fly fishing lessons in Golden Gate Park

Posted on July 7, 2011 by fromthethicket

Here’s another fantastic opportunity to ‘get away from it all’ right here in Golden Gate Park this summer, at the historic Angler’s Lodge.  To see what this idyllic spot looks like, follow the link to the ABC news clip at the end of this post:

“If you’re looking for something different to do this upcoming weekend, you might try the casting pools at Golden Gate Park. Free fly fishing lessons will be offered on Saturday at what is usually an overlooked, historic spot in San Francisco.

Across the street from the Golden Gate Park buffalo and next door to the San Francisco Police Department’s stables, just follow the signs to a little slice of peace and beauty that sparkles like a gem.

The Angler’s Lodge and Casting Pools are a 1938 WPA project, build for the Golden Gate Angling and Casting Club.

Armando Bernasconi, 89, wasn’t there then, but he has been for the last 30 years and now he comes every day to keep watch at the lodge’s entrance.  He’s known as The Godfather, and he says not much has changed in the last three decades.

“Pretty much the same, it’s pretty much the same” Bernasconi says.

Club historian Tripp Diedrichs says the club started at Stow Lake in 1933.

“They had a facility where there was a tiny platform where two people could cast at the same time,” Diedrichs said, “and people would go there and wait their turn to be able to practice their casting.”

The club later convinced the city to build the lodge and ponds.

“If you look very closely, you can see a lot of this was hewn by hand,” said Diedrichs.

Inside the lodge are floor-to-ceiling lockers filled with the stuff of fish stories. The club has 500 members, but the ponds are also open to the public.

The ponds are internationally known, one of the few urban places to practice and learn. Club president Tom Gong learned at the ponds and now teaches others.

“Some people prefer what is known as a fast rod,” said Gong. “In that case, the rod bends almost only in the tip. Other people, all the way down, toward the grip.”

National tournaments also put it on the map, and yet many San Franciscans don’t realize it’s right in their backyard.”

via Free fly fishing lessons to be offered at Golden Gate Park | abc7news.com.

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artful fence at the entrance to the rhododendron dell

Posted on June 30, 2011 by fromthethicket

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in city parks, fancier noshing?

Posted on June 22, 2011 by fromthethicket

food vendors in Chapultepec Park, Mexico City

Could it be that New York City parks are poised to surpass San Francisco parks in gourmet food offerings?  The following article, from the New York Times, hints at what foodies in New York have to look forward to.  This reminds me of many happy hours I spent eating my way through Chapultepec Park in Mexico City, pictured above.  Read on  .  .  .

“Yearning to soar above its tired, rote roster of hot dogs and pretzels, the New York City Department of Parks and Recreation put out a call five months ago for the food vendors of New York ‘to propose your most inventive, exciting food idea,’ adding, ‘whatever the idea, we want to see it.’ .  .  .

The response was not overwhelming: the department received 58 applications to sell food in some 50 locations that were made available. But the invitation provoked enough interest for the department to designate vendors in eight locations who plan to field trucks and carts selling everything from kimchi fried rice and epicurean grilledcheese sandwiches to organic ice cream and ginger slushes.  .  .  .

Some of the food will be available Wednesday by the department headquarters at 64th Street and Fifth Avenue, when 15 concessionaires, new and previously approved, will assemble for a media event open to the public from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m.

The department has so far designated only these few new specialty vendors ‘because there were no bids for some locations, and because some bids just didn’t measure up,’ said Betsy Smith, the department’s assistant commissioner for revenue and marketing.

Street food has proliferated on city streets, but deployment in the parks has been slowed because applicants must wend their way through the city’s cumbersome contract-approval process requiring background checks and verification of the vendors’ financial resources.

The application ‘is very difficult, beyond the skills of many cart holders,’said Sean Basinski, director of the Street Vendor Project, a nonprofit advocacy group. ‘It’s not designed to attract immigrant street vendors. You need a Harvard M.B.A. to fill it out.’

