After the deluge, the beach is a mess, the trails are muddy and the water table is still high but receding. Driving on roads without sheeting or standing water, though, is a revelation. Last weekend, I met Erica to see Maurice's CD release show and we could hang out on the sidewalk chatting without an umbrella. She's getting ready to release music, too, and asked me for thoughts on artwork. I had an idea, snapped some photos, and drove home energized. Community, live music played by experts, free-ranging conversations will do that.
When the sun really came out later in the week, that feeling continued. Moving about unfettered was like waking up OK after being sick. Covid, too, is still out there but (at least locally) receding enough that friends can drop by the house and not have to stand behind a screen. What a relief it is to have a friend over for a spontanious bowl of soup or offer a pal who is going through a rough patch a hug without fear.
Life and its highs and lows. Bright sunshine after the weeks of storm clouds is likewise mood-altering: anything seems possible. Espresso was finally splashed after her longer than expected time on blocks (hard to complete a paint job when hail is coming down and wind is blowing sideways). I dropped Kwame off at the boatyard so he could retrieve and return her to her slip. While he was motoring through the marina, I walked out to the edge of the estuary to look out at the water. The sky was sparkling blue, the water gentle and Kingfisher flew between masts. As I watched Kwame pilot Espresso back to her slip it seemed, at least locally, that the new year was finally getting on its rails.
In the meanting, I’ve been getting new material ready for February's show, taking walks by the shore in between, occasionally catching a glimpse of the Bald Eagles. Every time I see them, whether flying over the water or perched on a tree, I have a sense of completion, like putting a period on a sentence. They just should be here. Fortunately, there’s room and resource for them still.
A couple of years ago I reread The Ohlone Way, a now-classic book about the culture of Bay Area Native Americans prior to the arrival of Europeans. The book’s descriptions of the vast wetlands and abundant wildlife that populated our region, and how the Ohlone thrived amid it all only two-hundred years ago are staggering. More heartbreaking is to realize what's been lost.
“The Ohlones lived in a world where people were few and animals were many, where the bow and arrow were the height of technology, where a deer who was not approached in the proper manner could easily escape and a bear might easily attack--indeed, they lived in a world where the animal kingdom had not yet fallen under the domination of the human race and where (how difficult it is for us to fully grasp the implications of this!) people did not yet see themselves as the undisputed lords of all creation.”
― Malcolm Margolin, The Ohlone Way
A few days after I moved to Alameda more than a decade ago, I set out on an exploratory walk of nearby Crown Beach. As I continued South on Shoreline Drive, past the Bowling Alley and apartments buildings and onto the sliver of a trail between a row of houses and the Bay, my jaw actually dropped at the sight of hundreds of shorebirds — Marbled Godwits and Western Sandpipers, Avocets and Black-necked Stilts, Willets and Black-Bellied Plovers — who were dabbling in the mud flats between the beach and Bay Farm Island Bridge. I felt as if I discovered gold and I knew I could live here.
What I’d discovered was The Elsie Roemer Bird Sanctuary, which to the many migratory shorebirds who flock there each winter, and perhaps less obviously to many local residents who live nearby, is as good as gold. The flat and somewhat ordinary looking stretch of marshland is one of the few remaining salt marshes in the San Francisco Bay, providing vital habitat for many wildlife species, avian and otherwise, while providing a necessary buffer zone between land and sea.
According to eBird data, more than 200 bird species, from Anna’s Hummingbirds to Bald Eagles have been observed at the Sanctuary over the years. But long before the advent of eBird, Elsie Roemer was submitting records of her monthly bird counts at the site to the The California Department of Fish and Game (Roemer’s also credited with logging the first record of Least Terns, an Endangered Species, at Oakland Airport). While more than 80-percent of the San Francisco Bay’s marshland was filled and drained for various developments, Roemer and a band of like-minded birders protested, lobbied and sued to save the Martin Luther King Jr. Regional Shoreline as well as her namesake Alameda sanctuary. I imagine if she were alive today, she’d be thrilled to know there were now Bald Eagles flying over that sliver of marshland.
More recently, another precious stretch of Alameda wetlands is being threatened. The Alameda Post reported on how a ‘Navy Plan to Destroy Wetlands Lacks Scientific Backing’. The Navy was also recently recruiting Restoration Advisory Board members and running an online community survey regarding Alameda Point Cleanup. If you’re concerned about wetlands and their inhabitants, this is another chance to get involved.