Putah Creek Council

07/21/2023

Join us this Sunday, July 23rd for a community creek cleanup, free burrito lunch, educational activities and lawn games in Winters Nature Park! We will meet at the Rotary Park gazebo at 9 am. Preregister at the link in our bio.

09/01/2022

Join us to “Use your Senses!” during the first Field Day in our Creek Explorers series on Saturday September 10, from 9am to 12pm at Lake Solano Park. Participants can look forward to activities that help them hone their senses of sight, smell, touch, and hearing in nature. Participants will take a color walk, sensory sit, bird song scavenger hunt, and a sense mystery where you’ll use your senses to guess natural and unnatural items.

From 10am to 12pm, participants can help their local watershed by volunteering at a Lake Solano stewardship project. See the Field Day calendar on slide two to explore all of our upcoming Creek Explorer events. You can check out our website for more information! putahcreekcouncil.org/creekexplorers

08/25/2022

We're moving to a new page. Be sure to follow us at the link below. Updates to come!

https://www.facebook.com/Putah-Creek-Council-106910102138959

Putah Creek Council is a non-profit that supports regional ecosystems through advocacy, education, and local stewardship.

04/28/2022

Join PCC and Dr. Ann Willis on May 19th at 7 PM for our May CreekSpeak entitled Managing California’s Cold Water with Conservation and Regulation. Dr. Ann Willis is a senior researcher at the UC Davis Center for Watershed Sciences where her work focuses on water management and stream conservation. Recent research from the Center for Watershed Sciences has revealed that California’s reservoirs do not contain cold-water storage sufficient to support native freshwater ecosystems. Conservation planning for California’s cold-water species is imperative in order to prevent the extinction of the state’s native salmonoids.

CreekSpeak is PCC’s annual speaker series on the nature, history, and culture of the Putah Cache Watershed, and more broadly the state of California. CreekSpeaks take place on the third Thursday of each month from May to November. Register for this virtual Zoom event at the link below!

https://putahcreekcouncil.org/event/may-creekspeak-managing-californias-cold-water-with-conservation-and-regulation/

04/21/2022

is two weeks away on May 5th, but early giving opens today, April 21st! Will you give where your heart is with a donation to support PCC’s efforts for environmental education, stewardship, and California native plants? Your support allows us to continue our mission of cultivating thoughtful connections between our community and Putah Creek!

Big Day of Giving is the Sacramento region’s annual day of generosity. Early giving opens today so be sure to support the causes that mean the most to you!

To donate, visit PCC’s Giving Edge profile (link in bio). Photo courtesy of PCC Board-member Leslie Allen.

04/05/2022

This past Saturday, Putah Creek Council community members were given the special opportunity to explore Bray Canyon at California Audubon’s Bobcat Ranch. The guided hike was led by Naturalist Marc Hoshovsky. Bobcat Ranch is a 6,800-acre working ranch, which is not accessible to the public unless given special permission. Audubon California acquired this land in 2007 as an ongoing effort to conserve blue oak woodlands and rangelands in California.

During our way up, Marc taught the hikers about the overall geological, fire, and cultural history of the region. We learned that we were exploring the most frequently burned area of the region! The evidence of fire was clear as we shuffled past a crispy and blackened fallen oak. We also came across White Cliff Spring, a wet oasis where the carbonates from the spring left this cliff face pale and white. Here we found blooming elderberries, a tall and proud cottonwood, and crawling manroot. While the hills were already starting to turn brown and dry, we came across mariposa lilies, several species of lupines, Ithuriel’s spears, fiddlenecks, poppies, seep monkey-flowers, and blue dicks.

A huge thank you to Marc and Bobcat Ranch Manager, Dash Weidhofer, for granting PCC special access to Bray Canyon!

04/05/2022

Visitors of Putah Creek often keep their eyes to the sky and the tree canopy to search for soaring and perching birds or to the water to find splashing fish. To find this furry friend, you must look to the ground. The California ground squirrel, Otospermophilus beecheyi, is a commonly found and easily observed rodent. While they can be mistaken for a tree squirrel after a quick glance, California ground squirrels have a short tail that is less bushy than a tree squirrel's tail. Their coarse fur is a mixture of gray, light brown and dusky hairs, with their underside being a lighter duffy color.

California ground squirrels live in open, well-drained habitat, where they live in excavated underground burrows. They are social animals that can live in groups in the same burrow. While they do live communally, each individual will have their own entrance to their shared burrow.

