Clearing Away for Wetland and Native Woods

People have been asking about the tree clearing along the reservoir just to the north of Highway 92. 

The approximately 80 non-native, invasive trees are being removed to restore a stretch of natural wetland that over time will again nurture and sustain water- and shoreline-dwelling wildlife. We’ll also bring back several acres of adjacent native grassland. 

Starting next week, you’ll also be able to see another tree-clearing project from Highway 280 near Trousdale.  We’ll be removing mostly eucalyptus trees, and replacing them with historic native grasses and Coastal oak woodland. 

Threatened California red-legged frog.

The work at both sites is part of the Peninsula Watershed Habitat Restoration Program to bring back native environments—and the plant and wildlife communities that depend on them—at different locales throughout the watershed. The SFPUC will maintain the new plantings and monitor their performance for up to 10 years.

The 23,000-acre Peninsula Watershed is home to a diversity of native California plants, insects, birds, reptiles, amphibians, and animals, including the highest concentration of rare, threatened or endangered species in the nine-county Bay Area.  The watershed is also designated a State Fish and Game Refuge. 

The Jepson Laurel: Centuries-Old Natural Monument Marks Sawyer Camp Trail Midpoint

The Jepson Laurel, known to be at least 600 years old, marks the Sawyer Camp Trail midpoint. At 55 feet in height, and some 22 feet around, it’s the largest laurel in California. 

It stands just north of where one Leander Sawyer kept an inn called Sawyer Camp in the 1850s and ‘60s. The establishment provided lodging for horsemen and wagons, as well as food for daytime picnickers. Old-timers said that Sawyer and his wife Sophia lived nearby in an adobe cottage close to a natural spring. Sawyer also grazed cattle in the area to control the brush and maintain access for incoming wagons. Today nothing remains of either the camp or the Sawyer dwelling.

The Jepson Laurel stays on, monitored and safeguarded by our natural resources staff. It is named after distinguished  UC Berkeley early botanist Willis Linn Jepson.

Peninsula Watershed Photo Friday - Stone Dam

For this Photo Friday, we thought we’d highlight one of our lesser known dams in the Peninsula Crystal Springs Watershed – Stone Dam.

This small dam was built in 1871 approximately two miles away from Pilarcitos Dam (which was constructed in 1866).

Spring Valley Water Company constructed Stone Dam to take advantage of the lower Pilarcitos Creek Watershed. Water impounded at Stone Dam on San Mateo Creek impounds about 5 million gallons of water (in contrast to nearby Pilarcitos Reservoir which can store 1 billion gallons of water).

Happy Friday!

Sightings on the Watershed

Two Double-crested cormorants sun their spread wings to dry during a late summer afternoon on the San Andreas Reservoir. The pastime can be a common site around the watershed. 

Since the black seabirds are at home in both salt water and fresh, the watershed reservoirs provide ample small fish for food. During the spring breeding season, they’ll display the tufted crests they’re named for.  

Life on the Watershed: Bobcats,Young Cubs, and Watershed Health

The bobcat cubbing season is over. But the juveniles will be around for another several months, doing their part to sustain watershed health. 

When the cubs reach 8 to 11 months of age, the mother will evict them from her territory. The medium-size feline is distinguishable by its short bobbed tail. The Peninsula Watershed with its expanse of diverse vegetation is ideal habitat for these

predators, which are big enough to take down small deer but still agile enough to grab darting rabbits and other small animals.

Since they’re so high on the food chain, bobcats sustain a robust habitat by keeping the ecosystem balanced. They weed out species lower on the food chain, which otherwise would increase and overrun  the food resource. Then, while some starve, the rest of the population weakens and the gene pool declines.

It’s an effect that keeps trickling down to lower species, and eventually the plant communities as they get overgrazed. And that deprives critical lower forms, like earthworms--the recyclers. They're the ones that decompose dead leaves and other organic matter into smaller pieces, enabling  stored nutrients to  be  released back into the soil. The renewed soil replenishes the plant life, and the recharge works its way back--to the bobcats and on up.

Making Way for the Natives

Crews remove a grove of non-native invasive pine trees from an approximately half-acre site on the Peninsula Watershed between Black Mountain Road and Highway 280. We’ll hydroseed the area this fall with a special mix of native grass seed. Plantings of other species indigenous to the Crystal Springs area may follow later. 

The work is part of a long-term habitat restoration project at different sites throughout the watershed to bring back and maintain about 180 acres of native grass and woodland habitats--plus the diversity of plant and wildlife species that depend on them.

Life on the Watershed: Nesting Turtles

A reservoir native—the protected Western pond turtle—has just finished this year’s nesting, while the next generation gets ready for  life on its own.  

The females have dug into sunny sandy areas not far from the lake shore, laid their eggs, and gone back to the water. The eggs incubate in the warm sands for about three to four months. The tiny hatchlings will make their way to the water in the fall. Those newborn females won’t reach maturity, and begin their own nesting, for a good six years or more.  

The Peninsula Watershed is home and refuge to a multitude of native California wildlife species and has the highest concentration of rare, threatened or endangered species in the nine-county Bay Area. The Western Pond Turtle is designated a “species of special concern” by The California Department of Fish and Wildlife.