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. All of our other hills languish in nameless anonymity, popularly speaking. Even the taller and more geographically consequential Big Rock Ridge goes unnamed by most. Mount Burdell has uniquely managed to stand out as a clear geographical unit, visible from many parts of town as the defining landmark of Novato’s natural surroundings. Is “Mount” Burdell a little grandiloquent for a hill of under 1600 feet? You might think so, at least on paper, but aspirations, ideals, and other such alpine and elevated thoughts are not measured with a yardstick. And it is in those respects that Mount Burdell’s popularity encourages me most, in the fact that it is a landmark not merely of geographic convenience or political demarcation, but one 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.
Given our ornithological predilections, I’ll naturally be telling you all about the special birds of Burdell, which are numerous. But if you want to understand the distribution of birds and other animals, it makes sense to start with the plant and tree communities that do much to define their habitats. While we are blessed with an impressive variety of ecosystems within easy reach, many of our local preserves are merely representative samples of assemblages easily found elsewhere in the county, often in greater expanse or in more developed forms. Our smattering of conifer forest at Indian Tree is small compared to what lies to the south, for instance. Our mixed evergreen forests of live oaks and bays and so on are very nice, but objectively merely average for the region. And local birders have cause for lament that in the special niche of water treatment settling ponds we are woefully unwelcoming to the public compared to the superb examples of our neighbors to north and south. When it comes to the oak savanna of Mount Burdell, however, we can hold our heads high: these are the mightiest spreading valley oaks in Marin County.
The valley oak, Quercus lobata, is one of the largest oak species in North America, identified locally by their deciduous leaves with deep but unpointed lobes. Amid the impressive field of California oaks, the valley oak is the undisputed monarch, a position which most are willing to respect. It’s trees like these that earn oaks a public veneration probably second only to redwoods in Californian public discourse. For example, it’s quite possible that the valley oaks of Mount Burdell provided the inspiration for the solitary tree on a hillside that the city plonked worthily into their new graphic:
Valley oaks attain their greatest size in a community known as oak savanna, differentiated from woodland or forest by a tree canopy that is increasingly less continuous, reducing the competition for light and allowing the wide spread of individual trees in optimally majestic fashion. And it isn’t just the valley oaks that have room to spread in the Burdell savanna. There are impressive coast live oaks, black oaks, and blue oaks here as well. In the prime valley oak habitat in the southwest section of the preserve, above the main San Andreas trailhead, optimal conditions find other trees like bays and buckeyes similarly spacing themselves out and growing into big rounded Methuselahs. Lots of space between trees also means lots of sunlight and lots of flowers: Mount Burdell is one of the prime wildflower hotspots of Marin. Serpentine rock outcrops and the county’s most significant vernal pool (known as Hidden Lake) host rare plant species. If you’d like to learn the flowers better than I can teach them, see the Native Plant Society for their pair of handy photo guides to Burdell’s wildflowers and the county open space calendar for their guided wildflower walks on Burdell in March and April.
Burdell landscapes by Noondueler on SummitPost
Interlude on humans
Before I get caught up in rhapsodies on spring birdlife, I do have a few bits of human trivia that might occur to you on a visit to the mountain.
- Who was Burdell? The name belongs to Galen Burdell, a wealthy San Francisco dentist and tooth powder entrepreneur who married into ownership of the estate in the 1860s, including the more civilized portion found in Olompali State Historical Park (on the northeastern side of the mountain, profiled separately here). Retiring from teeth-pulling and living off the tooth powder income and his new landholdings, the doctor diverted himself with managing the sizeable estate, including trials in wetland reclamation, orchard planting, and supporting wife Mary’s establishment of the fancy gardens at Olompali. You can see a handy, readable summary of the area’s history in this Bay Nature article.
- Who built those stone fences? These also date from the Burdell era, and appear to have been built by teams of Chinese laborers in the dentist’s employ in the 1870s, before anti-Chinese sentiment got really extreme towards the end of the century. The fences dot the landscape in various places; you can see some up close near the summit.
