Wild and Wonderful Marin!

Alan S. Miller

October 3, 2004

One of the constant highlights of our forty years of living in Marin county has been enjoying the wildlife that has appeared so regularly in or near our back yard.

“The best part of the turkey invasion has been seeing hens with up to a dozen chicks parading through the back yard.”

We are lucky enough to live at the end of a dead end street in Marinwood with open space extending from our backyard up the hill for hundreds of acres.

There have, of course, always been the deer and skunks and raccoons and possums. For many years the raccoon parents and their little ones would peek in the sliding glass doors of our house. We knew, of course, never to feed them.

During the years of the fires in the hills of Marinwood, we’d occasionally see a rattlesnake in the back yard or on the deck in addition to the more regular serpentine visitors, the gopher and king and other assorted garden snakes.

Because we have never had a fence protecting the yard, we have, as a consequence, never been able to have a garden. Every attempt we have made (except for fava beans) has seen the plants munched down by deer and jack rabbits.

The possums were a problem on occasion by sneaking into the crawl space under the house. We borrowed traps from the Marin Humane Society and captured these critters and then set them free down near Miller Creek.

Foxes were always a delight. They often did their aerial balancing act by walking on the very top of our two inch wide fence as they moved from the edge of the backyard to the front of the house.

A vixen set up housekeeping by the pool in our neighbors’ back yard and the occupants once came over saying “how can we get rid of a bunch of baby foxes?” We suggested they simply have patience and wait a few weeks and the temporary residents would leave. After decades of regular visits, we’re sad that there have been no foxes about in recent days.

Years ago, our daughter Jane rescued a tiny golf ball sized white fluffy sparrow hawk from an old water tank that had been knocked down. It would have died but she brought it home and trained it by feeding it meat rolled in powdered calcium until it was strong enough to fly.

After it fledged, whenever she blew on her whistle the kestrel would swoop down from the hill, sit on her shoulder and wait for a treat.

The Marin IJ in 1967 did a photo essay on “The Millers’ Sparrow Hawk” which elicited much interest throughout the community. Sadly, for Jane, the State Fish and Game department came by one day and told her that kestrels are a variety of falcon and thus protected by law.

They insisted that we do something about the bird but since it was already free to fly on the hill in back there was really nothing that could be done. And, happily, one day Tuffa the sparrow hawk simply flew away for good.

Our son Andy, when he was 12 in 1977, wrote a detailed book describing several dozen of the Birds of Marinwood. People in the neighborhood still remember Andy peddling the book door to door for a dollar per copy. He’s now a wildlife biologist in Canada. Copies of the book are still available in the Marin County library.

We all enjoyed seeing the great flocks of white pelicans with wingspans of up to nine feet circling high over the hills nearby. Most of the birds Andy describes in his book are still abundant in the neighborhood.

Some of the wildlife drama in Marinwood, however, was yet to come. A bit less than a decade ago the wild turkeys began to show up. The best part of the turkey invasion has been seeing hens with up to a dozen chicks parading through the back yard. One year, a hen even established her household and raised her brood in the Andresens’ yard just next door.

We have learned that although it was pleasant for a while to see up to fifteen adult Toms and their ladies strutting their stuff on our deck, they regularly left so many natural calling cards that it took a shovel and broom to clean up after them. We do still get excited anyway when the turkeys come to call.

More recently, we have been surprised to hear the nocturnal barking of coyotes on the fire road just in back of our house. On one recent morning, just after dawn, a large, rangy brownish gray coyote casually trotted along the path just in back of our house.

Often these days, the neighbors complain of the hours-long barking of the coyotes in the middle of the night. We’ve always known there must be coyotes around, but we’ve never before actually seen and heard them.

A couple of informed people in the area, including a park ranger, have suggested that some of the more frenzied cries of the coyotes at night might indicate that our hillside may be occasionally visited by a mountain lion. We have mixed feelings about that because many of us do walk the hills at night. But it’s exciting to be as close to the natural world as we are every day in Marin.

One of our favorite hiking areas is along McInnis Creek, adjacent to the golf course. In addition to the common and snowy and cattle egrets, the great blue herons and the many varieties of hawks, we have recently seen several bat rays cavorting near the wetland side of the trail that runs alongside the creek. If you’d like to see them, go to the first culvert past the gate at the beginning of the trail, and you’ll see the rays’ wing tips slicing through the water.

We’ve always known that Marin is a wonderful place. We’re very happy that we live here. And our resident wildlife add so very much to the quality of life that we are privileged to enjoy.

Copyright © 2005 Alan S. Miller
Last updated: March 20, 2005