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Bolinas Lagoon Preserve

This thousand-acre wildlife sanctuary has a rich mosaic of natural communities. Forests of Douglas fir, coast redwood, and California bay blanket the steeper slopes.

Open hillsides support grasslands, coastal scrub, and chaparral, redwoods, streams, ponds, and freshwater marsh habitats nestle in the canyon floors. Bolinas Lagoon Preserve supports a major heronry of Great Blue Herons and Great and Snowy Egrets.

Audubon Canyon Ranch was founded in 1962 to save the heron and egret nesting colony at this site, which would have been destroyed by development planned for this area.

Herons and egrets return each spring to nest in the tops of the tall redwood trees in Picher Canyon. In the shallow waters of Bolinas Lagoon and nearby tidelands, they find ample food for themselves and their young.

The number of nests in this colony varies from year to year but usually totals more than 100 pairs, with Great Egrets making up the majority in recent times. The egrets and herons nesting at Bolinas Lagoon Preserve are a main attraction of this preserve, but you can also find black-tail deer, bobcat, badger, gray fox, raccoon, brush rabbit, meadow mouse, etc. There are also numerous landbirds, reptiles, and amphibians. The Preserve's frontage along Bolinas Lagoon brings more than 60 species of water and shore birds into view - from sandpipers to osprey to pelicans - as well as some of the resident harbor seals.