- What is that very fancy looking building on the east slopes of the mountain, facing Highway 101? It’s the Buck Institute for Research on Aging, designed by celebrated architect I.M. Pei and featuring his trademark Musée du Louvre glass pyramids. The fanciness of this building (50,000 blocks of Italian travertine limestone, etc.) suggests the deep pockets befitting the self-proclaimed “Apollo Project of aging.” They host weekly tours (by reservation) to give the public some idea of what’s going on in there, but since I’ve never attended one, I have to assume it’s all a glossy cover-up for imprisoning a bunch of unwanted seniors for cash like in Cloud Atlas, and then using them in their experiments as a steady stream of human guinea-pigs. (Just joking, Buck Center people. “Apollo Project of aging” it is.)
Springtime
While the big trees and many birds stay put all year round, one would be hard pressed to defend the contrarian position that spring is not the most wonderful time of year here. In addition to the green grass, blooming wildflowers, and exploding verdure of the deciduous trees, spring is when the canopies and grasslands fill with the songs of birds both resident and migratory. Winter is when we get waterbirds – there are plentiful reasons to go to the ponds, wetlands, and bayshore from September into March. But by the time March is drawing to a close, and absolutely by April, I find it hard to stay away from the woods and songbirds any longer.
In some respects, California spring starts well before then, with January a strong contender for a revised calendar of our seasons. (You could even make a case for December, with flowering manzanitas, courting hummingbirds, and a few other such phenomena.) But by January, milkmaids are blossoming in the shaded understory and resident birds like titmice and juncos are beginning to sing. February intensifies the dawn reveille with more non-migratory birds like Bewick’s wrens and spotted towhees joining the chorus and the remainder of the early spring flower crowd emerging: buttercups, irises, and shooting stars.
March is a very fine month to be on Mount Burdell. Wildflowers are now abundant and varied:
The resident birds continue singing, but are now joined by a wave of migrants from points south, like orange-crowned warblers, house wrens, lark sparrows, and, towards the end of the month, the first Bullock’s orioles. Orange-crowns are quite widespread in local woodlands and perhaps on average prefer a more continuous canopy than the relatively open woods and savannas that Burdell is best known for, but for the latter three species, this is really the place to be. Look for house wrens investigating tree cavities for nesting sites and exploring downed limbs and tangles along with their year-round cousins, the eyebrowed Bewick’s wren, and be sure to listen for their song of explosive exuberance. Lark sparrows are probably our leading candidate for “most handsome sparrow,” with an elaborate mask of white, black, and rich chestnut. They probably earned their name for their quite respectable singing, and are often approachable and easy to see as they forage in trees, in grasses, and directly on the dusty trails. Bullock’s orioles are perhaps more abundant at Stafford Lake, but they regularly return to a certain section of Mount Burdell as well, in the prime area near the intersection of Middle Burdell and Deer Camp fire roads.
More migratory birds continue to arrive in April. Numbers of the aforementioned continue to swell and are sooned joined by warbling vireos, who provide a rollicking energy to the soundscape, but are often hard to see in the now leafy canopies. Grasshopper sparrows emit their insect-like songs of tick tick buuzzz, audible to those who listen carefully, while staying even more out of sight at ground level beneath the burgeoning grasses. Chipping sparrows more graciously climb into the trees where you can see them singing in their best imitation of trilling juncos.
The most highly anticipated of all the April arrivals is the lazuli bunting, who outshines even the orioles in color and outsings most rivals in smooth melodiousness as well. They also are best sought along the first half mile or so of Deer Camp fire road, where well-spaced trees are footed by large patches of seed-bearing thistles set amid the grassland mosaic. “Lazuli bunting” is probably the most inconsistently pronounced bird name we have, with the second syllable debated between the variants of LAZ-oo-lee and LAZ-yoo-lee and the last syllable variable between LAZ-oo-lee or LAZ-oo-lie. The one thing the rule-makers agree on is that the accent is properly placed on the first syllable: LAZ-oo-lee, not la-ZOO-lee, although this last pronunciation seems to be almost as prevalent for some reason as the mispronunciation of Bewick’s wren as bee-wick rather than bew-ick. (It sounds like “Buick,” people. Ask any student of woodcuts or an English person.) The name refers to this semi-precious stone, which is indeed quite intensely blue (indeed, etymologically lazuli contains the more poetic azure and the Spanish relative azul):
Not all the summer birds are magnificent singers. Tree and violet-green swallows demonstrate their exuberance with ceaselessly acrobatic flights. Blue-gray gnatcatchers endear themselves not with melodiousness, but with a repertoire of asthmatic squeaks and wheezes. Western kingbirds and ash-throated flycatchers are neat and trim, sporting restrained highlights of yellow or copper, but impetuous when the demands of prey or rival require action.
