GET OUT
Birding at the Arcata Marsh By Sarah Hobart
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umboldt County has more than its fair share of great places to go birding but one of my very favorites is the Arcata Marsh and Wildlife Sanctuary. It’s not just that it’s chock full of birds — 342 different species have been recorded there, and during spring and fall migrations flocks of shorebirds literally fill the skies like fast-moving clouds — or that it serves a dual role as both a sanctuary and an innovative wasterwater treatment facility. In a word, it’s accessible: to birders from novice to expert, and also to people of wide-ranging physical abilities. The Arcata Marsh is simply a perfect place to go to the birds. Nearly 5 miles of trails wind through the sanctuary’s 307 acres of diverse habitat — saltwater, freshwater and brackish (a mix of salt and fresh) marshes, grassy meadows, tidal sloughs, mudflats and bay — so it’s easy to step away from the bustle of human activity and into quiet spaces where marsh wrens skulk in the understory and snowy egrets hunt in the shallows. A wheelchair-accessible section of the Humboldt Bay Trail runs past Mount Trashmore, a grassland built atop the former city dump and now home to sparrows, buntings and finches. And numerous pullouts along South I Street, the marsh’s primary access road, make it possible to explore a variety of habitats by car. If you’re new to the marsh or to birding, a good place to start is the Arcata Marsh Interpretive Center at 569 South G St. The center offers a wealth of information on avian life at the marsh, including maps, field guides and a take-along checklist of the species you might find there. Just steps from the center is a self-guided tour of Butcher Slough log pond, a gentle and level 3/4-mile walk around a restored freshwater marsh with remnants of the old lumber mill still visible. It’s prime habitat for dabbling ducks like teals and gadwalls and the overhanging willows provide good cover for warblers, flycatchers and the occasional Bullock’s oriole. Another popular route takes you around Klopp Lake, a human-made freshwater pond that hosted brown pelicans in record numbers last year, or you could wander between the three treatment
NORTH COAST JOURNAL • Thursday, Jan. 13, 2022 • northcoastjournal.com
marshes where microorganisms and native flora help filter Arcata’s wastewater. A more ambitious trek is out to the oxidation ponds with some incredible views A snowy egret at the Arcata Marsh. Photo by Sarah Hobart south and west over the bay. I saw my first burrowing owl in the rocks along that trail. with a few deft maneuvers separated one Longtime interpretive center staffer tiny bird from the flock. A split-second George Ziminsky says the marsh’s network before it was snatched out of the air by of trails is one of the reasons it’s a great sharp talons, the sandpiper dropped in the place to bird. “There are a lot of cool, grass and vanished. It was heart-pounding hidden spots that are visually accessible. … drama. [The marsh] contains such a wide variety And a few weeks ago I was cooling my of habitats within a relatively small footheels in the middle of a hailstorm when I print and there’s easy access by car, bike or spotted a belted kingfisher hovering over even walking from town.” McDaniel Slough. Its fluttering wings held His favorite bird is the green heron, a it perfectly still until it plunged into the small, elusive heron with striking russet murky water, coming up with a silvery minand green plumage. One year, he says, a now in its bill and downing it in two gulps. nest near the Interpretive Center proThe marsh is a vibrant example of how duced a brood of fledglings — still sporthumans sometimes get things right and ing some baby down — that ran around a testament to some visionary thinking: the trails on foot. “They were a lot of fun It’s treasure from trash, a restored coastal to watch.” wetland teeming with life that continues Ziminsky also holds the honor of to thrive when so much of California’s spotting No. 341 on the all-time marsh coastal wetlands are gone. list, a gray catbird. No. 342 was a beautiful Every Saturday morning for as long as yellow-throated warbler that showed up I can remember, the Redwood Regional in the pines at the foot of I Street last Audubon Society has sponsored a nature summer, to the delight of many. walk that starts at the foot of I Street. Sadly, I dipped on the warbler — birder The group is led by local experts, the pace slang for chased but failed to see — and is dictated by the presence of birds (i.e. also on the catbird. So it goes in birding: usually a slow shuffle) and the ambiance Timing is everything. is welcoming and kind. When I moved to But I was there in 2007 when a tufted Humboldt County 23 years ago, I was a duck brought flocks of birders to the regular on the nature walks. I saw some marsh. The Eurasian vagrant is a North cool birds and met a lot of great birders. American Code 3 rarity, meaning, “Drop No one cared that I mixed up my bufflewhat you’re doing and go,” in bird-speak. heads and mergansers, or that I couldn’t And in 2019, when six magnificent trumtell a dowitcher from a willet. It was a peter swans splashed down in Humboldt perfect introduction to the birds and the Bay just west of the I Street parking lot, I people of Humboldt County, and one of arrived in time to see them without comthe reasons I stuck around. Though the mitting a single moving violation. pandemic put the walks on hold for a bit, But it’s not always about the numbers. they’re back on, with the usual COVID The marsh is also the perfect place to put precautions of masking and distancing. the “watching” in birdwatching. Once I If you haven’t visited the marsh lately, was captivated by the sight of hundreds go. And take your binoculars. of Least sandpipers wheeling over the l bay, their wings glinting like diamonds in a constantly shifting pattern. Suddenly, a Sarah Hobart (she/her) is a freelance peregrine falcon shot into their midst and writer based in Humboldt County.
