Are you interested in what the local wildlife is doing lately, and which migrants are in town? Watch this page for periodic updates from Neary Lagoon. Our staff, interns, and volunteer docents regularly record bird sightings from field trips at the lagoon.
How do you normally cut your grass? Take care of those pesky weeds? Thin out your blackberry bramble?
Of all the options these days for cutting back large swaths of grasses: mowers, weed whackers, scythes, etc.–down at our local wetland Neary Lagoon a more ecological method is being used. Every year around May or June the City of Santa Cruz brings in a flock of 40 or more goats to ‘mow’ down all the tall grasses that persist between Blackburn and Chestnut St. entrances.
Well I am here to announce that the goats have landed and are fast at work mowing down all of the grasses. As of today they are all corralled right near the Blackburn St. Over the course of this next week the goats will graze their way to Chestnut St then hop over to the other side of the boardwalk and munch their way back. For 40+ goats, it won’t take too long to go through all the grasses–so go see landscaping at work. There are even some baby goats (kids) to see.
Setting up shop-let the feast begin
Even for the sophisticated palates...
Even the babes are helping eat the grass
Be sure to stop by and have a look. Goats help cut down the grass, reducing the fire hazard, recycling nutrients, and fertilize the soil. Not a bad deal! If you are curious about these services, or if you have some space you need ‘mowed’ check out Living Systems –a local group specializing in ecological and sustainable land management.
With the completion of our first full school year offering the Neary Lagoon 5th Grade Watershed Walk, I wanted to show some of the results the classes found over the course of the year. With both an in-class component and experiential field trip, this program focuses on topics like the water cycle and the health of our local watersheds, as well as includes hands-on water quality tests conducted at Neary Lagoon by students with the help of docents, teachers, and parents. We test for temperature, turbidity, pH, and dissolved oxygen.
We are looking to expand next Fall and add more classes to this program, as well as start an online database of all results found during field trips to make available to classrooms, parents, and the community. Yet another way of monitoring the health of our local wetland.
Here are three samples taken at least one month apart: from out most recent trip last week dating back to March.
Westlake Elementary 5th Grade–May 25, 2011
Turbidity: 12 cm.
Temperature: 16-17 degrees Celsius
pH: 7-8
D.O.: 12-13
Good Shepard School 5th Grade– April 7, 2011
Turbidity: 23-25 cm.
Temperature: 20-22 degrees Celsius
pH: 7
D.O.: 7-9
Bayview Elementary 5th Grade– March 3, 2011
Turbidity: 18.5 cm.
Temperature: 14 degrees Celsius
pH: between 6-7
D.O.: between 8-9
As you can see, there is high degree of variability found in the results–with some consistency around pH levels. By the start of next year we will have set up our database and will be able to record and chart everything we find, including additional observations and surveys taken at our local wetland. Stay tuned.
I felt compelled to share with you all a story of my trip in Boston a couple of weeks ago.
“When Hawks Attack” by Matt Miller
There I was, standing across the street from Boston University. My best friend Peter down the street for an interview, leaving me with time to kill and a new place to explore. I ventured over to the campus, surrounded by old stone and brick buildings, several tours walking in every direction, each led by some BU student with a headset and microphone, quite the contrast against these old stone arches and history in the walls.
I step through the arches looking out into a beautiful courtyard, just beyond there lie the Charles River Basin and MIT on the opposite shore. As I take in the scenery, the faint sound of city noise behind me and the trailing voices of tour leaders, I am amazed to see a huge raptor of some kind swoop down into the courtyard and pick up a squirrel! I watch as it soars up to the top of an old brick building, settling down to feast on its fresh meal. Fully submitting to my desire to get a closer look I feverishly approach the building and climb the fire escape, all the way to the fourth story to see the feeding raptor. My initial thought was a falcon, with the cityscape, college campus, and the brief glimpse I had.
No sooner did I put two feet on the top of the fire escape and turn to look, did the raptor react and take flight across the courtyard, landing on another old building. A bit flushed and bedazzled by this display I stand tall to watch the raptor from across the way, myself still glowing from this unexpected encounter. As I start to wind down and head back for the narrow stair case a woman breaks off the back of a tour and runs towards the building waving her arms and yelling some inaudible somethings at me. To my terror I soon find she is trying to warn me of something…the raptor’s mate dive-bombs me and lands on the side of my head clawing, screeching, and furiously flapping its wings. I hit the deck and try helplessly to defend myself. When the initial attack had ceased and the raptor retreated to the skies, I lay on my side, the world appearing to be on its side too, as adrenaline and alarm rush over me. No sooner did I collect myself did the raptor come swooping back towards me, this time straight for me and very clearly locked on me. I scurried into the corner of the building, hiding partially behind an external air conditioning unit and as it got closer it finally made a sharp move upwards into the sky.
Two more times I went through this, never again coming in contact, but both the raptor and myself kept a close eye on one another. Planning my escape I waited it out until the hawk (which I had by then identified) determined there was no more threat to his feeding mate and rejoined her on the opposite building. I move quickly, moving down five flights of stairs in mere seconds until I safely have two feet on the ground. I walk across the courtyard to see where the hawks were perched, still a bit dazed, and try to again glimpse these magnificent city dwelling hawks. I notice a woman talking to a man and pointing towards the building I just descended, her body language told me she had seen the hawks. I approach her and casually asked if she had seen the hawks and she said “why yes! and I saw some poor man get attacked by one of them!” and firmly respond that it was in fact me that had been attacked and told her I was A-OK.
