A Royal Swell: King Tide at the Hayward Shoreline

Date: December 15, 2012
Place: Hayward Regional Shoreline, Hayward, California
Coordinates:
Difficulty: easy

Last spring I posted my recommendation of the Hayward Shoreline Interpretive Center (HSIC) as a great place for family hikes and class field trips. Last week my younger chika's class went on a field trip there, which I was happy to chaperone. It was then that I found out it was king tide time for the pacific coast. The water level was low enough for the children to observe mud critters, but water was rushing speedily in and by the time we left the entire area was flooded.
We left HSIC about half an hour before the tidal peak. As soon as I got home and checked the online tidal chart and saw that the last day of the king tide was going to be on Saturday, Dec, 14.

HSIC building is an island

The tidal cycle is caused by the gravity pull of the moon. King tide happens when the sun is aligned with the moon and adds its own gravity pull. The combined pull of the sun and the moon results in extreme tide, called king tide. This king tide reached its highest (7.5 ft) on Dec. 12. On Dec. 14 at 1:13 pm water level reached 'only' 7.1 ft. Not the highest, very impressive nonetheless.

Papa Quail had taken the little chika to a birthday party so I took the older one with me to the Hayward Shoreline. My older chika is very fascinated with royalty, and was excited to go and see the 'king'. We arrived at 1:00 pm and immediately went on the trail.

It was hard to recognize the landscape from what I've seen last spring. We arrived there just before the tidal peak and everything was already flooded. Ponds, slough and vegetation fields alike.

Mallards feeding on tidal floatsome

It drizzled the entire time we were there. The chika started the hike complaining about being cold and itchy, despite of the thick coat and hood she was wearing. I didn't mind the rain as much. My main concern was keeping the camera dry. I did so by keeping it under my poncho and only pulling it out for quick snapshots.

A group of Northern Shoveler ducks enjoying the wide swim area.

We didn't expect to see many wading birds there. We did see many ducks, including this sole Ruddy Duck:

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Ruddy Duck, adult male, nonbreeding.

We didn't expect to see wading birds but we did see them. Waiting for the tide to recede.

Greater Yellowlegs

Every time I go to the Hayward Shoreline I wonder about this windmill. On my chika's field trip I learned that it is an artistic representation of actual windmills that were used in past days to move water between the ponds. 

A work of art

I didn't expect to see any flowers there at this time of year, but this marsh gum surprised me. Just like the spring flowers there, the marsh gum too is yellow.

Marsh gum

I also noted the progress in building the new power plant. It, too, looked like an island.

Just like last time, we made it to where the slough enters from the bay. The pond, so calm and rich in birds last spring, was full to the brim with turbulent grey water.

A single bird was there - one Western Grebe that kept diving again and again in one place, looking for goodies brought in by the tide. 

Western Grebe

Below the bridge were some remains of the mud nests build by the cliff swallows last spring. The rains have washed most of them off, but in some places there were still muddy remains. One of them even held three abandoned eggs still. 

Remains of swallow's nests. Abandoned eggs in bottom right corner. 

I tried convincing my chika to continue beyond the bridge but at that point she had had enough of hiking in the rain s we turned about and started back. At that time the tide has already started receding so we were walking against the water flow.

Submerged pickleweed

In between the green vegetation we found mushrooms. It made my chika very happy - she loves mushrooms. From that point on her entire attitude has improved considerably. She became excited about everything we saw and didn't mind the rain anymore.

There were plenty of willets huddling together by the slough. They appeared sleepy and uninterested in anything.

Willet

Least sandpipers, on the other hand, took immediate advantage of the receding tide and started foraging the newly exposed ground, even right by the trail:

Least Sandpiper

The great egret that was too far to photograph on our way out had come near the trail. A bright splash of white in the overall grey scenery.

Great Egret

When we got near the HSIC I photographed the marks of the king tide from 12/12. When it was at its highest - 7.5 ft - the water had flooded the trail itself.

What the tide had deposited on the trail

We finished our hike with a visit inside the HSIC where, with the guidance of the naturalists, my chika got to explore some of the house snails. Apparently they emerge from their shells when hummed to.

Rain or shine - the Hayward Shoreline is always a great place to discover bay wildlife. It is an excellent place to feel the pulse of the bay area nature.

