Our group couldn’t have asked for better weather – warm sunshine with a cool ocean breeze and temperature from the upper 60s into the low to mid-70s.  Led by the reserve’s volunteer docent Teresa Norris and a friend of hers, we enjoyed a leisurely walk along the upper end of the unpaved Green Valley Truck Trail, which descended through an area of shrubby chaparral. 

We heard and saw California towhees, heard a few of the distinctive trilling calls and caught fleeting glimpses of the typically illusive wrentits, and saw a small flock of the exotic Asian nutmeg mannikins. 

We then branched onto the Creekside Trail that took us through a beautiful shady live oak woodland where we heard the buzzy trills of spotted towhees and the rich musical phrases of black-headed grosbeaks.  At first, we were unable to see the grosbeaks, but then suddenly there was one perching prominently on a low, dead tree branch, in full view from the trail.  He was remarkably unconcerned about our being close by and seemed to be serenading us. 

We spotted both a Pacific-slope flycatcher and an ash-throated flycatcher.  The latter was busy flying to and from a nest in a woodpecker hole located in a tall dead snag.  Among the dense foliage of oaks and sycamores, we also spotted a Wilson’s warbler, an orange-crowned warbler, and several yellow warblers, and heard a couple of common yellowthroats. 

We finally got a surprisingly close-up view of a wrentit.  And now and then we watched a red-tailed hawk circling above us.

As an ecological footnote, we were told that a fierce, wind-driven wildfire swept through this valley reserve in 2007, but that what had looked like total devastation then has now been healed in the ensuing nearly eight years by a rebirth of lush shrubbery and riparian plantlife.  With few exceptions, the grand old oak trees have also recovered remarkably well.

 After looping back on the truck road, for a total of about 1.5 miles, the docent and her friend left us, and we drove on to Lake Poway where we saw several kinds of waterbirds.  We were amazed to see that this reservoir, unlike most water-storage reservoirs in California, was full to the brim with clear water. 

We stopped for a delicious Chinese lunch at Chef Chin Restaurant in Rancho Bernardo.