Putah Creek Terrestrial Wildlife Monitoring Program Comprehensive Report 1997-2009 Museum of Wildlife and Fish Biology University of California, Davis 1 Shields Avenue Davis, CA 95616 July 2010 CONTRIBUTORS Andrew Engilis Jr. …………………..….…...Principal Investigator, Museum Curator MWFB, UC Davis Melanie L. Truan ……………….……………….……..………..…Wildlife Ecologist, MWFB, UC Davis John Trochet ………………………..…………...…….………………… Ornithologist MWFB, UC Davis Molly Farrell …………………..………………….………Graduate Researcher, Plant Ecology, UC Davis Sam Veloz ……………………………………………………Graduate Researcher, Geography, UC Davis Cover photo: Oak Titmouse, Putah Creek, A. Engilis, Jr. Recommended Citation: Truan, M.L., A. Engilis Jr., and J.R. Trochet. 2010. Putah Creek Terrestrial Wildlife Monitoring Program: Comprehensive Report 1997-2009. Department of Wildlife, Fish, and Conservation Biology, Museum of Wildlife and Fish Biology. University of California , Davis, CA. Primary author and contact: Melanie Truan, [email protected], 530/754-4975 Putah Creek Terrestrial Wildlife Monitoring Program Museum of Wildlife and Fish Biology Comprehensive Report 1997-2009 i UC Davis ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS This project was designed to gather baseline data on the habitats and biological resources of riparian habitats of the Sacramento Valley, in particular, the Lower Putah Creek watershed and portions of the Yolo Bypass and Cosumnes River Preserve. Funding was provided by the CALFED Bay-Delta Program, the California Regional Water Quality Control Board, the Solano County Water Agency, and the California Department of Water Resources. To support programmatic objectives established by the California Bay-Delta Authority Ecosystem Restoration Program (CALFED-ERP), the Lower Putah Creek Coordinating Committee, and the Museum of Wildlife and Fish Biology’s Wildlife Monitoring Program, surveys on a selected suite of taxonomic groups were conducted systematically at selected public and privately-owned sites along Lower Putah Creek, the Yolo/Sutter Bypass, and the Cosumnes River Preserve. We wish to thank our many partners and collaborators: Lower Putah Creek Coordinating Committee and Solano County Water Agency, the CALFED Bay-Delta Program, California Regional Water Quality Control Board, California Department of Water Resources, California Department of Fish and Game, Teichert Associates, Los Rios Farms, Vic Fazio Yolo Basin Wildlife Area, California Water Reclamation Board, University of California, Davis, the Selma Herr Fund for Ornithology, and The Nature Conservancy—Cosumnes River Preserve. We especially wish to thank Richard Marovich and David Okita of the Lower Putah Creek Coordinating Committee and Solano County Water Agency for their invaluable and sustained support of this project. We are also grateful to the many public and private landowners who provided access to their properties. We hope that the results of this research will provide them with valuable information for effective management and land stewardship. The California Department of Water Resources provided support for the Yolo/Sutter Bypass surveys, facilitated ably and enthusiastically by Marianne Kirkland, Michael Perrone, and Heidi Rooks. The Nature Conservancy provided access to their holdings in the Cosumnes River Preserve. Steve Hampton of the California Department of Fish and Game provided valuable records on avian vagrants and rare species observed along Putah Creek during the scope of this effort. We are indebted to our hard-working field assistants and volunteers: Patrick Aldrich, Teneile Alfaro, Ona Alminas, Michael Atamian, Sharon Bakeman, Emily Bjerre, Brent Campos, Amanda Castañeda, Robert Castañeda, Mary Chambers, Shaina Clinton, Neil Clipperton, Diana Connaughton, Amanda Darby, Robert Eddings, Irene Engilis, Ellen Engilis, Anne Engilis, Deborah Elliott-Fisk, Josh Erdman, Peter Gibert, Sara Gillespie, Andy Grant, Laura Heiker, Jennifer Hernandez, Sanja Hinik-Frlog, Alan Hitch, Karen Hochgraf, Jaime Jackson, Anne Jacobs, Marc Kenyon Jr., Marianne Kirkland, Punit Lalbhai, James Lee, Erica Lindgren, Rich Marovich, Ronald Melcer Sr., Ronald Melcer Jr., Michael Perrone, Ryan Phillips, Heidi Rooks, Brena Seck, Patricia Sheatsley, Sarah Spring, John Takekawa, Ian Taylor, Matt Tomaso, Danika Tsao, Sam Veloz, Matt Tomaso, Robert Walsh, Susan Wainwright-De La Cruz, Jonathan Widdicombe, Jean Witzman, and Ian Wright. Finally, we wish to recognize the many UC Davis faculty and staff, especially those connected with the UC Davis Putah Creek Riparian Reserve, who assisted with planning, facilitation, and long-term discussions on methodology and analysis. Putah Creek Terrestrial Wildlife Monitoring Program Museum of Wildlife and Fish Biology Comprehensive Report 1997-2009 ii UC Davis TABLE OF