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uoia '! •. nee les 48ulletin of the SEQUOIA AUDUBON SOCIETY San Mateo CQ4ntv. C#• Apr-j_~ :1.989 VCJ~. 3'7. #'7 ======-======-=====-======-==-======-=-==-=-=~--=- -= ===-===--=--====--====------==---= THIS MONTH•s PROGRAM THE MARBLED MURRELET John Kelly, resident biologist at the THE LAST ORNITHOLOGICAL MYSTERY Cypress Grove Preserve of Audubon Canyon Ranch, will give us a program on the GARY STRACHAN Ranch. John will briefly discuss some of the history of Audubon Canyon Ranch. Years ago, in the summer of 1970, at Prairie Creek Redwoods He will select from the slide archive State Park, I was working as one of those idealist park collected by those at the ranch a number aides for a biologist-ranger named Dave Sears. During that of beautiful slides to illustrate some time I discovered that there were still mysteries. Dave of the activities of the wildlife at the called one the "last ornithological mystery in North ranch, concentrating on the behavior of America, the marbled murrelet." When he had time to be in the birds at the heronry. John will awe of the natural world, Dave pointed out this unique bird tell us about some of the research during foggy dawn sessions at Elk Prairie. Since then I programs on the ranch which have have been attempting to solve some of the mystery wile broadened our understanding of the working for State Parks. Until last summer not much was birds, the region, and its ecology. known about this anomalous little seabird. Finally, he will discuss Audubon Canyon Ranch's two newest acquisitions, the The name of the bird probably doesn't strike a bell in the Bouverie Preserve and the Cypress Grove heads of many, but this species is closely connected with Preserve. the California State Park System; in fact, if it wasn't for the Department and organizations like the Save-the-Redwoods We at Sequoia Audubon have been deeply League and the Sempivirens Fund, it is possible that this volved in the activities at Audubon bird would barely exist in California. As it turns out, nyon Ranch since its inception. • State Parks manages about 80% of the probable nesting Here's our chance to get an update on habitat of the species in this state. the activities at the ranch. John's program will remind us of the beauty of During the spring and summer of 1988 the Federal and State the area and how wonderful its herons, wildlife agencies decided to evaluate the species and I was egrets, and other wildlife are. This able to coordinate the southern portion of a statewide study program should inspire us all to visit for this small seabird. With the help of State Park the Ranch this spring and experience it rangers, County rangers and some volunteers we began an for ourselves. intensive evaluation of where these birds occur. We found that a major portion of the population utilizes the Meetings are held at the San Mateo Gar protected habitats of the California redwood parks. den Center on the Alameda at Parkside on the second Thursday of every month. The The California Department of Fish and Game, the US Fish and Social Mixer begins at 7:30 P.M. with Wildlife Service and the US Forest Service funded this the General Meeting and Program at 8:00. study. All along the coast of California we took to old The public is invited. growth coast redwood forests at dawn and dusk to gather the information necessary to estimate numbers and potential NEXT MONTH•s PROGRAM nesting sites. The information that was collected will assist in answering the long-standing puzzle of where they May will bring us a program on birding nest and how many there are in California.
~ATURAL HISTORY JEWELS OF MALAYSIA: April 1989 ~ouverie biologist John Petersen will Sun Men Tue Wed Thu Fri Sat lead a natural field trip to Malaysia between June 17 and July 8, 1989. 1 3 4 5 7 John's background in ornithology,. 2 6 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 botany, field biology, tropical ecology 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 and previous travels in Malaysia make 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 him uniquely qualified to head this 30 tour. The tropical rainforests in northern Borneo are the world's oldest May 1989 The Nominating Committee welcomes th. Sun Man Tue Wed Thu Fri Sat suggestions of any of our members an 1 2 3 4 5 6 encourages those who wish to volunteer 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 for consideration as officers or 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 directors. 