Benicia Wildlife

I was just thinking - I love wildlife. I wonder what kind of wildlife I'm likely to encounter once I move to Benicia. So I did a little research and discovered that there's a wildlife refuge in Benicia called Benicia State Recreation Area. There are so many birds and mammals there I absolutely can't wait to move into Wellington and ride my bike over to the Benicia State Recreation Area where, apparently, I'm likely to discover such wildlife as:




Only kidding. This is a bandicoot. Isn't he cute? He's a marsupial omnivore (of course he is) that you're only likely to encounter in New Guinea or Australia. I'm not holding my breath. But look at this one:



He's called a salt water harvest mouse. I wonder what he's harvesting.
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And these two guys are very closely related on account of their tendency for gnawing on wood: the California golden beaver and the muskrat. It's interesting to note that in the article on Wikipedia regarding the Benicia State Recreation area, they claim the California golden beaver migrated from the California Delta to the Benicia State Recreation Area in 2007. I wonder why and I wonder how they know.










As if that wasn't cute enough, I'm gettin me an otter! There are river otters in this park and that's my favorite otter. I saw a dead one once.

And to keep the food chain balanced, they've thrown in a coyote.












As far as birds go, I'm likely to see any of the following:












These three are all "rails" and I think that means they're noisy, which is fine with me. The first one is a Virginia rail (which I thought was a dance and really should have nothing to do with California wildlife). The second one is the black rail (what were they THINKING?). And the third one is the California (yay!) clapper rail.


This beautiful little guy is called a saltmarsh common yellowthroat. Then there's the Suisun song sparrow which is not only local, he's alliterative and that makes him doubly special.

Alright. That sounds fine for now. Let's get me a house.