His group believes that ‘the process should be democratized,’ he said, ‘and some of the burdensome requirements for application should be done away with.’

Ms. Smith said the department has ‘done a lot of hand-holding, trying to walk people through the process,’ and has held educational sessions for would-be concessionaires. She acknowledged, though, that the department could do more, ‘and going forward, we are going to focus on fewer locations and do more outreach for each one,’ she said. ‘We have to go out and drum up business.’

Despite the constraints of mobility, some vendors will offer a degree of complexity in their food. Li’l Purple Yam will serve its Noritaco, a sheet of nori seaweed painted with rice flour and pan-fried until it has become a crunchy taco shell. It is topped with kimchi fried rice and a salad of mountain yam, green mango, papaya, jicama and watercress.

Currently some 400 concessions, many of which sell food, bring in $42 million in revenues to the Parks Department from 5,000 properties under its jurisdiction (3,000 are parks, and 2,000 of those have names).

Hot-dog carts pay a minimum of $600 a year in low-traffic locations, but the new specialty carts will pay from $15,000 to $150,000 a year in five-year contracts (the most expensive, outside the Metropolitan Museum of Art, require $158,122). Currently there are 25 specialty carts and trucks in the parks.

The push for better food is in part a response to changing demographics and greater food sophistication. Mr. Benepe said parks are busier than ever, with more families staying in the city rather than moving to the suburbs, and immigrant groups enjoying parks that were once lightly used.

‘All these forces have come together,’ he said, ‘and when you have more visitors and families in parks, you have an increased interest in food.'”

via In City Parks, Fancier Noshing – NYTimes.com.

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managing the urban forest in golden gate park

Posted on June 15, 2011 by fromthethicket

reforestation in golden gate park, 6-15-11, photo by heath schenker

Standing near the intersection of Transverse Drive and Middle Drive West in Golden Gate Park, looking downhill towards Elk Glen Lake, I am surrounded by urban forest, no hint of the city in sight.   The air is warm and smells pungent today, like a forest should!  A red-tailed hawk is circling overhead.  Tall, jagged Monterey cypresses, feathery Eucalyptus and top-loaded Monterey pines stand out against the sky.  These are the “big three,” the trees that have provided the skeletal structure for this miraculous urban forest since it was established in this unlikely location in the nineteenth century.  Many of the grand, old original trees remain, although nearing the end of life.  The old Monterey pines (particularly susceptible to pine pitch canker) are going first.

The job of caring for, and renewing, this remarkable urban forest requires special knowledge, experience and dedication.  We are lucky to have a crew of urban foresters in the park who fit this bill!  In front of me, in the foreground (pictured above), is a new forest “plantation,” being managed by the forestry division in the park.  To the untrained eye this baby forest might not look like much, but with a bit of squinting and imagination it’s not too difficult to envision what it will look like in fifty years or so, when the trees have grown in, adapted to local growing conditions and are properly thinned out.

The techniques used by the forestry division today in Golden Gate Park have evolved in many ways since William Hammond Hall’s experiments with growing trees on these sand dunes.   But the basic approach that he adopted, through trial and error, has stood the test of time.  Like in the nineteenth century, growing conditions are harsh, with challenging soil and strong, salty winds blowing off the ocean.  Some types of trees do better than others in these conditions.  As Hall demonstrated, it is wise to build on successes and learn from experience.

Although some basic conditions remain the same, managing a 150-year-old forest is different from planting one from scratch.   When a large old tree dies in this forest today, it not only creates a gap that must be filled in, but its absence affects all the trees around it, which have grown accustomed to its presence.  Often nearby trees will also weaken or fail without the support or shelter afforded by the missing tree.  So forest management involves assessment of the condition of standing trees, as well as fallen ones.  Sometimes weakened old trees must be removed for public safely before they fall down on their own and this may create sufficient room for reforestation.  Areas selected for new forest plantations must be large enough to give young trees the sun and water they need without too much competition from older trees.  But shelter is also important, as wind is a harsh environmental factor in this park.  Planting new sapplings thickly, sheltering them from the wind and salt air by surrounding them with shrubby thickets, then thinning the plantations once they are established yields the desired result.  But the process takes a long time and requires a lot of patience.

