White Faced Ibis Make a Comeback

If you are up towards Knights Landing lately, or crossing over the Yolo Causeway on Highway 5 or Highway 80, you may have noticed black birds with long, curved beaks: white-faced ibis. Until about three years ago, I never noticed them around Knights Landing. This year they are very abundant, which piqued my curiosity about these birds.

Evidently, the white-faced ibis are making a comeback. Their populations were decimated in the 1960’s and 1970’s by both wetlands destruction and by chemical pesticides. You see, these guys are opportunistic feeders. They like the ground covered with water, and like our ducks do at home, they like to poke around in the water for earthworms, snails, insects, newts, leeches, and crayfish. They will also eat frogs and fish. And I suppose like the egrets that also hang out in the alfalfa fields near Knights Landing, they eat small rodents that run for their lives when the fields are flooded.

They also really like emergent vegetation—which is just a fancy science speak for short, newly grown plants. This makes sense, given that what they eat isn’t easy to find if the vegetation gets large. So again, the alfalfa fields, which are regularly cut and flooded are the perfect feeding places for white-faced ibis.

These ibis are also like the social networkers of the egret family. They love hanging out in large groups and are very social. They are pretty flighty and shy. Unlike the egrets we have around here, who will stand stock still sometimes if you approach them, the ibis are a little jittery. More often than not, they will take off as soon as you stop for a photo.

And I would love to get a good photo of them. They are vaguely exotic looking – with their beautiful curved bill and glossy black feathers. When they fly in large groups, they form irregular “V” shapes, but more often I see them in smaller groups, flying in a single line.

Personally, I think that a lot of the white faced ibis’s comeback in Yolo County is due to the Yolo Basin wetlands near Davis. The wetlands are relatively new to Yolo County and since it has been set aside, I have noticed much more diversity in our wetland birds. The wetlands give the Ibis a safe place to roost for the evening, and also provide nesting sites for the ibis. Since ibis will abandon their nests if disturbed and in some studies only successfully raised one young per pair per year, undisturbed nesting sites are crucial in the survival of this beautiful bird.

Growing Your Own Food

Today my breakfast consisted of a peach from my dwarf peach tree in the front yard and two eggs from the chickens in the back. This next spring, I am looking forward to adding fresh goat milk to the mini-farm production list. There is something really satisfying about growing your own foods.

For one thing, you don't have to worry about the economy. Every year our chickens lay and our peaches, pears, plums, and tomatoes produce. This year our duck set and hatched ten eggs. Although one of the ducklings died, we now have nine ducklings that are getting to that size where they can be slaughtered and frozen. That is a lot of duck meat for the year. In the fall, when our new chickens start to lay, we will have some old hens, that again, can be slaughtered and frozen for the winter.

Last week I was cleaning the goat pen and was frustrated by the fly maggots in the straw. Then I remembered, I had plenty of chickens who would really enjoy eating those maggots. Not only is the protein good for the hen, but it creates eggs rich in antioxidants. I began to think about actually experimenting to have maggots grow on purpose and then have the chickens harvest them. I guess you could say that today I ate maggots and dirt, the breakfast of champions.

We also subscribe to Full Belly Farm's CSA box each week. My goal for this year is to use every unused bit of yard around my house for producing food with the ultimate goal: cancelling my CSA box (sorry Full Belly-- I guess this is both a plug and not). I am much better at growing livestock than growing plants. So I have a lot to learn when it comes to vegetables.

This is Brute, so named because he was a single kid and very hard for his mother to push out because of his large size. He is one month younger than Bobby and yet a little taller and larger. He is going to be shown in the Yolo County 4-H Spring Show on May 2nd by my son, Dustin.

This is Bobby Burns, because he was born on Bobby Burn's birthday. His father won his class at the Yolo County Spring Show last year. The judge, an NPGA judge said he wanted to give him Champion, but couldn't justify it because he was only a month old. His mother had 3 kids this year and two last year. This is the one I would use for breeding, if I were able to keep a buck.

Sea Lions in Knights Landing? Si!

Last Thursday, as my neighbor and I were walking our dogs on the levee near Knights Landing, we saw a large head pushing up through the water of the Sacramento River. We both looked at each other in amazement and kept our eyes glued to the spot. We had seen a sea lion in the river!

