– Doug McConnell

Photo by Alan Tobey

Daylight savings have been spent and we’re back to early evening darkness in California and the slanted daylight of approaching winter. This is always a complex time of year for me. I like winter but I enjoy light even more. When I lived in Alaska, my least-favorite/favorite day was the Summer Solstice. We were at our peak moment of light, but every day for six-months after led straight to greater darkness and my favorite/least-favorite day, the Winter Solstice. Darkness was full but light was coming.

It’s all much more mild and less dramatic in California, which is a good and bad thing too. I get to hold on to more light in the winter but I miss the winter extremes of the far north. Fortunately though, northern wildness does find its way south in the form of millions of migrating birds, many of whom winter in the wetlands of California’s Delta and Central Valley. They don’t entirely darken the noon-day sky as they did before California began to fill up with people, but ducks and geese and swans and other commuters along the Pacific Flyway still come in great numbers and put on quite a show for all of us to see and hear. Take a look and listen at a few birding meccas right here: Grizzly Island’s Animal Sanctuary & Grassland’s Haven for Birds.

The protection and restoration of wetlands is a very good thing for all of us members of the animal kingdom. We feature other stories about special places for creatures great and small: Elkhorn Slough’s Wild Kingdom, Alaska’s River of Bears and Roadside Elephant Seals and we’ll keep adding to our inventory all the time. Please let us know your favorite spots to see wildlife. The more we see nature in the raw, the more likely we are to take care of it and to take care of ourselves.