William Hammond Hall accomplished a miracle of sorts when he started this urban forest on the sand dunes of the Outside Lands against the odds and in the face of expert opinions.  Sometimes it may seem like those were the “good old days,” but don’t think he had an easy time of it!  I recently read a report of the Board of Park Commissioners from 1886, entitled “The Development of Golden Gate Park, and Particularly The Management and Thinning of Its Forest Tree Plantations,” which was clearly aimed at critics of the process used to establish the park’s forest, and a bid to win support (and funds!) to thin some overgrown plantations.  The report includes a statement by Wm. Hammond Hall explaining that four times as many trees were planted as could grow to maturity, with the expectation that this would give young trees much needed support and protection from the elements, and that thinning would be a necessary part of the process.  He also defended the planting of temporary wind breaks consisting of quick-growing and hardy evergreen trees, that would be removed, or thinned, once the tree plantations had matured.  Frederick Law Olmsted wrote a letter, included in the report, supporting the methods Hall used to establish the park trees and affirming that “it was essential to the successful growth of the designed masses of foliage of the Golden Gate park, that its trees should be planted as closely as they were [and] .  .  .  equally essential to the growth in a healthy way of such masses that, as the trees advance in size, their number shall be greatly reduced.”  And John McLaren also weighed in with a letter calling for thinning stands of trees which, “unless they receive immediate attention .  .  .  will be past recovery.”

So it seems that questions regarding the management of trees in Golden Gate Park are time-honored and perhaps inevitable.  But as we take up these questions, we should beware of missing the forest for the trees!

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murphy windmill stub on the verge of renovation

Posted on June 12, 2011 by fromthethicket

Murphy Windmill, n.d., SFPL Historic Photograph Collection

“During the next month neighbors of the Murphy Windmill in Golden Gate Park can watch workers finally cast the old stub’s fourth, fifth and sixth floors.

A large crane installed the windmill’s eight main posts during the weekend and now the sheathing, doors and windows will take about a month to construct. If all goes according to plan, the cap and blades from the Netherlands will be ready for assembly as early as mid-August.

The 105-year-old windmill is the younger of two in the park and sits boarded up about 300 yards from Ocean Beach. It was initially used to pump water that irrigated the park, but after decades of neglect, the windmill fell into disrepair.

For about 10 years Campaign to Save the Golden Gate Park Windmills has worked with The City to raise about $4 million for the restoration of the windmill. Paula March, a former consultant with the campaign, said the road to renovation has had several kinks including a bad economy, too many cooks in the kitchen and contracting roadblocks.

“But I think when the public sees what an incredible machine that it is, people will be blown away,” March said.

The 100-year-old, Colonial New England-style cottage next to it has been vacant since 2003. The caretakers of the windmill used to live in the two-story home.

Rec and Park is working on a $900,000 project to restore the cottage and then turn it into a restaurant.

The Northern Dutch Windmill in Golden Gate Park has had a cosmetic restoration and the blades can occasionally be seen turning.”

via Murphy windmill stub on the verge of renovation | Kamala Kelkar | Local | San Francisco Examiner.