Low tide at the Hayward Shoreline

Hike date: 4/28/2012
Place: Hayward Regional Shoreline, Hayward, California
Coordinates: 37.62334, -122.13726
Difficulty: very easy

Last Saturday was a beautiful day and after sitting in the house long enough, all of us quails went for a short and highly rewarding hike at the Hayward Shoreline. You can click on the photographs to get a larger view.

If any of you wondered what is the brown building seen from west hy92 right before the toll plaza of San Mateo bridge, it is the Hayward Shoreline Interpretive Center (HSIC), which is part of the Hayward Area Recreation and parks District (H.A.R.D.). At this building is the trailhead of the 7-mile long portion of the S.F. Bay trail, which runs all the way to the San Leandro Marina. Having the little quail chikas in tow we hiked only 0.8 mile out, reached the open bay and returned. Our hike is labeled in yellow on the bottom of the map I downloaded from the EBRPD site.

We arrived the HSIC at about 2:30 pm. It was sunny but very windy. We were glad to have brought our sweatshirts. The tide was at its lowest I've ever seen there, and all the mud flats were exposed and marked with numerous tracks. Birds, mostly, but other animals too.

Snake tracks

Rabbit tracks

We entered the HSIC and spent some time inside. The HSIC has a lovely exhibit room with several tanks housing a variety of bay fish, crustaceans and molluscs, including small sharks whose feeding times are public events. There weren't many people there at the time we were ther so the little chikas got the full attention of the naturalist, who brought out a gopher snake for them to hold and admire. The center's objective is the education of people about the bay shoreline habitats and the importance of keeping the bay and its shores clean of pollution and refuse. Many of their programs are for families and are very much focused on the education of children. School field trips to the HSIC are a wonderful opportunity to expose children to these wonderful programs of environmental education.

On the beams extending from the brown HSIC building there were Barn Swallows perching, or flying about, busy catching insects or carrying mud to build their nests.

Barn swallow

The shallow water and the muddy slough banks are a haven for wading birds. This cute sandpiper was wading right outside the building:

Least Sandpiper

The trail is gravel-packed and wide, and is very popular among bikers. The slough stretches along the path all the way to the bay. Man-made passages connect the array of sloughs and ponds in the entire area and control the flooding. This is how some areas appear full while others right next to them at the same height appear empty. The muddy banks of this slough were completely exposed in the low tide and only a small trickle of water run in the middle. 

The areas that have been exposed for a while were crusted and cracked:

The whole area is flat with no land features to break the wind. The vegetation consists of low shrubs and annuals, all salt-resistant. One of the most common shrubs in this habitat is the pickleweed, which is, in fact, edible. Here is a cute little sparrow perching on the pickleweed:

A song sparrow

All along the path we saw Forster's Terns flying about and heard their high-pitched cries. 

Forster's Tern

after 0.8 miles we reached the bay. Just before the open water the trail transverses the slough over a flat bridge:

This simple, plain bridge functions also as a scaffold for cliff swallows building their mud nests right under it:

Cliff Swallows building their mud nests

Another view of a swallow in flight:

A close-up on a couple of nests on one of the bridge posts:

Just before the slough reaches the bay it widens into a small pond that provides a foraging and resting place for a number of bird species. In that one little pond I saw a great egret, a cormorant, a couple of mallards, a curlew, and two Forster's terns that came to rest on a bar over the pond.













On the other side of the slough was a larger, shallow pond where quite a few sandpipers waded about with their bills in the water.























Despite it being spring time, I saw little variety of blooming plants and of those, the yellow was definitely dominant. The mustard,  which is an invasive species, creates bright yellow mats all over the land areas.

And I also saw this tiny composite flower, so low that it's barely detectable:

At the bay we turned around and headed back. The tide was coming in and the slough was filling with water once again.

On the horizon, Mount Diablo is visible (beyond the new power station construction site)

And just before returning to the HSIC we saw a male mallard warming in the sun. As we passed it, it jumped into the water with annoyed quacks.

A sitting duck

The complete hike, 1.6 miles total, took us (at a very slow pace) about an hour, I strongly recommend this place for nice family walks. The HSIC building is open to the public on weekends. We went inside for some more time after the hike and the elder chika drew a blue heron on the chalkboard table they have inside. I suspect she'll be a bird watcher just like her dad :-)