(August 31, 2016)  A handsome Red-shouldered hawk checks out Conservancy staff the other day. Fairly nice specimen, huh? I post this one not just to show the beauty of this creature, but rather, to simply say that this year more than ever, we are seein …

(August 2, 2016)  This year, we are seeing larger numbers of Giant garter snakes (Thamnophis gigas) than we’ve seen before in the Conservancy’s 17-year history. As one of the two “primary” Covered Species in the Natomas Basin Habitat Conservation Plan …

(July 29, 2016)  Broken record on the matter of color, I know. These two photos just came in from our field crews. I realize I talk too much about color found on Conservancy preserves, but here are two more examples of the extraordinary colors we see i …

(June 13, 2016) Another sign that the Conservancy’s mitigation land is maturing biologically into a diverse and productive habitat. Just look at these photos. Yes, I know.  Not everyone likes snakes. And these are not Giant garter snakes. But when you …

(May 17, 2016)  People wonder why we get so frustrated with beaver on the Conservancy’s managed marsh complexes. This photo reveals the answer: they muck things up! This water control structure was, in a very short period (hours, not days), completed d …

(May 16, 2016)  Just remembering that when they were little, my kids would cry when treated at the doctor’s office. In this photo, we have a young Giant garter snake (GGS) being “doctored” by the Conservancy’s biological monitoring team. Wonder how it …