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the old beach chalet in golden gate park

Posted on June 5, 2011 by fromthethicket

The Original Beach Chalet was built in 1892 on the west side of the Great Highway across from Golden Gate Park. - Jesse Brown Cook Scrapbooks, BANC PIC 1996.003, UC Berkeley

The current Beach Chalet in Golden Gate Park dates to 1925.  It’s a building in the Spanish Colonial Revival style and one of the landmark historic structures in the park.  Few people know that there was another Beach Chalet, predating the the current building, on the other side of the Great Highway.  The fascinating history of the older Beach Chalet (now lost) is recounted by John Freeman on the Outside Lands website:  http://www.outsidelands.org/old-beach-chalet.php

Here’s an excerpt from that story:  ‘As Golden Gate Park developed in the 1870s, most of the landscaping and public structures were concentrated at the eastern end, near Stanyan Street. There were dirt roads leading out to the western end of the park and Ocean Beach, but little planting and no public structures for those who took carriage or bicycle rides to see the surf. There was the Cliff House on the bluff, and at its base, a roadhouse called the Seal Rock House, and next door the Ocean Beach Pavilion for dancing. All these early building were more associated with entertaining adults than providing genteel recreation for families.

In November 1891, the Park Commission let contracts for $8,000 to construct a building designed by architect William O. Banks to serve as shelter from the wind, provide bathrooms and changing rooms for bathers, and offer observation decks to watch the waves on one side and the developing park on the other. As the San Francisco Chronicle said, “it will be an elegant addition to the few structures which at present relieve the monotony of sand dunes.”1

The new “House on the Beach” opened on Sunday, March 20, 1892. The building was described as “a two-story structure having steep roofs with ornamental gables in Queen Anne style.” There were towers at each end of the building, one of which contained a staircase leading to the second or “observation” floor. “This is divided into a large lounging room, a reading room and toilet and dressing room for women,” the Chronicle noted, making no mention of facilities for the men. One can only assume men were also provided a room for changing into their woolly swimming attire. The newspaper description continues:

The entire seaward side of the building is utilized as an observation platform and supplied with basket-shade chairs, stools, etc. On the landward side between the towers is located another platform, also well equipped with chairs. The building is designed especially for accommodation of ladies with children who wish to avoid the crowds at the Cliff House.2

The building was flanked at each end by low sheds for visitors to store carriages or bicycles during their visit.

In the early years, there was no clear identity for “The House on the Beach;” it was sometimes also called “The Observatory.” By 1895, there were newspaper references to Chalet Beach at the end of Golden Gate Park, and the building there seemed to have developed a permanent identity, but not a firm foundation. The Beach Chalet got little notice in the press, except for the annual reports to the Park Commission, which listed revenue from food concessions at the Chalet and Sharon Lodge at the Children’s Playground in the same category. The Chalet served “approved” refreshments, not alcoholic beverages, since that would be out of character for a building “designed especially for ladies with children.”

After the 1906 earthquake, the Chalet was mentioned in the park superintendent’s report on damage to structures in the park, and $2,000 was requested for unspecified repairs, most likely to stabilize the foundation. The location of the structure provided wonderful views and a comfortable place to get out of the wind; yet a building situated on the beach was constantly subject to the encroaching waves, especially during winter storms.  .  .  .

In the third week of January [1914], a major storm worked its way down from Vancouver, sinking ships and destroying beach and harbor structures all along the Pacific Coast. Amazingly, thousands of people braved the wind and rain to journey to Ocean Beach, as the San Francisco Chronicle reported, “to watch the work of destruction that is being done by the heavy seas […] that have been pounding against the embankment along the seawall end of Golden Gate Park.” The Chronicle continued:

Aside from the magnificent sight furnished by the heavy surf, interest centered in the heroic struggle which is being made to save the Park chalet from the hungry sea. Last night it looked as though the chalet was doomed. The breakers have eaten away the sand embankment up to the very walls of the chalet, and a number of the balcony supports have been washed out. Unless there shall be an immediate abatement of the storm and the high seas the chalet will be destroyed.4‘

Crowds turn out to see if the original Beach Chalet can survive a winter storm and eroding Ocean Beach, 1914. - Courtesy of Jack Hudson Collection

The structure survived that particular storm, but eventually the building proved no match for the location too close to the ocean.  When the new Beach Chalet was completed in 1925, the older structure was moved to 24th Avenue, between Irving and Judah, given a new first floor with a large meeting hall and renamed the Sunset District Boy Scout Hall.  It remained in use for community and club meetings, occasional church services and a nursery school until 1958 when it was destroyed by fire.  For the complete story see:   The Odyssey of the Original Beach Chalet – Western Neighborhoods Project – San Francisco History.

