7. Birds of Prey End of the Trail Oyster Bay Watch overhead for large, soaring birds. Red-tailed As you close the loop back to the beginning Regional Shoreline hawks, osprey, and northern harriers feed on other of your walk, consider nature’s cycles and your birds, fish, and animals found here. The hunting part in them. From your household and daily grounds of the park are also the nursery area where routines to the natural world, everything is tied SAN LEANDRO these raptors hatch and raise their young. Birds together in this cycle of life. Consider ways you can of prey help keep nature in balance by controlling live more lightly by reducing, reusing, recycling, and East Bay Regional Park District the number of rabbits, squirrels, and other rodents. composting your waste materials. Visit Oyster Bay 2950 Peralta Oaks Court, Oakland, CA 94605 Red-tailed hawk Use binoculars to help identify the species. and the other East Bay Regional Parks often, and 1-888-EBPARKS or 1-888-327-2757 ( TR S 711) Photo: Lenny Carl observe how nature is constantly renewing itself ebparks.org and changing with the seasons. 8. Community Recycling Plant materials from curbside green and food waste The programs in Alameda and Contra Costa counties Not to Scale Undergoing are transferred here. This is where your green SF Bay Trail/ Bill Lockyer Construction

waste bin materials are transformed into Bridge Davis St. Doolittle Dr. Doolittle an energy source or useful soil product! Recreational Oyster Bay improvement Slow and relentless, nature decomposes and Regional 880 plans for Shoreline restores nutrients to the earth. Standing here Oyster Bay on this small hill, you are looking onto the Davis Neptune Dr. Williams St. include areas Street Station for Material Recycling and Transfer, for disc golf, one of the nation’s largest and most innovative • To learn more about the Davis Street Marina Blvd. dog play, and transfer and recycling operations. Garbage bicycle skills. is moved to storage sites and recyclable materials environmental education program call are sorted and transferred to processing plants. 510-563-4282 or visit stopwaste.org. Oyster Bay Regional Shoreline Main Entrance: 1600 Neptune Drive, San Leandro, CA 94577 The large gas flare vent pipe below you draws • For information about picnic reservations

Photo: Jerry Ting Rising Wave Sculpture Photo: Hillary Van Austen landfill gas from wells found throughout the park. and volunteer service projects at Oyster Bay, Access is also available via the San Francisco Bay Trail/ The gas produced by decomposing garbage call 888-327-2757 or visit ebparks.org. Bill Lockyer foot bridge. is burned off in the tower.

Resources: Park Activities, Events, and Facilities: NOTE: Keep ebparks.org/activities dogs on a leash in all developed areas. Thank you California Department of Fish and Wildlife: for protecting wildlife, especially wildlife.ca.gov during nesting season when many animals Regional Parks Membership: nest on the ground (burrowing owls, northern receive free day-use parking, swimming, harriers, jackrabbits, etc.) dog pass, and more. 510-544-2220 regionalparksfoundation.org On the cover: Hermit thrush on toyon. Cover Photo: Paul Reeves

Taking in the SF Bay views 20180814 Photos: Michael Short Michael Photos: Photo: Michael Short Michael Photo: Discover 1. Salt Marsh 2. Monitoring Wells 3. Oyster Bay History 4. Native Plants the Nature Extensive marshlands once This small bay became a community landfill and Shellfish, including oysters, flourished in the Most of the plants in this area are “native,” Finding a place for our trash continues to be a existed from here to was filled with garbage over a period of 37 years. mudflats here years ago. They were fed by incoming originating in California, and are adapted to our challenge for residents and visitors in the Bay Area. of Your east of Doolittle Drive. Once the site reached its holding capacity in 1977, tides, preyed upon by bat rays and shorebirds, Mediterranean climate. Some of them conserve How can we reduce our garbage? Practice the Marshes were considered it was capped with clay to seal it and then covered water through different mechanisms. Small, hairy “4 R’s”—reduce our packaging, reuse or recycle Parkland wastelands in the past. with soil for plants. New soil is being added, for or waxy leaves prevent water loss during dry what we can, and rot (compost) our food and Over 80% of them were the next couple of years, to create a base for summers. Some plants lose their leaves altogether yard waste. Please consider what you are doing Welcome to filled and developed park development including irrigation for new and may appear dead in the summer, only to sprout to practice the “4 R’s” already, and what more or used for grazing, landscaping and drinking water. anew with the fall and winter rains. Can you find you might do to help our environment.

