Nature enthusiasts enjoy Mare Island Preserve birthday event

A pandemic wiped out the Mare Island Preserve birthday celebration in 2020, but in 2021 longtime nature lover Myrna Hayes made sure the event took flight again.

Hayes hosted a “13th Birthday Party for the Teenage Preserve” at the Mare Island Preserve on Saturday, as many people enjoyed bird-watching, hikes, good food and good company.

“I’ve always tried to do an annual event the involves hikes, cakes and bringing people together to celebrate the wildland,” Hayes said. “This is so much more than a community trail, which the city as downgraded it to. But we have 7,800 signatures plus a thousand more on paper that says it can be more. I was talking to someone yesterday and they were discussing the Trinity Alps and how it was their Central Park. I feel we should grab onto that notion that the preserve can be our Central Park.”

The city of Vallejo closed the Mare Island Preserve in October 2019 after a series of wildfires burned over 40 acres. Since the fire, Vallejo staff has addressed various wildfire-related issues on the open space, including shoring up burned areas and addressing safety issues resulting from severe fire damage.

The preserve, officially overseen by the public works department, has been re-opened to the public from Friday through Sunday, 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. but many feel the preserve should be opened for longer hours.

That being said, Hayes, who co-founded the site and served as the manager of the area for nearly 11 years, was happy to meet plenty of new people during the day that are also nature enthusiasts like herself.

“Parks really saved a lot of people during COVID-19,” Hayes said. “People could go outside, stay socially distant from each other and enjoy being outside. They were instead inoculated with nature.”

Belinda Seidermann moved to Vallejo in 2012, one of the reasons being that she wanted to explore the preserve.

“The preserve has granted me such a welcoming environment and the people involved like Myrna have created this ambiance that I love,” Seidermann said. “It made it easy to find friends and it’s such a beautiful space. I have a few favorite places, like a bench on the top of the hill where you can see the whole city and ship yard.”

Hayes led a walking/hiking tour and a Q&A discussion about the history of the preserve. A BBQ was planned for later in the day just outside the preserve on Mare Island.

The event began at noon with a two-hour bird watching tour guided by Robin Leong and Wally Neville. Along the tour Leong gave information about the Mare Island Cemetery as well as the best places to observe birds such as heron and other osprey.

Leong made sure to inform the people on the tour about red dots that were on the pavement of the trail. The dots marked the best places to view osprey and their nests often hidden in nearby trees. He also gave some incited history on buildings in the distance and just past a fence on the trail leading up the hill.

Enjoying the bird-watching tour was Karen Grobner.

“I like looking for the osprey and not just here (the preserve) but also on the other side where you can see them on the crane’s,” Grobner siad. “I was watching them feed the other day. I was able to get a picture of the male osprey coming back to its nest with a fish in its mouth. The female osprey would wait and I tried to get a picture of all of them together. You can hear them all the way up the hill. The baby osprey will have this screeching noise they make when they are hungry.”

Grobner said she loves coming to events like these at the preserve and she feels most in town don’t know about its beauty and considers it almost a hidden treasure.

“The sad thing is I feel the city isn’t making enough effort to fix this,” Grobner said. “It’s such a beautiful place but has the potential to be even more.