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a labor of love: mapping central park’s trees

Posted on May 31, 2011 by fromthethicket

Ken Chaya, left, and Edward Sibley Barnard are admirers of a black tupelo in Central Park that is one of 150 or so trees in Central Park that survive from the era of its creation nearly a century and a half ago. (photo from the New York Times, May 31, 2011)

This article from today’s New York Times tells of two friends who have spent two years putting together a map of the trees in Central Park, New York.   Of the approximately 23,000 trees in the park, only about 150 remain from the era when the park was first designed and planted (mid nineteenth century).  Wish we had a map like this for Golden Gate Park!  What a great gift to the public!

“Ken Chaya and Edward Sibley Barnard are not like most people. Spend two hours walking the oxygen-infused oasis with this pair as quirky as the Quercus prinus (chestnut oak), and it’s as if all of your senses are on steroids.

You smell the fresh wintergreen scent of a sweet birch branch split open. You pick up a crusty pod from the Kentucky coffeetree and taste the molasses-like jelly inside (but not the seeds, which can be toxic if they are not cooked). You run your hands over the winged branches of the Euonymus alatus and they feel like cork.

You are mesmerized by the magenta leaves glowing atop the variegated European elm because of a beautiful defect. You hear a magnolia warbler chirping on a black cherry tree deep in the serenity of the woods.

And then you begin to understand the pure wonder that drove these two men to give up two and a half years of their lives to make a map that artfully and painstakingly details 19,933 trees in Central Park.

“The more I look at it and study it,” Mr. Chaya said under a pin oak in the park one day last week, “the more it reveals its secrets to me.”

Their map includes 174 species and represents about 85 percent of the vegetation on the park’s 843 acres.

“Do I want every tree?” asked Mr. Chaya, 55, a birder and freelance graphic designer. “Of course, but I’m crazy. You can’t have every tree. There’s great hubris in wanting every tree. But we got the big ones, we have the important ones.”

The pair, working independently from the city and without any subsidy from the Central Park Conservancy, the nonprofit organization that manages the park, said they had spent nearly $40,000 on the project — testing their families’ patience — because they cherished Central Park’s trees and wanted others to as well. They hope to just break even.

The two-sided, waterproof, 36-by-26-inch map, called “Central Park Entire: The Definitive Illustrated Folding Map,” is sold for $12.95 at the Dairy in the park and on the men’s Web site, CentralParkNature.com. They have sold about 1,100 copies of the $35 poster version since January. Some of the proceeds go to the Conservancy, the men said.”

via 2 Enthusiasts Compose Map of Central Park Trees – NYTimes.com.

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urban legend: the ghost in the park

Posted on May 27, 2011 by fromthethicket

"ghost boots" in central park, photo from Nocturnalist-blog, 11/23/10

Stories about ghosts seem to haunt public parks.  In Chapultepec Park in Mexico City, La Llorona (The Weeping Woman) is said to wander through the ancient forest, exiled from heaven and eternally weeping for her drowned children and her lover.

In Central Park there are the ghost boots (as per this account in the New York Times):

“There they were, just as the man had said they would be, just as they were almost every night: two brown boots.  In Central Park. On Monday. At midnight. Alone.

It was an eerie sight, the two patent mahogany-colored cowboy boots resting neatly by a green park bench in a pale wash of lamplight. According to local dog walkers, they sit there most nights, and have for years.

The Floridian November night and the fact that “Law & Order” plot lines no longer lurk behind the trees made the park a place for a perfect after-dark jaunt. Past sleeping sphinxes and the Temple of Dendur at 84th Street off Fifth Avenue, the park had gone to the dogs: free roaming pets reveled in the absence of leash laws that loosen after 9 p.m.

