China Camp offers a wonderful combination of oak woodland, tidal marsh, and access to the watery expanse of San Pablo Bay. Several habitats = lots of birds.
Places
Las Gallinas Ponds
The Las Gallinas Wildlife Ponds are the most popular birding site in the county. Why?
Waterfalls of Novato
We have three waterfalls in Novato and now’s the time to see them. How many of them have you visited?
Day Island Wildlife Area
Day Island is one of our town’s best-kept secrets. Did you even know Novato had a bayshore?
Pacheco Pond
Pacheco Pond is the best publicly accessible freshwater-ish pond we have in Novato. True, it may lack polish, bells, and whistles, but one good first step towards an eventual sprucing up would be for the birding community to give it some love and recognition. Starting right now!
Loch Lomond Marina
Want to see rocky shoreline and coastal birds like turnstones, oystercatchers, horned grebes, ospreys, and brown pelicans? Even the most partisan of Nature in Novato readers will admit these are good reasons to head south to San Rafael’s Loch Lomond Marina.
Swift Migration at the McNear Brickyard
Each year in September and October, thousands of Vaux’s swifts roost in the unused chimneys of McNear’s Brickyard in San Rafael. A sunset visit here is one of the highlights of fall bird migration.
Loma Alta Fire Road
Loma Alta is one of the higher points in Marin, a nearly 1600’ peer of Mount Burdell. For us north Marin naturalists, the name primarily evokes the fire road that leads north from the summit to Lucas Valley Road, a hotspot for late spring serpentine wildflowers and dry, rocky grasslands ideal for a number of birds that are uncommon in much of the county, such as lazuli buntings, horned larks, meadowlarks, and grasshopper sparrows. The views aren’t too bad either!
Big Rock Ridge
Big Rock Ridge is the defining topographical feature of Northeast Marin, dividing Novato’s Ignacio Valley from San Rafael’s Lucas Valley. At 1,895 ft, this is the second highest point in the county, and the highest that is untamed and hence unshortened by roads and motors. Some work is required to gain the pleasures of reality rather than reverie, but those rewards are real and numerous: unobstructed 360-degree views and aquiline omniscience, breathing room above the lowland hubbub, and the company of birds and plants that eschew civilization’s crowds and tethers.
Mount Burdell
If any geographical feature has risen above the flat valley of Novato’s civic and commercial life to achieve a visible prominence in the mental landscape of its citizens, that feature is Mount Burdell. It’s a name that vividly conjures up the idea of a place to thousands of Novato citizens, of a sunlit expanse of green hillsides dotted with wildflowers and vast, benignant oaks. And no time is better to visit than spring, when the mountain fills with the songs of newly arrived migratory songbirds.