Every year, as many as 4,000 sandhill cranes overwinter in this preserve of wetlands, grasslands and riparian forest before returning to their breeding grounds in Alaska, Canada and Siberia.
The Cosumnes River Preserve near I-5 in the Central Valley is a surprising mosaic of flooded rice fields teeming with birds, breached levees creating new forests, and a river reclaiming a landscape.
The Consumnes River is the only remaining unregulated river on the western slope of the Sierra Nevada. The river’s natural flow frequently floods the preserve’s wetlands in the winterand spring and nourishes nativevegetation and the wildlife dependent on those habitats. More than 250 bird species, 40 fish species, and some 230 plant species have been identified here.