By Andrew L. Rypel

Each morning is similar, but different. As we approach the pond on the wooden catwalk, you can hear the birds calling, eventually you start to smell the freshness of the ecosystem, the glitters and splashing ahead gives some indication of bird activity on the water. Sometimes an alligator lizard scoots past along the floorwork – occasionally even two. Steam rises from my coffee cup, to varying degrees, depending on how quickly we got out the door. And then there are my three kids, also ever changing. Each day, one to three are in-tow, usually chatting it up about geology, Egypt, space, or the day’s most pressing sports news.

And so it goes on most mornings, ideally when the mist is still fresh or the winter fog lingering, the Rypel family ventures to the “the duck pond” aka Julie Partansky Pond in north Davis. The routine is partly about draining excess energy from the young kids while enjoying time with them. Yet I’ve also come to deeply value the chance to just be in nature every day, even if it’s fleetingly brief. Accomplishing that can be difficult with young kids, perhaps even more so inside the heavily developed northern California metroplex. On most days though, the fastest and most efficient escape, is to the pond.

The wildlife is better than one might think (Fig. 2). Because the pond goes bone dry in the summer, the fish are not usually the star of the show, although there are some seasonal aquatic biota (turtles, dragonflies, Sierra chorus frogs, even zooplankton). It is difficult for this fish professor to admit, but I’ve come to take great comfort in getting to know and learn the birds here. The ducks and Canadian geese are the regulars, but there have been some special visitors from time to time. A swamp sparrow last winter caused much ruckus among the birders. We watched that little bird for a solid week – its tiny legs hopping amongst the sticks and snags on the water’s edge. I’ve seen hooded mergansers, likely transients from the nearby Sacramento River. There are almost always woodpeckers and scrub jays present. At nighttime, there are owls. Last year, I encountered a coyote (young male of course) several times over the course of a month. The morning of writing this, I smelt and finally spotted a skunk lumbering through the shrubbery.

The somewhat abundant wildlife here is yet another example of the power of water and wetlands to activate nature in a semi-arid region like California. During the dry season, when there is little water, there are also far fewer birds or wildlife. When it floods in the fall, the whole ecosystem comes alive. Seeing this is a daily reminder that we are on the right track when thinking about flooding wetlands and rice fields for birds and fish, and hopefully also snakes, turtles, bats, beavers, and bugs. It is just one small pond in the middle of a suburban community, but I can’t help think what many more of these ponds might do for our struggling wildlife communities. And of course, the reverse is also true – wetland losses continue to threaten biodiversity at all scales.

It is also incredible how rapidly the pond can (to use a Calvin and Hobbs term) transmogrify me back to my childhood, and to my Dad. Dad was a lifelong duck hunter and a huge supporter of Ducks Unlimited. Though he never lived in California, he was a fierce defender of wetlands, and understood the importance of conserving these habitats. And while he has been gone for 20 years now, each morning, when I see ducks, invariably I think of him. I can almost immediately smell the wax that he used on the back porch at “the cabin” to clean ducks in the fall. And I can feel the tippyness of the skift as we sat, father and son, motionless in a bed of semi-frozen cattails at dawn in October. It’s amazing how nature and water can so quickly re-animate these old and lucid memories.

Every day is similar, but different in nature. Something about experiencing that daily constitution must be good for the human condition. Thus, it is with astonishment that we so openly cede our rights to recover and be with nature, often to economic forces that benefit just the few. Even still, it is observable how resilient nature can be in its ability to bounce back once given a chance. The pond seems to teach this lesson every morning. It also makes me consider daily those who don’t have access to any nature – people whose lives are dominated by concrete, war, or are without time to slow down and think. Everyone should have public access to natural places. On the best mornings, I can see how novel ecosystems like these could propagate, and create interesting new landscapes where human structures blend into natural ones that are well-managed. I think of the great possibilities of new habitat for fish and wildlife within our idiosyncratic human cities. On other mornings, I just hope that the dew will last a little while longer, and that the kids refrain from screaming long enough to absorb a little more. 

Andrew Rypel is a Professor and the Peter B. Moyle and California Trout Chair of coldwater fish ecology at the University of California, Davis. He is a faculty member in the Department of Wildlife, Fish & Conservation Biology and Director of the Center for Watershed Sciences. 

Further reading

Alagona, P.S. 2022. The Accidental Ecosystem. University of California Press.

Austin, C. 2014. Reconciling ecosystem and economy. https://californiawaterblog.com/2014/07/23/reconciling-ecosystem-and-economy/

Jacinto, E., N.A. Fangue, D.E. Cocherell, J.D. Kiernan, P.B. Moyle, and A.L. Rypel. 2023. Putah Creek’s rebirth: a model for other degraded streams? https://californiawaterblog.com/2023/07/08/putah-creeks-rebirth-a-model-for-reconciling-other-degraded-streams/

Rypel, A.L. 2020. Field courses help young people see the real world. https://californiawaterblog.com/2020/02/14/field-courses-help-young-people-see-the-real-world/

Rypel, A.L. 2022. Being patient and persistent with nature. https://californiawaterblog.com/2022/10/16/being-patient-and-persistent-with-nature/

Rypel, A.L. 2023. Facing the dragon: California’s nasty ecological debts. https://californiawaterblog.com/2023/06/11/facing-the-dragon-californias-nasty-ecological-debts/