As those of you who visit the Bypass on a frequent basis know, it has been closed since last year due to flooding. It has now finally reopened! Time to check out what remains after the floods.

Well, it is that time of year and the hunting zone, which unfortunately represents more than half the public accessible areas, is now closed until early February. The auto tour loop is about the only area that is accessible to the non-hunter general public. There are a few areas that can be explored on foot, but all the good areas are now off limits.

The Yolo Bypass reopened about 2 weeks ago. They are still working on building the roads back up with new gravel.

There are some signs of the flooding, but overall not much has changed with respect to geography. Species diversity is down a bit and some of the resident species population densities are down significantly. I suspect it will recover slowly over the summer.

June is generally a slow month at the bypass but will pick up towards the end of the month when the shorebirds start arriving.

The historic rainfall of the winter season wrecked havoc at the bypass. The area was completely under water for the majority of the winter season. It was recently flooded again at the end of April with only the highest roads remaining visible, although the water has receded significantly since. Needless to say all this flooding has substantially impacted the area.

The area is still closed so access is limited to walking the levee, however word is the area might be reopening sometime in June. I for one am interested to see just how substantial the damage is. Many resident species were undoubtedly displaced, it will be a while before the area returns to normal population levels for some species.

DigiBirdTrek