The Big Creek Blog

We know that wildfire is a key part of the ecology of the Bay Area and has played a major role in shaping our landscapes. Yet it’s simply not possible to let fires burn naturally in an urban region such as ours. But just to the south, the 240,000-acre Ventana Wilderness near Big […]

I looked at the blog record for storms of 2009 and found the “first big storm of 2009” entry. During that storm in February, the creek went from 1.8′ to 2.8′ with just 2-3 inches of rain. We got 9 inches that month at the Highlands Peak weather station.
Well, on October 13 alone, we recieved […]

Biologists from Ventana Wildlife Society’s Condor Recovery Project in Big Sur made a disappointing discovery on July 21st. They found the lifeless body of a wild California condor chick lying in thick brush beneath its redwood nest tree in Landel-Hills Big Creek Reserve. Joe Burnett, Sr. Wildlife Biologist for the VWS Condor Project and who […]

Wow, it’s been a year already!  I know we’ve been busy, but where did the time go?  We are on our way to summer and Mother Nature seems to have the best Neosporin ointment around.  So many of the scars have healed and those that are left are reminders of how close we […]

The chick at Big Creek appears to be doing very well.  We can’t
actually see the chick inside the nest, but we continue to observe mom
and dad return to feed the chick in the nest.  In addition to the ground
observations, the female’s GPS data is very consistent with that of a good
chick […]