Lucky, a mixed breed, found the boots that night. He had a red LED light on his collar and glowed like a little Rudolf, prancing staglike around his owner, Marcus Giancaterino, a banker who had heard of the boots — though he had never seen them — from other night dog walkers. Park lore said the pair belonged to a man who lay moray-like in a bush, waiting to pounce on whoever touched the glossy shoes.

For some reason, Nocturnalist decided they were worth a visit. Mr. Giancaterino led the way, saying he doubted the boots’ existence. Midsentence, there they were, incongruous in a nightscape of crumpled leaves and Himalayan pine whose needles drooped like Spanish moss.

Lucky gamboled up to the shoes, sniffed, raised his leg, seemed to think better of it and blinked away into the brush. “It’s like art,” said Jimmy Cohen, who was passing by with his black mutt, Bogie. He said he had seen the items nightly for the past six years. Every so often, the boots were replaced by a new pair.”

via Central Park Ghost Boots – Nocturnalist – NYTimes.com.

In Golden Gate Park there is the “ghost cop” (as per many on-line chats and the occasional report in the mainstream media, like this one from The Examiner):

“The legend states that there was once a police officer that patrolled Golden Gate Park. Little is known about who he/she is except that the officer died over ten years ago. The ghost still remains in Golden Gate Park to this day.

There have been various sightings of the so-called, “Ghost Cop.” There have been no reports stating that the spirit is dangerous but be wary. The spirit can be drawn out in various ways including speeding along the roads, not having headlights on, and parking in designated zones that do not permit parking. This author does not encourage readers to attempt to draw out the ghost through these ways, as they are both illegal and dangerous. Indeed, the tickets for committing those crimes are rather expensive  .  .  .

.  .  .  if you are “fortunate” enough to encounter the Ghost Cop, you will be ticketed. But that is not what makes the encounter fortunate. First, according to the legend, if you leave the park while the officer is chasing you, the Ghost Cop will not follow you. Perhaps it is because his/her soul is tethered to the park. In addition, if one is given a ticket, the ticket will not be able to be paid. Many locals try to pay the ticket but the system does not recognize it. In fact, the officer listed does not exist and some even say that the citation passed away years ago.”

via Ghost of Golden Gate Park – San Francisco Tourism | Examiner.com.

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benches in the park for hugging?

Posted on May 25, 2011 by fromthethicket

The following editorial, quoted by Raymond Clary in The Making of Golden Gate Park, The Early Years:  1865-1906 (p. 39) is from The San Francisco WASP April 30, 1881.  Goodness gracious!

“The law-abiding people of this community were startled a few days since, and the greatest indignation prevailed at an editorial article in a contemporary, denouncing the practice of hugging in the public parks. The article went on to show that the placing of seats in the park leads to hugging, and the editor denounced hugging in the most insane manner possible.

Parties who object to hugging are old, usually, and are like the lemon that has done duty in the circus lemonade. If they had a job of hugging, they would want to hire a man to do it for them.

Let us call attention to the powerful paper, the Declaration of Independence, when it asserts that ” All men are created free and equal, endowed with certain inalienable rights, among which are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.”

When the framers of the great Declaration of Independence were at work on that clause, they must have had the pastime of hugging in the parks. Hugging is certainly a pursuit of happiness. People did not hug for wages, that is, except on the stage. It is sort of spontaneous combustion, as it were, of the feelings, and has to have proper conditions of the atmosphere to make it a success…..

A man who complains of a little natural, inspired hugging on a seat in a park, of an evening, with a fountain throwing water all over little cast-iron cupids, has probably got a soul, but he hasn’t got it with him…

The couple, one a male and the other a female, will sit far apart on the cast-iron seat for a moment, when the young lady will try to fix her cloak over her shoulders, and she can’t fix it, and then the young man will help her, and when he has got it fixed, he will go off and leave one arm around the small of her back. He will miss his arm and wonder where he left it, and go back after it. And in the dark he will feel around with the other hand to find the hand he left.