Oyster Bay Regional SLPDC #468Photo: farming, or for the city these different kinds of leaves on the plants at this Shoreline, a former Ground structures found throughout Oyster Bay dump. Now we know are monitoring wells. They monitor groundwater, stop? Also, look for evidence of insect activity. landfill, now being that salt marshes leachate and the natural gas created by the Many species of butterflies can be found in the park 6. Wildlife transformed into a like these are vital decomposing refuse. The collected contents are and have an interdependent relationship with plants. Look and listen quietly for a moment, then scout Regional Park. You ecosystems. They piped to a nearby wastewater treatment facility Butterfly larvae (caterpillars) depend on the plant provide feeding the trail and look for evidence of the animals that are about to walk into and Waste Management’s Davis Street Transfer leaves and stems as a food source. Adult butterflies live here. Tracks, “scat” (animal droppings), feathers grounds for migratory Station where the gas is burned... which you’ll feed on plant nectar. “recycling in action.” and fur, shed skin of snakes, and burrows or holes birds, and act see at the end of the trail. You’ll see clean soil being as natural filters In turn, plants depend on butterflies and other in the ground can tell you about the animals that insects for pollination. As you leave for the next live in the park. Scat, for example, gives you a clue brought in to build up the to cleanse runoff Oyster workers harvesting shellfish in San Leandro Bay before it enters under the protection of an armed guard, c. 1880-‘90s. station watch how the “Rising Wave” sculpture, to what the animal ate: plants, insects, or possibly topography of the park. the Bay. created by Roger Berry, changes as you approach fur from other animals. Its shape might also identify Enjoy plants growing out and gathered by the local Jalquin (“hal-kin”) and it. Notice the varied angles of each pipe. which animal left it: round like a grape is probably Below the trail, a jackrabbit; torpedo-shaped is likely a squirrel. of the new soil, and walk between the marsh Yrgin (“yer-gen”) tribes. In 1890, oyster farming in California was a one million dollar industry with Each animal’s scat is different. Gopher snakes and on land that’s healing and the path, notice most of the farming operations here in the East Bay garter snakes the unique habitat 5. Local Native Americans and returning to a more Waste and on the West Bay’s San Mateo Coast. By 1939, also make for grasses, shrubs natural state. Look for Management the 60-year old Bay oyster industry had collapsed. and Conservation their homes and marsh plants. Davis Street in the park. the marked signposts These plants help Transfer Its demise was caused by increasing populations From this vantage point you can see Station around the Bay, and industries along the former homelands of several tribes, Feeding on along the trail for each protect the sensitive small rodents wetlands and the shoreline dumping untreated, including the Jalquin and Yrgin, now the stop in this guide. polluting chemicals and raw sewage cities of San Leandro and Hayward. Native or frogs and provide a special reptiles, snakes in Since this is a multi- place for animals. into Bay waters. These elements, American villages occurred every three Oyster Bay combined with the practice of to five miles along the Bay shore and inland turn are sometimes use trail, please be The Park District has eaten by raptors designated this area Regional Shoreline filling in marshland and wetland waterways. Most of the natural materials considerate of other areas for grazing and development, they used in their day-to-day lives were such as red-tailed as natural uplands hawks. Snakes in this park users hiking, led to dramatically reduced water- decayed or burned, forming nutrient-rich habitat, so no dogs are park are protected and biking, walking dogs, allowed. Predators such oxygen levels. Oysters died or were mounds at their village sites. unsafe to eat. must be left here to and running. As in all as raccoons, foxes, and In 1960 a group of citizens was play their part in raptors use this area. Straight ahead is a portion of the Bay Trail, alarmed that the Bay marshes Regional Parklands, nature’s cycle. Other animals, including a planned recreational corridor that, and mudflats had been filled take only pictures the endangered Ridgway’s when complete, will encircle San an average of four-square miles per and leave only rail and salt marsh harvest Francisco and San Pablo Bays year since 1850. They established Save footprints. mouse, might also find with a continuous 500-mile the Bay and initiated the Bay Conservation shelter at high tide among network of bicycling and Development Commission to control the plants. and hiking trails. development and loss of shoreline habitats. Alameda County Planning Department Desancic Davor Photo: Photo: Jerry Ting