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 Traditionally one of the most difficult positions to fill is that of Treasurer. MAY 3 FILOLI BACKWOODS FIELD TRIP. This trip will focus During the last few years we have been WEDNESDAY on the birds and wildflowers of Filoli. From lucky to have Nick Coiro and Colleen southbound Canada Road, take the first right turn Horner filling this important job. Al Regardless of how the decision goes expect suits Letters from customers made Boone aware of the from one or more of the final users farmers, situation and a poll of Cost Plus employees fishermen or conservationists. clinched the decision to stop selling ivory. %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%% SEQUOIA AUDUBON SOCIETY PATCHES~--- $4,00 BY MAIL %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%% san Francisco Peninsula Birdwatching is Sequoia Audubon Society's guide to birding sites in San Francisco and San Mat~o County. More than 30 different spots are described and accompanied by maps, directions and helpful notes about each spot. A species index directs you to habitats for the birds you want to see. Order one for yourself and several as gifts! Only $6.00! NAME ...... · .. ·. · · · · · · · · · · · · · Birdwatching .ADDRESS ...... CITY ...... STATE .... ZIP ...... ALSO AVAILABLE AT MEETINGS AND SOME FIELD TRIPS PAGE FIVE THE MARBLED MURRELET WANTED: ACR HOSTS You can help us in our work. If you happen to come across a CLIFF RICHER downy young bird or an adult murrelet in an INLAN!) forested area, we would be very interested in learning about your For years, we birders have used the observation or in seeing the bird if it is found as an State's Wildlife Areas and the Iationa. injured or killed individual. We are NOT interested in Wildlife Refuges without charge, ofta seabirds found along the beach, but any observations of forgetting that these were bought and marbled murrelets flying to inland sites are of interest to paid for through hunting and fishing us. license fees and through taxes on hunting and fishing equipment. Indeed To report any sightings or recoveries contact Gary Strachan, we may even have encountered an Affo Nuevo State Reserve, Pescadero, CA 94060 (879-0595), occasional individual who was shocked to learn that hunters were the driving force behind the refuge system. Some of us supported the system by buying state and federal duck stamps so. WHAT•s NEW? without buying the licenses. Xost of us simply used the resource. Sometimes we To the Editors of Tbe Auk: used it with a small twinge of con science for we saw the signs of The "powers that be," understand are preparing a "Check increasing demands and tightening purse List" and revising the scientific and popular names of our strings as the numbers of "non birds. consumptive" users grew and the sales of hunting licenses shrank. There is no doubt that scientific names are entirely in the hands of scientists, but it seems to be overlooked that Effective April l, nine of the most popular names are just as completely in the hands of the popular state wildlife areas have begun people. charging a two-dollar per person fee and the state is offering a ten dollar A bird's name, to be popular, must be distinctive, and in annual pass, good for any of the state accordance with the genius of our language. areas during the year. Only in cases of egregious error is a common name to be The state is still experimenting with superseded; and in doing this it must be remembered that no the means to make this ten dollar pass name can be popular unless true to the principles of the available to the public. National English tongue. It must be short, distinctive and, if Audubon has endorsed the concept and possible, descriptive. some chapters have agreed to become agents for the state in selling the --- Ernest E. T. Seton, Toronto, Canada, Narcb 21, 1885 passes. The Sequoia Board of Director. also lends its unanimous endorsement t <-Everyone knows the influence that this famed naturalist had the concept and is investigating the on the A.O.U. as evidenced by bird names such as buff possibility of participating as an agent collared nightjar, common moorhen, Siberian tit, etc. --Ed.) in the sales of the wildlife passes. PAGE SIX THE LAND THAT IS THE architectural practice in England it took me a few PRESERVE years to cut my ties and immigrate, but in 1938 I tfOUVERIE :~::::: found the Sonoma Valley and knew it was part of my destiny to save and nurture this land, an easy thing to do now that I have 80 wonderful docents We do not know how many centuries went by, with and an excellent professional staff and the Board waist-high native grasses everywhere, cougars and of Audubon Canyon Ranch to help me. The Bouverie bears lording it over the smaller mammals, a pro family, headed by the Earls of Radnor, have owned fusion of oak trees and springs of bubbling water. and protected vast land holdings since 1530 and We do know that the Pomo and Wappo Indians still do, so stewardship of land is in my blood. cherished this bit of land and used the caves behind the waterfall for religious and puberty So far as I know, we have had no neighbors who rituals. There are tunnels at the back of the have shown evidence of interest in conservation caves which are now silted up, but Indian leaders with one exception. In 1985 Otto and Ann Teller have come to see me two or three times in the last committed 1000 acres to the Sonoma Land Trust. 