You can join the San Francisco Bay Bird Observatory (SFBBO) to help set up the first national tagging study for threatened western snowy plovers! Volunteers will help do precision work in wet and muddy areas, carrying rebar and other equipment to set up electronic grids across two ponds at the Eden Landing Ecological Reserve in Hayward.
Note: The date of this event has been moved to Wednesday, March 14 to avoid overlap with another restoration-related event. Learn about Save The Bay’s work vegetating and thereby restoring wildlife habitat at the Restoration Project's newly constructed habitat transition zone slopes (also called “horizontal levees”). Jessie Olson, Habitat Restoration Director, will speak.
You can join Save The Bay at the California Department of Fish and Wildlife Eden Landing Ecological Reserve to help restore former industrial salt ponds into healthy salt marsh habitat!
This vision includes turning vulnerable fields of invasive mustard and thistle into resilient shoreline full of natives like California poppy, sticky monkeyflower and marsh gumplant. Save The Bay and the Restoration Project hope you will enjoy giving the baby native plants the support they need to transform the land!
You can join Save The Bay to help pull up invasive plants and maintain beautiful new native plants just planted over the winter! The organization planted a recently completed habitat slope as part of restoration and habitat enhancement at the Don Edwards National Wildlife Refuge Ravenswood Ponds near Menlo Park's Bedwell Bayfront Park.
Save the date for the Earth Month Kickoff at the Don Edwards San Francisco Bay National Wildlife Refuge's Environmental Education Center! We’ll have crafts, games, guided tours, and more in celebration of our wildlife and the environment they depend on.
Those interested in volunteering to help with activities, crafts, set up, clean up, and more can contact the San Francisco Bay Wildlife Society at [email protected].
Help improve the nesting success of threatened western snowy plovers at a Ravenswood habitat restoration event where you get to stomp around in the mud and throw around shells!
Volunteers can join San Francisco Bay Bird Observatory (SFBBO) staff at the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Don Edwards Refuge in Menlo Park to carry and spread oyster shells for the benefit of plovers. These birds nest in salt flats, where their eggs and chicks can get eaten by predators. The oyster shells help camouflage nests, eggs, and chicks.
At this free virtual talk, Dr. Nathan Van Schmidt, Science Director at the San Francisco Bay Bird Observatory, will discuss the challenges of bird conservation, after birds displaced by development and human presence on beaches and former Central Valley wetlands have come to depend on man-made ponds in the South Bay Salt Pond Restoration Project lands.
Find out more and register here.
We have canceled the April Lunch and Learn. Please join us for the May presentation by Save The Bay on its work vegetating and restoring upland transition zones (also called horizontal levees)!
Scientist Nathan Van Schmidt of the San Francisco Bay Bird Observatory (SFBBO) talks about his research on the challenges facing waterbirds of the Pacific Flyway within the Restoration Project.
Learn about water quality issues, such as low dissolved oxygen, that can arise in the complex environment of Lower South Bay sloughs and the Restoration Project’s gated and culverted pond habitats, as Ariella Chelsky of the San Francisco Estuary Institute discusses her research.
Learn the latest about one of the Restoration Project’s most charismatic megafauna, the threatened Western Snowy Plover, from Maddy Schwarz of the San Francisco Bay Bird Observatory (SFBBO). Snowy plovers nest and raise their chicks on stretches of dry ponds, where their eggs and young are vulnerable to predators from the ground and above.
It is planting season! All the work Save The Bay has done throughout the year collecting seed, growing and caring for precious native plants has been leading to this moment right as the seasonal rains approach. They hope you will join them in putting these plants in the ground at the California Dept. of Fish and Wildlife's Eden Landing Ecological Reserve, where they will restore former industrial salt ponds into healthier salt marsh habitat for all.
Dr. Levi S. Lewis, Director of the UC Davis Otolith Geochemistry and Fish Ecology Laboratory, discusses studies of South Bay fish and fish habitats, highlighting key findings regarding their status and trends, and how these results have informed the development of bay-wide fish monitoring under the Wetlands Regional Monitoring Program.
You can join us to help improve the nesting success of threatened western snowy plovers at the Ravenswood Ponds!
Partner San Francisco Bay Bird Observatory (SFBBO) will host a volunteer and scientist event to stomp nesting holes in the mud and scatter oyster shells for camouflage at the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s Don Edwards San Francisco Bay National Wildlife Refuge in Menlo Park. These activities increase ground and pond texture and habitat complexity, helping the birds camouflage their nests so they can better evade predators.
Help create habitat for threatened birds! You can join the San Francisco Bay Bird Observatory at the Ravenswood Ponds in Menlo Park to stomp in the mud and thereby improve nesting habitat for threatened western snowy plovers.
To help improve the nesting success of these threatened species, SFBBO and volunteers will increase ground and pond texture and habitat complexity to help camouflage nests from predators. The event is at the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service's Don Edwards San Francisco Bay National Wildlife Refuge near the Dumbarton Bridge.
You can discover wildlife from a 360 degree view at the shore-side new Flyway Trail in Menlo Park!
Join Park Rangers for a walk of less than 2 miles along the new trail, which travels along bird ponds and newly restoring tidal marsh, connecting Bayfront Highway and the Meta Bridge with Menlo Park's Bedwell Bayfront Park. The trail, newly built by the South Bay Salt Pond Restoration Project, is in the Ravenswood Unit of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service's Don Edwards San Francisco Bay National Wildlife Refuge.
Drew Kerr of the Invasive Spartina Project discussed how managing invasive plants as tidal marshes develop and mature provides a critical foundation for successfully establishing diverse Restoration Project marsh plant communities.
You can join a day of fun, wildlife viewing, and outdoor adventures at the opening celebration of the new Flyway Trail and Viewing Area at the Ravenswood Ponds!
The free event will feature guided bird-viewing, games, hands-on demonstrations, educational booths, and food.
The event will kick off with a brief presentation and dedication ceremony on the new viewing areas, interpretive signs, and Flyway Trail, followed by games and other activities.