Panorama Vista Preserve

06/10/2026

More about River Partners work on the Sacramento river drainage…

06/09/2026

At PVP for four events starting this Saturday 6/13. It's a good way to measure the affect your training is having during the summer.

https://runsignup.com/Race/CA/Bakersfield/SummerGrandPrix

06/06/2026

River Partners

This month, a honeybee swarm, a mother with her babies, and a special wildlife sighting at River Partners’ headquarters

06/06/2026

Natural solutions are thorough and lower risk.

That dragonfly hovering over your yard?

It's the deadliest mosquito hunter on the planet.

A single dragonfly eats 30 to hundreds of mosquitoes
per day. It catches them mid-flight. At speeds up to
30 mph. With a 95% success rate.

For context: a lion's kill rate is about 25%.
A great white shark's is about 50%.

The dragonfly makes them look amateur.

And it's been doing this for 300 million years.
Dragonflies predate dinosaurs. They've been perfecting
mosquito murder since before trees existed.

Their larvae — which live underwater for 1-3 years
before becoming adults — eat mosquito larvae. So they
kill mosquitoes in BOTH life stages. In the water as
babies. In the air as adults.

A backyard with a healthy dragonfly population has
virtually no mosquito problem.

But here's what kills dragonflies:

Mosquito foggers and yard spray services. The same
products you pay $100/month for to kill mosquitoes?
They kill dragonflies too. And the dragonfly was
doing the job better. For free.

Pesticides kill the solution along with the problem.
Then the mosquitoes come back first. The dragonflies
take years to recover. You spray again. Repeat.

How to attract dragonflies:
A small pond or water feature — even a whiskey barrel
pond. Dragonflies need standing water to breed.
Native plants around the water's edge — tall grasses
and reeds for perching.
Don't use mosquito dunks in your dragonfly pond —
they kill the dragonfly larvae too.
Stop the mosquito spray service. Let nature handle it.
Flat rocks in sunny spots near water — dragonflies
bask to regulate body temperature.

You're paying $1,200/year for mosquito spray.

The dragonfly does it better. For the cost of a
$40 whiskey barrel.

Stop spraying. Start attracting.

06/01/2026

We have a number of boxes at PVP and you can frequently see kestrals when you're out walking.

The size of a robin. The eyes of an assassin. Down 50% in 60 years. And one nest box could turn it around.

The American kestrel — the falcon nobody's fighting for.

THE BIRD:

→ Smallest falcon in North America (3-4 oz)
→ Male: blue-gray wings, russet back, facial "mustache" marks
→ Hovers in place mid-air ("kiting") then drops on prey
→ Eats grasshoppers, mice, voles, small birds

THE SUPERPOWER:

→ Sees ultraviolet light
→ Vole urine trails glow under UV — kestrels follow the glow
→ Can spot prey movement from 600+ feet
→ Caches extra prey for later (stores it in tree holes)

THE DECLINE:

→ Population dropped ~50% since 1966
→ Causes: pesticides, habitat loss, fewer nest cavities
→ Cooper's hawks (increasing) prey on kestrels
→ Old wooden fence posts and dead trees (nest sites) removed

THE FIX:

→ Nest boxes WORK — kestrels readily use them
→ Mount on poles in open areas (fields, pastures, highway medians)
→ 3-inch entrance hole, 8x8 inch floor
→ Face box east or southeast
→ American Kestrel Partnership tracks nest box data nationwide

$25 nest box. One afternoon to install.

You could bring back a falcon.

06/01/2026

05/31/2026

River Partners work with salmon up north.

05/26/2026

Immune to rabies. Eats 5,000 ticks. Resistant to snake venom. 70 million years old. And everyone treats it like garbage.

The opossum — the most underrated animal in your neighborhood.

THE FACTS:

→ America's ONLY marsupial (carries babies in a pouch)
→ Virtually immune to rabies (body temp too low for the virus)
→ Eats up to 5,000 ticks per season
→ Resistant to pit viper venom (copperhead, rattlesnake)
→ Eats cockroaches, rats, snails, slugs, carrion
→ "Playing possum" = involuntary stress response, not acting

WHAT THEY DO FOR YOU:

→ Tick control (Lyme disease prevention)
→ Venomous snake control
→ Carrion cleanup (disease prevention)
→ Pest insect control
→ All free. All night. Every night.

THE PROBLEM:

→ Hit by cars constantly (slow, nocturnal)
→ Killed by dogs and people out of fear
→ Babies orphaned when mothers are killed on roads
→ Often confused with rats (they are NOT rodents)

IF YOU SEE ONE:

→ Leave it alone — it's helping you
→ If injured: wildlife rehabilitator, not animal control
→ If babies are clinging to a dead mother: call a rehabber immediately
→ Slow down on roads at night

70 million years of evolution. Immune to rabies. Eats your ticks.

Maybe stop screaming when you see one.

05/26/2026

This is a very interesting article. I was unable to download the link but you can go to the California Native Plant Society website and search for it.

05/22/2026

At PVP, we don't have water containers (if you do at your home, watch for mosquito larva) but this is the formula we follow which is largely successful for a large resurgence of the native animal population we have documented.

Native plants + leaf litter + water. Three ingredients that turn a yard into a functioning habitat.

Everything else — the fireflies, the nesting birds, the ground beetles, the bees, the butterflies, the toads — follows from those three.

🌿 Native plants provide the food web. They support the caterpillars that feed the birds, the pollen that feeds the bees, and the structure that provides cover and nesting. A single native tree hosts dramatically more insect life than any ornamental.

Leaf litter provides the nursery. Firefly larvae develop in it. Moth pupae overwinter in it. Bumblebee queens hibernate in it. Remove it and every one of those species loses its habitat.

Water provides the anchor. A shallow dish on the ground — one inch deep, a few stones for standing — draws more species than any feeder.

🐾 You don't need acreage. You don't need expertise. You don't need a budget.

Three native plants. One undisturbed patch of leaves. One shallow dish of water.

Today is Biodiversity Day. The habitat builds itself from three ingredients 🌿