Brooks Island field trip – a special place

By Ilana DeBare

We don’t normally write blog posts about field trips… but a trip to Brooks Island is not a normal trip.

Brooks Island Regional Preserve, a 373-acre island off the Richmond shoreline owned by the East Bay Regional Park District, is not usually open to the public. You need to visit as part of a guided kayak or boat tour. The very shallow waters and dramatic tide changes make access tricky. There are only a handful of boat tours each year — and we were fortunate to be able to reserve one for Golden Gate Bird Alliance members and friends this past weekend.

Big thanks to East Bay Parks and Dolphin Charters for making this trip not just possible but delightful!

The bay was uncommonly calm and glassy when we departed from the Berkeley Marina on Dolphin Charters’ comfortable and steady River Dolphin. We passed herons and cormorants at the marina, grebes and gulls on the open bay, and — sadly — both dead and living Common Murres. The murres have been struggling this year, most likely due to warmer ocean waters that reduced their food sources. Many have washed up dead or sick on Northern California beaches. They are birds of the open ocean, not normally found within the waters of San Francisco Bay. So seeing even the live ones here was worrisome.

We circled around Brooks Island’s long breakwater, built originally to protect the port of Richmond. The roots of the island’s name are unknown: It was noted as Brooks Island in the mid-1800s, and before that the Spanish called it Isla de Carmen. At various points it was used for sheep and cattle grazing, oyster farming, and quarrying. Before East Bay Park bought it in 1968, it was operated as a private hunting club for celebrities including Bing Crosby, with game species like pheasant imported for their shooting pleasure.

As we approached the island, we sighted an Osprey devouring a fish on a wooden pier! Also a pair of Surf Scoters, even though it is early in the season for these winter visitors.

Because the water around the island is so shallow, visits need to be planned for high tide. And even at high tide, we needed to climb into a Zodiac skiff in shifts to reach the land.

Once on the island, we were greeted by caretaker Matt Allen, who gave us a snapshot of what it is like to be the solo resident of a deserted island (albeit a deserted island within a ten minute boat ride of the Richmond Costco).

Matt, a former motorcycle mechanic, has lived on the island for over four years. He lives comfortably off the grid with solar power, a battery bank, a backup generator, a composting toilet, and a propane cooking stove. One of the three springs on the island feeds a well that provides water, but he also brings in bottled water from the mainland.

The caretaker’s job largely involves keeping the island secure from unauthorized visitors who could vandalize it or harm the wildlife (18 species of nesting birds). Being the lone caretaker can take an emotional toll: The previous caretaker became, shall we say, unstable after eight years and had to be forcibly removed.

So far, Matt seems happily unfazed. The biggest challenge, he said, is dealing with access and the tides. When the tide goes out, deep water can be as far as 500 feet from the dock. “If I want to get off the island or come home when the tide is out, I have to push my boat in the mud,” he said.

East Bay Parks naturalist Anthony Fisher then led us on a walk around the island. In spring, it’s blanketed with wildflowers. In fall, everything is a duller brown. But the views of the bay were magnificent. We were shown some fascinating local plants, including one which the native people made into brushes with a remarkable resemblance to shaving brushes. (If someone remembers the name, let me know!)

And while this was not  nesting season, there was still enough bird life to keep us busy, including Western Meadowlark, Say’s Phoebe, White-tailed Kite, Spotted Sandpiper, and Cooper’s Hawk.

The wind picked up in the afternoon, as it often does on the bay, and our boat ride home was choppier. We arrived back at the Berkeley Marina just in time to glimpse a distinctive non-avian species maneuvering in the air — the Blue Angels, part of San Francisco Fleet Week.

It was altogether a lovely day on the island and the water.  It whetted our appetites to see Brooks Island in its wildflower season. Hmm… does that mean we should try to book another trip for the spring? Leave a comment or email us at idebare@goldengatebirdalliance.org if you would be interested in a spring Brooks Island trip.

Note: You can see more photos from the trip on our Facebook page.

Bird List (either on the boat trip or on the island)

Surf Scoter
Brant
Eared Grebe
Horned Grebe
Clark’sGrebe
Western Grebe
Brown Pelican
Double-crested Cormorant
Pelagic Cormorant
Great Blue Heron
Green Heron
Black-crowned Night-Heron
Great Egret
Snowy Egret
Whit-tailed Kite
Turkey Vulture
Red-tailed Hawk
Cooper’s Hawk
Osprey
American Coot
Spotted Sandpiper
Killdeer
Black Oystercatcher
Unidentified “peeps”
Western Gull
Heermann’s Gull
Forster’s Tern
Caspian Tern
Elegant Tern
Common Murre
Belted Kingfisher
Anna’s Hummingbird
Black Phoebe
Say’s Phoebe
Common Raven
American Crow
Bewick’s Wren
Starlings
California Towhee
Spotted Towhee
Fox Sparrow
Song Sparrow
Golden-crowned Sparrow
White-crowned Sparrow
Western Meadowlark
Red-winged Blackbird
House Finch
Lesser Goldfinch