Sure enough, the sea lion emerged three times, until we went down to the edge of the levee and took a closer look with our dogs. I guess the people and dogs, which were now close by scared it and we didn't see it again.

Later, talking to a neighbor who fishes, he confirmed that fishermen near town had been seeing sea lions in the river. "They followed the stripers up the river," he said in his knowing way.

Painted Lady Butterfly Migration

The Heart of Knights Landing

A recent article in the Sacramento Bee suggested that Grafton School was the heart of Knights Landing and its closing sounds the "death knell" for the town. With the closing of the school, the article said, the lifeblood of Knights Landing would no longer flow, and the "faded river town" would be defunct. I respectfully disagree. To me, the heart of Knights Landing is the river, the wildlife, the amazing riparian habitat, and the people who live here, most of whom are not retirees or farm workers.

This week on my walk on the levees I encountered lupin, vetch, and poppies. As I walked with my neighbor along the levee, I found a 19th century bottle. A great blue heron, startled, flew off over the Colusa Basin Drain. Harlequin bugs joyfully made fruitful, and multiplied, on the levee banks, clinging to a foxtail in the fading sun.

I find it fascinating that the main people who the reporter interviews are the school secretary, and teachers, who will probably be losing their jobs when the school closes. Oh, he also interviews parents who have their children in the school who will be sorely inconvenienced when their children are bussed to Woodland. What these folks failed to mention, and the reporter didn't seem to know because he didn't do his research, is that Grafton School has been performing in the bottom 10% of the entire state for some time.Many children in town don't attend Grafton because it provides limited special education services and only recently began teaching in English. They failed to mention that the shining computer lab replaced the multipurpose room used by the community. This room was supposed to be replaced by a school bond that the town voted on about ten years ago. After refurbishing the former cafeteria and multipurpose room, used for 4-H meetings and exercise classes as a computer room and library for the school, the new multipurpose room was never built.

When my daughter was first enrolled at Grafton about 15 years ago, the principal told me that she was so proud that 10% of the latest 6th grade class graduated from high school. Although the curriculum was taught in Spanish, she told me that I was the first parent of a non-Spanish speaker who wanted their child to learn Spanish. And when my son first attended in second grade about 6 years ago, it was the first time in my children's lives that the curriculum was presented in English. As I helped in the classroom I listened to his teacher tell the class ' "peeg" you spell it p-i-g." Both his second grade teacher and a school board member told me I was crazy to have my kid at Grafton if I had other options. This is the life blood of our town? No wonder he thought the patient was already dead.

My children were home-schooled. And of the ten children that live on my block, only one of them attends Grafton. Didn't the reporter wonder why of 2000 people, many with families, there were only 150 children in the school?

The Sacramento Bee writer said that Knights Landing was a town of farm workers and retirees. I guess if the only people you interview are farm workers and retirees, you can get a pretty skewed idea of reality. On our block we have two people who work for UC Davis, a Yolo County librarian, a museum textile conservator,a naturalist on the American River parkway, a dog groomer, a heating and air conditioning repairman, a state parks interpreter, someone who works for the Sheriff's department, a rice mill worker, a hairdresser, and a truck driver. Oh yeah, we also have four retired people on our block. Did I mention that ten children live on Fifth Street, nine of whom don't attend Grafton?

Our town is much more complicated and variable than a school. True, the school is the geographical heart of the town. But maybe it's time for a transplant. Maybe the heart of our town needs to be something that serves everyone in the community.

Maybe it would be better not to build 100+ homes in a town whose sewage and water system can't accommodate them. Maybe it would be better to work for public transportation more than twice a week in Knights Landing so people without cars could also go to the grocery store and the doctor, as well as picking their kids up from school in Woodland if they are sick. Maybe it would be better not to educate the children of farm workers in a school that isn't doing a very good job and so doesn't include children from the other economic and cultural groups in town who have other options. Maybe it would be a good idea to have a playground that is open to all the children of Knights Landing (not just to the children in the after-school childcare program), a soccer field again maintained by the community, a baseball field that is actually maintained, and buildings which once housed only a few children serving as a community center?

I would invite Hudson Sangree, who wrote the Bee article, to be my guest on a tour of Knights Landing and to see Knights Landing through the eyes of the rest of the town folk who have nothing to do with the school. Most of us actually use computers in our own houses, go to the public library in town since we don't use the school's, and fix lunch for ourselves. Come on Hudson, how about it?