Certainly the two hands will meet; they will express astonishment, and clasp each other, and be so glad that they will began to squeeze, and the chances are that they will cut the girl in two, but they never do. Under the circumstances, a girl can exist on less atmosphere then she can while doing the washing.

It is claimed by some that young people who stay out nights and hug are not good for anything the next day. There is something to this but if they didn’t get any hugging, they wouldn’t be worth a cent anytime. They would be all the time looking for it.”

via sfpix: Benches are for hugging.

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quail in golden gate park

Posted on May 17, 2011 by fromthethicket

According to the Golden Gate Audubon Society web page:

“The haunting call of the California Quail, the California State bird, is now rarely heard in Golden Gate Park. Historically, San Francisco’s streams and coastal scrub vegetation provided the food, cover, and water necessary for healthy quail populations. As the growing city altered the natural environment, the quail survived in a few areas—Golden Gate Park, McLaren Park, and the Presidio—that preserved remnants of brushy habitat and provided food and protection from predators. Beginning in the 1980s, however, quail populations in the parks declined rapidly as new trends in park management resulted in removal of the quails’ brushy homes. Today, the city’s quail population has plummeted from more than 1,500 quail to under 12 birds in Golden Gate Park.”

via Save the Quail | Golden Gate Audubon Society.

Quail are so charismatic!  No surprise that they are the California State Bird!  They are also the perfect poster bird for efforts to restore native bird habitat in Golden Gate Park.  But I think the environmental history of the California Quail in Golden Gate Park is quite a bit more complex than the foregoing teaser implies.

The starting point for anyone interested in understanding the fluctuations of quail populations in Golden Gate Park would be A. Starker Leopold’s book:  The California Quail (University of California Press, 1977). Leopold was a professor of zoology and forestry at UC Berkeley and his book is now widely regarded as a landmark ecological study and remains the definitive study of quail in California.   In the book Leopold explains the historical fluctuations of California Quail in relation to impacts on their native habitat due changes in land use, as well as massive intentional interventions on the part of humans wanting to perpetuate them as a prized game bird.

Most interesting to me, in regards to quail in Golden Gate Park, is the fact that the quail population in California peaked between 1860-1895, the era of “settlement and crude agriculture” in California, which provided a temporary increase in the type of habitat that quail thrive in:  clearings rich in seed-bearing forbs (introduced Mediterranean species) that were perfect for quail foraging, lots of brush remaining around the edges and along riparian corridors and offering cover from predators, and plenty of trees remaining to offer safety and roosting.  Coincidentally this was just when Golden Gate Park was being developed.  And the park landscape was also designed (unintentionally) to be attractive to quail, providing a similarly ideal landscape in those years.  It was definitely an improvement on the dunes that previously dominated the Outside Lands and did not harbor many quail (if any).

It seems that the artificial landscape of Golden Gate Park supported a bloom in the quail population in San Francisco, mirroring what was happening in the state in general in the late nineteenth century.  In both cases the bloom in quail population was related to introductions of non-native plants and human-induced changes in habitat.  But then Golden Gate Park continued to support an abundance of quail even as the birds began to decline elsewhere in the state.

By 1935, when E.L. Sumner Jr. published “A life history study of the California Quail, with recommendations for its conservation and management,” (Calif. Fish & Game, 21:167-253, 275-342), quail in California were in marked decline due to a number of environmental factors, including the increasing dominance of invasive annual grasses (which are not a food source for quail), a result of overgrazing by live stock.

Yet, in Joseph Maillard’s book, Birds of Golden Gate Park (1930), quail are referred to as “abundant” in the park.  It seems that at that point, the environmental history of quail in Golden Gate Park diverges significantly from the environmental history of quail in the state as a whole.

But I lose the trail there.  I would love to know the rest of the story  .  .  . why did quail persist in the park and then what actually happened in the park to reduce the quail population so drastically at the end of the twentieth century?   If anyone has documentation of this chapter in the park’s natural history, please let me know!

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