Posted by Cur Mudgeon, a resident of the Greenmeadow neighborhood, on Jun 25, 2012 at 3:25 pm

This is why we cannot have dogs off leash in many shoreline areas.

Dog lovers, please restrict your off leash runs to designated off leash areas where it is permitted to do so, and only in those areas.

Many people don't realize that even dogs on leash disturb wildlife because of their very presence. Staying only on trails helps, too.

Kudos to the current administration for reinstating and expanding the protected areas.

Posted by agree, a resident of the Adobe-Meadows neighborhood, on Jun 25, 2012 at 4:15 pm

Agree about loose dogs destroying wildlife refuges. If you love nature, then obey the rules to protect wildlife. If you don't love nature, then don't visit wildlife refuges to begin with. Thank you.

Posted by Luv Creatures, a resident of the Midtown neighborhood, on Jun 25, 2012 at 11:56 pm

Yeah! and Thank You about the birds and baylands and plovers!!

Posted by Eileen McLaughlin, a resident of another community, on Jun 26, 2012 at 11:05 am

It is a little difficult to be certain from the story's site description but I believe acreage referenced is owned by the Don Edwards San Francisco Bay National Wildlife Refuge. The Refuge adjoins the SF PUC easement for the Hetch Hetchy pipeline. If so, I'd describe the site as being the last former salt pond on the right on eastward approach to the Dumbarton Expressway.

This site and all other retired salt ponds on the Menlo Park shoreline are all part of the Refuge and of the South Bay Salt Pond Restoration Project. That project's plan, finalized in early 2010, has always included provision of habitat for snowy plovers. It's first phase of restoration restored the University Avenue end of this pond as snowy plover habitat. Throughout the 15,000+ acres of this restoration project, snowy plover habitat is a consideration wherever suited. When snowy plovers lost their preferred coastal beach habitats, they adopted the broad expanses of Bay salt ponds.

Locally in winter, these birds are often seen in mixed shorebird groups rather than in flocks of their own species. On our coastal beaches the little birds that are commonly running swiftly in little flocks are sanderlings.

Posted by darloss, a resident of the Charleston Gardens neighborhood, on Jun 29, 2012 at 6:24 pm

that bird looks like a seagull mated with a squirrel