As even the later migrants settle in, establish nesting sites, and raise their young, the chorus of birdsong quiets down in May and June, although most of these birds can still be seen in August. Following their departure, we are of course still left with our year-round residents of the oak woodlands, including titmice, Bewick’s wrens, western bluebirds, scrub-jays, and numerous woodpecker species. In fact, a very strong case could be made for the acorn woodpecker’s nomination as the iconic bird of Mount Burdell. Garrulous and abundant, this unusually social woodpecker will likely be one of the most obvious birds you encounter here at any time of year as they communally gather, store, and protect the staff of life of the oak woodland: acorns. Chunky and black-backed, with bold and distinctive clown-faces, their raucous waka-waka-waka calls irrepressibly overpower all that fine melodiousness of spring, and continue largely undaunted among the quieter times of winter.
Practical Details
Getting there: The main trailhead described above is found near the end of San Andreas Dr. To get there, take the northernmost Novato exit for Atherton Dr. and head west on San Marin Dr. for about 3 miles. Turn right on San Andreas Dr. and continue to the clear trailhead towards the end of the street. Consult a map for the many other neighborhood trailheads.
Getting around: Most of the above profile focuses on the area along the fire roads leading from the main trailhead on San Andreas Dr. This large preserve, however, has a lot more to it. From the same trailhead, you can quickly leave the popular fire road for the narrow and uncrowded Dwarf Oak Trail if you would like a quieter and woodsier setting. Alternatively, visit one of the more eastern trailheads around Fieldstone Dr. for less-travelled trails still well-laden with majestic oaks.
If you have a good chunk of the day open to enjoy yourself in, you could also arrange an up-and-over walk including the more wooded northern side of Mount Burdell rising above Olompali State Historical Park. Compared to the sunny and open oak savannas that dominate the southern side, the Olompali side of the mountain is mostly wooded with a mixed oak-bay-madrone forest that holds pileated woodpeckers, brown creepers, Pacific wrens in ferny canyons, and other similarly forest-loving species. A point-to-point trek over the top involves a 1558 ft. max elevation and around 8 miles of walking, depending on your exact route.
As with all Open Space Preserves, excellent maps are available on the official parks website, or you can consult our favorite printed map, Trails of Northeast Marin by Pease Press.
Bird Lists and Recent Sightings: See Mount Burdell’s eBird Hotspot listing.
Rules & Access: Mount Burdell is a Marin County Open Space Preserve and so is open to free public access 24 hours a day, but lacks amenities such as garbage cans, restrooms, or picnic tables – except for a few near the top right before entering state park land. Leashed dogs are permitted on trails and unleashed dogs under voice control are permitted on fire roads.
Header photo: Mount Burdell landscape from Monika’s blog
I wish the paradise of birds and flowers was still there. Sadly the ranchers allow their cows to run amok and eat all the wildflowers each year and fewer seem appear as their seeds cannot take root. The ecosystem is being destroyed by the cows and what you describe here is a thing of the past. The birds have little to eat and the mountain is near devoid of any wildlife now.
While there is certainly debate about the long-term historical changes in California landscapes following the introduction of cattle grazing and non-native plants species, Mount Burdell still has rich plant diversity and is one of the premier wildflower spots in the county. Grazing on Mount Burdell today is intentionally performed as a management practice by the open space district; I believe the majority of ecologists believe that light grazing has net positive effects and imitates the roaming wildlife herds from before the era of intensive human use. Unrestricted grazing is not permitted on Mount Burdell.
Both wildflower and wildlife displays are variable from year to year, week to week, specific location to specific location, and in the case of wildlife also dependent on time of day and human activity levels. Timing is crucial! And the more specifically you know what you are looking for, the better you will be able to time your visits and understand why particular species may or may not be evident at a certain moment in time.
It is probably true that some types of wildlife are harder to see on the main fire roads today, however, not so much because of cattle, but because they are used fairly heavily by hikers, runners, and cyclists for recreational purposes. You will see more if you go early in the day before the people are out and visit less heavily used trails. But there are also many plants and animals that are less vulnerable to disturbance. There are also certain areas, such as the Dwarf Oak Trail and Hidden Lake, where there are certain sensitive and endangered plants growing on specific soil surfaces or around the seasonal pond, which are fenced off to exclude cattle at all times of year. The mountain is still very much worth visiting!