CONTENTS EXECUTIVE SUMMARY............................................................................................................4 1 PUTAH CREEK AS WILDLIFE HABITAT ..........................................................................7 1.1 MWFB Wildlife Monitoring on Putah Creek...........................................................................................................8 1.2 Survey Sites.........................................................................................................................................................................9 2 VEGETATION SURVEYS AND MAPPING .......................................................................13 2.1 CWHR Land Cover Class Mapping ...........................................................................................................................14 2.2 Results - Vegetative structure and composition................................................................................................14 3 BEE SURVEYS......................................................................................................................60 4 BUTTERFLY SURVEYS......................................................................................................60 5 AMPHIBIANS AND REPTILES..........................................................................................75 6 MAMMALS .............................................................................................................................77 7 BIRDS.....................................................................................................................................84 7.1 An historical account of the regional avifauna of the Central Valley ...................................................................92 7.2 Annotated Species List of the birds of Lower Putah Creek .....................................................................................94 8 IMPRESSIONS .....................................................................................................................153 REFERENCES .........................................................................................................................156 APPENDIX A1 GEOGRAPHIC COORDINATES FOR VEGETATION PLOTS............163 APPENDIX A2 GEOGRAPHIC COORDINATES FOR BIRD TRANSECTS.................167 APPENDIX A3 GEOGRAPHIC COORDINATES AVIAN POINT COUNT STATIONS .....................................................................................................................................................169 Putah Creek Terrestrial Wildlife Monitoring Program Museum of Wildlife and Fish Biology Comprehensive Report 1997-2009 iii UC Davis EXECUTIVE SUMMARY California’s varied topography and climate have given rise to a remarkable diversity of habitats and a correspondingly diverse array of plant and animal species. Riparian zones are an exceptionally productive area for wildlife. In California, over 225 species of amphibians, reptiles, mammals and birds depend on riparian habitats for their survival (RHJV 2004). However, the majority of California’s riparian habitats have been lost. Those that remain are seriously degraded. Lower Putah Creek, for example, has lost more than 90% of its historic acreage (approximately 8900 hectares) since the arrival of the Europeans. This report represents the culmination of Phase I of the MWFB’s Terrestrial Wildlife Monitoring and Assessment Program. For this phase, our goals were to establish spatial and temporal baseline conditions for biological resources along Lower Putah Creek, as well as portions of the Yolo Bypass and Cosumnes River Preserve. The objectives of Phase I were to: · Compile lists of species and formulate spatially-explicit estimates of relative abundance for selected riparian species. · Evaluate the importance of Putah Creek’s riparian habitats to the maintenance of biodiversity at local and regional scales. · Meet the information needs of managers and landowners and provide recommendations for habitat restoration and enhancement. To meet these objectives, we conducted repeated, site -based surveys to quantify the distribution and relative abundance of Putah Creek’s plants, butterflies, amphibians, reptiles, mammals, and birds over a 13-year period. PLANTS. Surveys conducted in 2005 and 2006 returned approximately 205 plant species (about half of which were native) across the Putah Creek study sites. Sites differed greatly in vegetative composition and structure. An additional 15 species were recorded for the Yolo/Sutter Bypass sites. (Data on vegetative cover for the Cosumnes River Preserve will be published separately .) In this report, we present site -specific estimates of relative percent cover for each plant species, as well as a table summarizing