40 years warning me not to allow anyone to dig in This land, on our south and east border, will be these caves or, they said, "Ill would befall you". protected from development or abuse. This is enor mously helpful for our programs and objectives. In 1823 the first Christian cross was raised in Sonoma by the first small group of Spaniards. For several years, starting in 1946, my wife gave Even as part of an early land grant and after me a trail for my birthday. Right after April 20 California entered the union in 1846, the land of each year, a bulldozer and the necessary manpower our preserve did not change much for half a would come in. When I came, there were no trails century thereafter. Then came a succession of at all. It took me nearly a month, carrying a owners who started to despoil this blessed ground, sack of rag strips, to mark out the waterfall digging great holes to sell the shale, cutting trail. The chaparral trail was the last wide acres of of trees and leaving huge piles of trail, built in 1975. When I saw the heavy red unburnable rubbish.. When I came, the pasture was clay up there, I had the workmen make a little horribly overgrazed and very few wildflowers had a water hold which we call Cougar Pond. It is chance to grow. You e~ still see some acres of appreciated by the many inhabitants of that slope ugly, spindly second~growth where varied self because the clay retains water there better than renewing woodland once stood. anywhere else on our land. At the entrance, where the land meets Route 12, There are two dams on the creek, the old stone dam was the Warfield station, the end of the line for on the neighbor's property just as you enter the two railroads from Santa Rosa and San Rafael. canyon, and the concrete dam which was built by me ople piled out and frequented. the many saloons in the 1950's to provide gravity-flow irrigation ich were operating then on Dunbar Road. The for 20 acres on Route 12. The concrete platform kker brothers then owned the preserve. They was the base for a redwood water tank. I had an owned a restaurant and boasted a "two-bit ravioli electric pump which raised the water from the - dinner with wine on the table". They are alleged creek into the tank. This was piped to the house to have also operated a weekend house of ill until the 1950's when I drilled a 400 foot well. repute, roughly where my house is now. Their building burned to the ground in the late 1920's. When I came, there was a barely livable house made of rubble with weeds and a dirt road that came Before the turn of the century, the big house to through the Triangle Garage. There was a mountain the north of us was owned by the Stuarts and Ellen of abandoned cars and junk by the front door. Now Stuart called her house Glen Ellen. When a there are nine cottages, a recreation building and handful of people built houses weet of her place Gilman Hall. The smallest dwelling is "Emily's and named the village Glen Ellen, she angrily Cottage" which I built for my step-daughter when changed the name of her house to Glen Oaks. At she was eight years old, in 1947. Her nanny taught the turn of the century, she gave formal balls and her to cook, sew and plant a garden there. It has receptions in her house and Mrs. Juilliard been a haven for a troubled survivor of the McDonald of Santa Rosa told me, in 1940, that she Vietnam war, a Buddhist nun, a beautiful French came down on the train to attend them. girl who studied landscaping and my old Swiss foreman among others. I bought the front property in 1938 and the back land in 1947. I bought the canyon and waterfall In the 1950's I improved the pasture by removing from the surviving brother of prospector Walter surface rocks. For these rocks, designed the Meddock. Maddock bought the land in the days when bell tower and bought the finest bell in all of accurate surveys were seldom made in difficult California from the estate of William Randolph terrain and the deed had a proviso that if a Hearst. It's 4 feet in diameter and weighs 2 tons. future survey proved the waterfall was north of his boundary, then his boundary was 10' above the And now, in my old age, continue to