"Agriculture drained this ecosystem. Now, under the specter of future drought, the same systems have started to bring back both water and wildlife."
"Tule Lake National Wildlife Refuge, located in far Northern California, harbors what remains of a once vast, shallow lake. On a recent April morning, I toured the area with John Vradenburg, supervisory fish and wildlife biologist for the Klamath Basin Refuges. A few months earlier, birds had all but abandoned Tule Lake. Now they were back in the thousands: clumps of eared grebes; dipping swallows; black-neck stilts with their impossibly spindly legs.
As we drove along the edge of the refuge’s largest wetland — evocatively called “Sump 1A” — pairs of Canada geese swam away from shore, followed by fluffy goslings. Vradenburg stopped the truck to rescue one that was trapped behind a headgate. He gently tossed the ball of fluff into the water, where it made a beeline for its two siblings.
A few yards later Vradenburg stopped again to point out a pair of western grebes. Facing each other, they took turns dipping their needle-like bills into the water, then shook them off. They were getting ready to dance, side by side, across the water — part of their spectacular courtship ritual.
“It’s just so good to see birds moving around in here again,” he said."
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