Mini Photo Essays: Birds, flowers, landscapes

Fishers of Aquatic Park: Alexander Millar generously shared photos of birds that birds that hunt Aquatic Park’s fishes. (To see larger images, right click the photo and choose “Open image in new tab.”)

Young double-crested cormorant, Aquatic Park
Snowy egret, Aquatic Park
Great blue heron in algae, Aquatic Park
Night Heron at Aquatic Park
Great egret hunting, Aquatic Park
White pelicans in Aquatic Park
Brown pelicans

Left column: Osprays and terns course, hover, and plunge down on fish from the air. Some gulls also fish this way. Cormorants dive, often quite deep, sometimes herding fish in teams. Lacking waterproofing oils, they must leave the water often to dry their feathers.

Top center and right: The relatively small snowy egret, with black bill, rouses prey by shuffling its yellow feet. The larger great egret stalks slowly and elegantly — striking suddenly with snake-like neck.

Center column below egret: Great blue herons stalk rodents on land as well as fish and invertebrates on water. Stocky black-crowned night herons snooze through the day in trees edging the park, flying out at dusk to hunt.

Right column below egret: Pelicans remind us that birds descend from dinosaurs. White pelicans, much larger than their brown cousins, are a relatively rare sight as they glide along the water, scooping fish into their throat pouches. Flocks of brown pelicans, recovered from near extinction after DDT was banned, cruise the Bay shore from early summer through fall, scanning for schools of fish. Plunging from the air, they can stun hapless prey with the impact. Inexperiences juveniles, with gray-brown heads and beaks, may hang out near the pipes that funnel fish along with Bay water.

Discover more about birds and other park life — and contribute to knowledge — with free citizen-science apps such as iNaturalist, Merlin bird ID, and eBird.

GOLDEN WILDFLOWERS, past, passing, and present: Yellow wildflowers brighten San Francisco Bay shorelines into fall. The first row shows some still seen along Aquatic Park’s lagoons. The second row shows others that thrived for years after planting as part of restoration efforts — by volunteers, by the city after costly consultants’ studies, and as part of mitigation for CalTrans work. These were neglected and eventually mowed down. In the last row, California goldfields all but covered a large area where it was seeded in 2023, after dumped dredged sediment was removed. Bright patches remained in spring 2024, but most was being overrun by weeds.

Flower of Jaumea carnosa, a tiny plant that carpets many Aquatic Park shorelines
Tiny succulent Jaumea carpets marshy Aquatic Park shorelines almost unnoticed. It doesn’t even have a common name.
yellow flowers of narrow-leaved gumplant, Grindelia stricta
Narrow-leaved gumplant blooms just above high tides almost everywhere in San Francisco Bay, including Aquatic Park.
Telegraph weed blooming with water in background
Telegraph weed blooms in poor, salty soils in dry late summer — but is mowed mercilessly.
Sticky monkeyflower blooming at Aquatic Park
Sticky Monkeyflower, planted by the city for restoration, but was later mowed down.
Tell lemon-yellow flowers of California evening primrose
California evening primrose, planted as part of restoration efforts and was once common, but has nearly all been mowed.
Yellow bush lupine with bumblebee
Yellow bush lupine flourished along Aquatic Park shorelines, but was later mowed down.
Goldfields (Lasthenia californica) blooming at west side of Aquatic Park
Goldfields covered wide swaths after being seeded in 2023 where dredged material had been stored. Bright patches recurred in spring 2024, but much had been displaced by weeds.

LANDSCAPES: Mile-long Aquatic Park includes three lagoons, large grassy areas, groves of trees, small marshes, and varied recreation facilities.

Red boathouses
The red boathouses in the photo are operated by nonprofits Waterside Workshops and Bay Area Outreach and Recreation Program (BORP).
Recreating Along Shoreline
Aquatic Park is a great place for recreation, including shoreline walking and cycling paths, disc golf on the East shoreline, paddling and rowing boats, and other outdoor exploration as pictured above. Except for during a short waterski season, no motorboats are allowed.
Photo of Water With Birds
The middle lagoon was built for sailing model yachts. The Works Progress Administration, building the park in the midst of the Great Depression of the 1930s, lined its shores with terraces that doubled as benches for spectators, built with broken-up old concrete from streets and sidewalks. Though this Model Yacht Basin is a historic landmark, it is too silted in for the boats — but remains attractive to birds.
Lagoon along the shore of Aquatic Park
The south lagoon, separated from the others by a freeway entrance and partly privately owned. Although water still forces its way through negected connections to the Bay, it is silting in. Compared to the other two lagoons, it has broader flats of shallow salt-marsh vegetation typical of San Francisco Bay. With few visitors, it is valuable to birds, including black-crowned night herons that sleep through the days in its willow thickets.