Introduction to Waterford Wildlife

Local Wildlife...

This means natives of El Dorado Hills and the surrounding area, not tales of wild parties!  We live in an area rich with plants and animals, both native and introduced.  With the help of Rodi Fregien, a naturalist and life-long resident of our area, this is the first article of a series.

For a REAL introduction to our area's natural environment, come along when Rodi on one of her guided nature walks. She works for the State Parks system, and does fascinating interpretation of nature as we find it in our area.  If you see a schedule in newspapers such as the Neighbors East section for walks generally around the southwest part of Folsom Lake, that's probably Rodi.

After this introduction each article in the Waterford Wildlife series will focus on one animal, but for a warmup here's a quick list of wild animals that either reside in our area or visit it:
 

Mammals:

Mule deer, coyote, gray fox, racoon, opossum, striped skunk, spotted skunk, bobcat, ringtailed cat, black bear (rare), porcupine, black-tailed jack rabbit, cottontail, western gray squirrel, beechy ground squirrel, pocket gopher, broad-footed mole, meadow vole, shrew, various mice including the very unusual California mouse, muskrat, river otter (rare), Mexican free-tailed bat, hoary bat

Horned lizard, western fence lizard, alligator lizard, Gilbert skink, rattlesnake, king snake, gopher snake, ring-neck snake, sharp-tailed snake, garter snake, racer, bull frog, tree frogs, toads, western pond turtle

Wild turkey, turkey vulture, red-tailed hawk, red-shouldered hawk, ferruginous hawk, Swainson's hawk, Cooper's hawk, sharp-shinned hawk, American kestrel, prairie falcon, great horned owl, barn owl, screech owl, pygmy owl, great blue heron, great egret, sandhill crane, Canada goose, crow, yellow-billed magpie, western bluebird, lesser goldfinch, house finch, lark sparrow, house sparrow, yellow-breasted chat, black phoebe, barn swallow, cliff swallow, common flicker, acorn woodpecker, Nuttal's woodpecker, downy woodpecker, California quail, kildeer, bushtit, titmouse, Brewer's blackbird, red-wing blackbird, Anna's hummingbird, black-chinned hummingbird, calliope hummingbird, rufous hummingbird, Allen's hummingbird

This is  enough to write about for 2 or 3 decades if we feature one animal in each article.  Our ecosystem offers both familiar stories and surprising ones -- for example, moles actually are good for your garden, and bats are superb and voracious insect eaters. Stay tuned for what we hope will be many happy tales of many happy tails.