These herbivorous animals are also an important source of prey for raptors, large mammals, and snakes. One way California ground squirrels deter predation is by chewing on the shed of rattlesnakes and licking themselves and their pups. By doing so, they can mask their scent and confuse predators. California ground squirrels are also extremely vigilant and will devote a significant amount of time to being alert and searching for predators. The next time you visit Putah Creek, watch your step when walking beneath a twisting buckeye. You’re in California ground squirrel country!

Want to look for CA ground squirrels while caring for native plants along Putah Creek? Register for our April 13th Native Plant Garden Planting Day at Lake Solano Park! Volunteers will be installing plants, w**ding, and mulching. The garden has plenty of non-native invasive w**ds in it and so volunteers will be needed to hand pull invasives, plant into the garden and surrounding planters, and lay down mulch to help with w**d abatement and water retention. Register for this event at the link in our bio!

03/31/2022

This past Saturday, PCC volunteers and OneCreekers headed over to the Center for Land Based Learning’s The Maples with for a morning of hedgerow planting at a SLEWS hedgerow on the headquarters property. Many hands make light work and that sure has been the case for this hedgerow project. An initial install and planting was done by SLEWS high school students and PCC’s OneCreek Restoration team. This past Saturday, PCC volunteers, folks from Yolo RCD, and CLBL staff worked together to install 110 plants along with tubes and stakes. With some time left, we moved to a previously planted section of the hedgerow to remove some w**ds! This hedgerow provides valuable habitat and sits between agricultural lands and Cache Creek. Swipe to see what this hedgerow will eventually turn into!

PCC remains so grateful to our awesome volunteers that turn out rain or shine to lend a helping hand. Of course, this event wouldn’t be possible without the Yolo Creek and Community Partnership between PCC, Yolo RCD, and CLBL! Thanks to the folks at CLBL for hosting us for this awesome planting day! Check out our calendar for more upcoming volunteer stewardship events (link in bio)!

03/30/2022

03/29/2022

Calling all nature loving people! Are you passionate about engaging the public in environmental science, wellness in nature, natural history, or other nature related topics? Join us for our Lake Solano Park Docent Training on Saturday, April 9th to learn more about becoming a docent!

We are looking to expand the Lake Solano Docent team to diversify our programming and activities at Lake Solano! LSP Docents lead public talks, tours, nature walks and more at Lake Solano to inspire and cultivate an appreciation of nature nearby! If you love getting outside and engaging with people, this may be your ideal volunteer opportunity! Lake Solano Docents receive introductory training on the animals, plants, and history of Lake Solano and Putah Creek.

Naturalists, artists, yoga instructors, canoe and kayak instructors, and anyone with a vested interest in nature nearby is encouraged to join! Register at the link below!

https://putahcreekcouncil.org/event/lake-solano-park-docent-program-training/

03/24/2022

PCC is seeking an Education Program Manager to oversee our programs such as OneCreek, WaterWays, and more. The goal of our programming is always to foster a thoughtful connection between the public and the wonders of Putah Creek. The ideal candidate would be passionate about the environment and eager to expand scientific literacy, understanding, and appreciation of the creek.

The Education Manager oversees all aspects of PCC’s Education Programs including but not limited to in-classroom lessons, field trips and site based learning events, public outreach, and more!

This full time position has a salary range of $49,920 to $57,200 annually. For more information on this position, view the job announcement on our website (link below).

https://putahcreekcouncil.org/jobs/job-opportunity-education-manager/

03/23/2022

PCC volunteers spent a productive morning at Lake Solano Park protecting the native plants of the campground! Several campsites at Lake Solano Park have been closed for restoration after the LNU Lightning Complex fire left parts of the park burned and bare. Over a year ago, Putah Creek Council volunteers and OneCreek seasonal restoration technicians installed native plants around the campground and we returned today to give them some TLC. We installed cages around the plants to protect them from increased public use of the area. Once the cages were installed on the most vulnerable plants, volunteers spread buckets of mulch around the plants to help retain water and prevent w**ds from popping up. Now, these campsites and their native plants are ready to take on new guests!

If you feel like you missed out on the fun, celebrate spring by joining PCC at the Center for Land-Based Learning’s headquarters at The Maples, Woodland on Saturday, March 26th. Volunteers will help install over 100 California native plants along a hedgerow that was originally started by the SLEWS Program with a little help from our OneCreek Seasonal Techs! This will be one of the last planting events of the season!