do waterfall. The Maddocks lived off the land, dyna everything in my power to see that this place is miting the poole to get steelhead from the creek cherished and used for fine purposes and shared and even eating skunks and selling the skins. with the millions of other living things which inhabit this land. Our copy of Jack London's book, The Valley of the Noon, is inscribed to me by London's niece and To those who might read this in 2089 AD I say, nephew and verifies that all the rocks for Wolf "Cherish this land, OR ANY OTHER PIECE OF House came from our land, as did his large natural BEAUTIFUL, UNSPOILT LAND, but do not overcrowd it, ~mbstone, which was hauled across the valley on a for if you do, so many living things will die out ~rm cart pulled by mules. or retreat into the hills .. And when you see the sweet spring flowers, enjoy them all the more by I fell in love with the USA when I came to New remembering that, if you give them a chance, they York from London in 1933 to try and sell designs will bloom and die and live again in a recurring for pre-fabricated homes. As I had a thriving parable or life and death and immortality." PAGE SEVEN BILL JOHNSON THEENDANGEREDSPECffiS As we went to press, we heard with great shock and OF CALIFORNIA great sorrow of the death of Bill Johnson. The Johnson family has been a Sequoia Audubon tradi tion. His widow, Myrtle, has been an officer and director; and his son, Rick, is our Conservation Chairman and a member of the Board. For years Bill was a dynamic force in Sequoia Audubon, last serving as chairman of the Pescadero Marsh Committee in 1985-1986. Even after he gave up this position due to his increasingly ill health, Bill was sought after for advice and counsel on a number of legislative, educational and environmental issues. Many of us will remember him for the combination tide walks and pancake breakfasts which he and You can help them survive Myrtle led and hosted for a number of years. by filling in LINE 45 Others for his tireless crusading for a number of on your State Tax Return. noble causes. Still more will remember him just california hu more 1han :ZSO animal and plam species for being Bill Johnson. that face the threat of extinction. We urge you to help them sunoive whh a taX-deductible contribution on LINE 4S of your State 'D&x Re1um. Our hearts go out to Myrtle, Rick and the other Please help if you can. The lou of just OM members of the Johnson family at our mutual loss. Uvinl Jp«ies huru us aU ... ::::::::::::::::::::::::: liiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii'I"IIIIII"I"III'IIIIIIIJ • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • '' •' • •' IIIIILIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII OFFiCERS: DIRECTORS: ' '' '' '' I S:TANDI'Ns co'"" I TrEES: ' ' •• ' ' ' ' ' ' ' • ' ' Vknd Field Trip~: Stev~ Sthi!er 689-0788 Elected for Ter1 Ending: ACR Hostess: Janet Duerr 689-0788 "id-reek Tnps: Nick Co~ro 3t9-183t ~resi•ient: Cliff Richer 3 5 5 :4 0 ~8 June '89 Rick Johnson 571-8533 Bird Sightings Peter "etropulos 592-2H7 Progru: Janet Duerr 689-0788 · ast Pres.: Linda KyDh 5 9 1 90 o 3 Janet Duerr &89-0788 ~ Chris~us count: Clift Richer 355-4058 Hosfitality: Linda Krgta 591-9053 6 1 ~!~~;~~;~:: ~~~"~·m!~~ m=~m June '90 OaveR~~~u~;~~~ m:f8l~ ~~~wvation: Ri~~c:o~~~~g m:f~i1 ~~~otWl~itor: ~Ht~ ~ic~~~ r~:1ta Treas~;~er: Colleen Horner 366-t282 Steve Schafer 689·0788 Finance/Budget: Rick Baird 574-1067 June '91 N1ck Com 3t9-1834 "eabership: SEQUOI~ AUDUBON SOCIETY OFFICE 593-7368 STAFF: S~;nny Sreene Educahon• Walter Saithey 591-2501 Rue Bnd Alert 528-o288 : : : : : : : : : : : I : I I : I : : I : I : I I I 11111111111111111111 I 111111111 I I 111111 I 1111111111 : : : : : : ': : : : : : : 1 1 : : 1 : 1 1 1 1 : 1 II II I 1111111111111111111111111111111111111111 I SEQUOIA NEEDLES IS PUBLISHED "ONTHLY EXCEPT JANUARY, JULY AND AUGUST. DEADLINE FOR SUBmSION "mERS ARE ENCOURAGED TO SUBHIT HATERIAL TO BE PUBLISHED IN SEQUOIA II£EDLES•. OF "ATERIAL IS THE FIRST THURSDAY OF THE "ONTH FOR INCLUSION IN THE FOLLOWING "ONTH. THESE "AY BE ORIGINAL ARTICLES 1 ORIGINAL ARTWORK OR CARTOONS, DR UNCOPYRI&HTED IIATERI FROft OTHER SOURCES. ITEftS DEALING WITH CURRENT CONSERVATION ISSUES ftUST BE SUBmTED ~ !NFORftAT!aN FOR ALL OFFICERS AND CHAIRPERSONS -·- INCLUDING EXCHANGE BULLETINS --- TO THE CONSERVATION CD""ITTEE PRIOR TO PUBLICATION, SHOULD BE "AILED TO: 720 EL CAftiNO REAL. SUITE 403, BELftONT, CALIFORNIA 94002. 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Please liKe :~ecks oavab!e to the National Audubon Society and uil to: SEQUOIA AUDUBON SOCIETY 720 EL CAMINO REAL . SUITE 403 BELMONT, CALIFORNIA1 94002 TIME VALUED MATERIAL! PLEASE DO NOT DELAY!__, 7XCH PAGE E. :I GHT