It was that moment, however, when I finally reach up and feel my head where I had been clawed. Pulling my hand away I see my fingers covered in blood and realize the talons had gouged my scalp. I assure her I was fine and began to navigate my way back the way I came, through the stone arches and out to the busy plaza with tours, bikers, and city traffic. Had this really just happened?! I made my way back to the espresso shop where I had started and cleaned myself up a bit in the bathroom, just a scrape I thought. I sat down and peered out of the window across to the BU campus, watching as the hawks soared above. Sure enough, both hawks landed on much higher building adjacent to the now historic building I had ascended, on what appeared to be a large nest.
For my first time traveling to the East Coast, I would say it was pretty memorable.
Hello all, long time no blog. With illness, vacation, and a jam packed month of field trips and presentation finding the time to blog about all the happenings at Neary has been a challenge. Never fear for ducklings are near.
Yes–after a week of whispers from nearby neighbors and docents about ducklings I finally have made several sightings of ducklings at Neary Lagoon with the most thus far last Thursday and Friday. For a moment it seemed there would not be many, if any, ducklings at our local wetland. As soon as I began to worry I was bombarded all in one day with a female Wood Duck and 6 wood ducklings, 5 mallard ducklings with one female and 2 more ducklings with another female.
With the first few days of this week having overcast skies in the morning, there was little activity. When the sun was out and bright for Thursday morning as well as today’s field trip there was lots of activity. The highlight of yesterday’s trip was spotting a juvenile Black-Crowned Night Heron over by the weir towards the train tracks by Chestnut St. We also spotted the lone mallard duckling again, who appears to be the last surviving member of this year’s brood.
Sitting like a statue, watching for anything to come by.
Mom and Dad keeping a close eye on their last duckling.
Surely after tsunamis and seemingly endless rain our local little wetland would be a little shaken, but aside from a few fallen trees and some construction on the boardwalk things at Neary are near normal. This week during our field trips we encountered the likes of Tree Swallows flying about chasing bugs and visiting bird boxes–putting the finishing touches on nest and safeguarding them from predators.
On Tuesday we had a 3rd grade class from Soquel Elementary out and as I was giving my introduction a Nuttall’s Woodpecker started drilling away loudly on a branch nearby. Halfway through the tour at the T intersection by Blackburn Street we spotted a Downy Woodpecker working on a hole that its entire head disappeared into each time it drilled. On this same tour we spotted a Green Heron and a Great Blue Heron. The Cinnamon Teal were out again, by now we are confident they have at least made temporary residence at Neary and aren’t simply passing through.
A new discovery made this week by our docent Dana Bagshaw’s husband, Clive, has had many birders buzzing about what kind of bird this nest belongs to. We think now that it belongs to a Bushtit, or a couple of Bushtits–as they sometimes build nests jointly or share a nest for laying eggs.
Next week we’ll be having a 5th grade group down to Neary to do some water quality testing. So stay tuned and find out next week how all of this recent rain has impacted the water quality at our local wetland!
Last week March 15th on a field trip with Live Oak Elementary we spotted the first Black-Crown Night Heron AND an American Bittern in nearly the same spot. At the end of the boardwalk before you enter woodland forest at Neary you look out across the water to the nearest island and just to the left– where a thick bunch of tule stands just behind a protruding willow branch was where we spotted both birds.
We have also been regularly spotting a Red-Tailed Hawk, standing on the floating boardwalk by the bat box, perched high on a dead tree top to the left of the tall church cross. More reports next week from Neary–who knows how this recent storm has changed our local wetland!
Pair of Cinnamon Teal
This pair of brilliantly colored ducks are just a few of the Cinnamon Teals that have been spending time in the lagoon for about a month. We’re hoping that they will decide to stay in the area to build their nests!
Notes from Matt Miller, Education Assistant:It has been fairly active at our little local wetland recently. With wacky weather and tsunamis things are still fairly normal and stable around the lagoon. With spring right around the corner, the birds are pairing off and setting up camp for the mating season. Today I saw the last few male mallards vying for maybe the last single female mallard in the whole lagoon! The wood ducks have been paired off for a couple weeks now and today we saw a beautiful male sitting guard on top of one of the bird boxes. The tree swallows have returned from their winter grounds in Southern California, Mexico, and Central America and are fervently building nests in the tree boxes around the lagoon gearing up for some youngsters here in just a matter of weeks now. Look out though, last week we saw two racoons coming out of the woodland forests and hop in the water to swim over to one of the islands–on the hunt for nests no doubt, as eggs are a favorite food. A couple of very special sightings recently–there has consistently been 3-5 Cinnamon Teals at the lagoon, a couple of beautiful males with their cinnamon coats and one or two females–blending in with brown and tan plumage. ALSO, one field trip two weeks ago apparently spotted a ferret so be on the look out!
