I'm no longer a Mendoite, having moved to Santa Rosa, so this is not exactly a county post. However, if you are going to travel to Santa Rosa in the next few weeks you can have a great easy-as-pie birding experience.

This morning we celebrated Easter with a trip to West 9 Street where there are two huge Eucalyptus trees right in the middle of the road that are egret and night heron rookeries.  We watched a lot of intense nest building. There were dozens of birds in each tree.  The trees are just before Lincoln Elementary School.  If you don't notice the bales of hay (nest building material) or all the bird poop, the "birds in road" will also be clue.  West Ninth is most easily accessed off of Stony Point.  We were there at about 9am, but there was heavy morning fog, so other days the birds probably start to fly out earlier. I'm looking forward to going back around sunset.

Linda Malone