Younger Lagoon Reserve Tour
Details
I lead these 90-minute tours about once a month — and there are other tour leaders on other days. THE REAL SIGNUP IS ON THE Seymour Center tours site:
https://seymourcenter.ucsc.edu/visit/groups-and-tours
If you register there and put yourself on the Meetup waitlist here, then I will move you to the Meetup attendee list if you comment here or send a direct message that you succeeded in making a reservation.
Even if you don't — if you're close by, it's worth taking a chance to just show up the day of: there are frequently no-shows, and it's a nice part of the coast to explore regardless. Free parking on weekends, and joining the tour gets you free admission to the Seymour Center itself for the rest of the day (normally $9 children/$12 adults).
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I'm a tour leader for these free tours of the Younger Lagoon Reserve, part of the UC Santa Cruz coastal campus that has also been part of the UC Natural Reserve System for just over 50 years.
There are often interesting birds, especially as we move into fall.
* In September 2022, we saw an osprey on the sandbar who'd recently caught a fish, and I was able to take this photo with my zoom camera.
* In August 2023, we saw phalaropes, quail, a white-tailed kite, and several other birds.
As mentioned above, even once the tour registration fills up, there are usually enough no-shows for a solo person or couple to join. You just have to check in at the Seymour Marine Discovery Center entry desk — they organize the tours (and the docent tour leaders, like me):
https://seymourcenter.ucsc.edu/visit/groups-and-tours
(Show up there by 10:15 for the best chance of last-minute inclusion.)
Younger Lagoon is a small brackish estuary, without a large watershed or even a significant creek feeding it, although it does get agricultural runoff.
Its salinity varies in an annual cycle: fairly fresh in the spring after winter rains, once the sandbar has closed off saltwater flow from high tides.
Gradually drying up from late spring through early fall, until the winter rains come.
Highly variable during winter, as storms add much fresh water but also wipe out the sandbar, so that high tides send ocean waves far into the lagoon.
Besides the restricted areas we'll explore — the sheltered overlook at mid-lagoon and the path down to the beach/sandbar — there is a freely accessible overlook that's good for birdwatching and sunsets, here: