maybe yours will do better—or drop in at the park’s visitor center on Alhambra Ave.)

Briones Regional Park: Wow. Just be anywhere in Briones for a while and you’ll see something interesting—from golden eagles to lazuli buntings. Here’s a link to the East Bay Regional Parks map. The Briones Road entrance, off Alhambra Valley Road just past the “T” with Reliez Valley Road, is close to town. The Bear Creek staging area, about nine miles farther out, offers a good excuse for a ride through the valley.

Peyton Slough Marsh Complex: This consists of the McNabney Marsh (east of 680, formerly Shell Marsh), accessible from Waterfront Road at Waterbird Way; and Moorhen Marsh, all the way out Arthur Road, under 680, through a short one-lane tunnel, and onto the grounds of the Mountain View Sanitary District treatment plant. Sounds like falling down a rabbit hole, doesn't it? It is in fact a surreal experience. For driving directions, background information, and a bird checklist, visit the MVSD website. Still more information is available from East Bay Regional Parks, which oversees the 198 acres known as Waterbird Regional Preserve.

Both marshes are popular with the birds and are well worth a visit, especially this time of year, when all kinds of ducks are around. There were cinnamon teals at Moorhen Marsh the other day, something I’ve never seen at the waterfront. I also saw a tree full of fat, black-crowned night herons. There was something with a long neck and a fuzzy head that made a strange honking sound and was gone in a flash. Could it have been a roadrunner?! Possibly.

In 1988 there was a disastrous spill here: oil filled the hundred-acre marsh and then flowed into the Carquinez Strait, Suisun Bay, and San Pablo Bay. The damage was heartbreaking and the recovery efforts heroic. The marshes were restored (McNabney) and constructed (Moorhen) with money from Shell’s settlement with the government agencies involved. Thus a sense of miraculousness hovers over the area, particularly on the Sanitary District grounds, where the ponds, enveloped in lush vegetation, are surrounded by the freeway, the refinery, storage tanks, and the treatment plant. It is strangely beautiful and evidently a great place not only for birds (116 species) but for river otters and other wildlife.

And finally, there is your own backyard. Or front yard, or neighborhood vacant lot. My friend Ramona was eating lunch in a vacant lot in East County the other day and was blessed with the sight of a burrowing owl in pursuit of a ground squirrel. Even in the dead of winter there’s plenty to see: hawks, hummingbirds, and in my neighborhood, one bold and fearless black phoebe keeping an eye on things and reminding me to lighten up and resolve to spend more idle time outside next year. A poem in Alan Watts’s The Way of Zen says it perfectly: “Sitting quietly, doing nothing, spring comes, and the grass grows by itself.”