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LAKE COUNTY, Calif. – A popular annual event that has showcased Lake County’s natural beauty and unparalleled abundance of wildland is coming to an end.
The Heron Festival, which has developed into a springtime tradition over the past 18 years, is being discontinued, according to Marilyn Waits, president of the Redbud Audubon Society, which sponsors the event.
Waits told Lake County News that the pontoon boat tours to see birds and wildlife on Clear Lake, which was an original part of the event and has remained its fundamental nature education activity, will continue.
She said the tours are why Roberta Lyons started the festival in 1994, giving people a chance to get out and learn more about and see, firsthand, the nesting herons, osprey and grebes that breed during the spring and summer months.
“The rest of it really got added to give people more fun,” said Waits.
They’ve already set Saturday, May 4, and Sunday, May 5, as dates for the 2013 pontoon boat tours, Waits said.
The Children’s Museum of Art and Science plans to incorporate the same raptor show that the festival had featured for several years into its annual day camps. Waits said Audubon is going to pay to have the live owls and raptors brought to Lake County for that camp, which reaches local children, many of them low income.
“So we’re very happy that that part of the festival will continue,” Waits said.
However, Waits added, “Nobody else has approached us to do the other parts of the festival.”
The Heron Festival – which has continued to grow every year – appears to have been a victim of its own success.
“It was wonderful but eventually it just became too much for us,” Waits said, adding it wasn’t the best use of the chapter’s people resources.
Waits credited Lyons and Susanne Scholz for being the visionaries who created the Heron Festival, one of the very first birding festivals in California.
She said Lyons and Scholz steered the festival through the first nine years, then a new team headed by Tina Wasson, Robin Chapman and Waits guided the festival to new growth in the years at Clear Lake State Park.
Waits said the annual festival required four months of organization plus the work of 200 volunteers to pull off the event, which featured a popular owl and raptor show, nature fair, booths, children’s activities, silent auction and raffle, as well as the lake tours.
Attendance during recent festival weekends had grown to nearly 2,000 people, said Waits, with more than 550 people going out on the pontoon boat tours in both 2010 and 2011.
She said Redbud Audubon attempted to downsize the event from two days to one, with it being held this past spring in Clearlake’s Redbud Park. However, even with only a one day event, Waits said the work of planning the festival took just as much time as if it had remained a weekend long.
The festival has been positive for the community at large, drawing visitors from outside the county.
“It’s really a shame, because birding is such a fabulous industry,” Lake County Chamber of Commerce Chief Executive Officer Melissa Fulton said of the decision to end the festival.
While the chamber hasn’t done an analysis of the Heron Festival’s impact, “If they’re getting 2,000 people, we know that those 2,000 people are not all Lake County residents,” Fulton said.
That, in turn, leads to a positive economic impact for local accommodations, restaurants and gas stations, Fulton said.
While the Redbud Audubon Chapter is sad about the festival’s demise, Waits said it will allow chapter members to work on Redbud Audubon’s four-year grebe conservation project.
The Heron Festival typically coincided with the beginning of grebe breeding season, which Waits said limited their grebe project-related activities.
The project, now beginning year three, involves public outreach to educate people who use the lake about avoiding colonies when there are nest, eggs and babies, Waits said.
She said the collaborative work with two other Audubon chapters has already generated significant public awareness about protecting nesting grebe colonies.
“It’s been a really exciting thing to do,” said Waits, noting that it also resulted in the chapter’s grebe Web cam, believed to be the only one of its kind in the world.
She said the chapter has received “tremendous positive praise” from the project’s funders.
In addition, the Redbud Audubon Society – like all Audubon chapters – has a mission, said Waits. “It’s become very important to focus on bird conservation and habitat conservation.”
She said Audubon is concentrating on the four flyways that cross the United States. In California, there is the Pacific Flyway, which extends from Alaska to South America.
“There’s so much that we can do for birds and for conservation that we’re kind of refocusing to narrow our activities primarily to that,” Waits said.
Visit the Redbud Audubon Society’s Web site at www.redbudaudubon.org/ .
Email Elizabeth Larson at
LAKEPORT, Calif. – There are some charming and friendly adult cats needing homes and awaiting adoption at Lake County Animal Care and Control.
The female domestic short hair mix is 6 years old, she has a soft white coat and big, beautiful blue eyes and enjoys attention.
She weighs 8.5 pounds and has been spayed.
She’s in cat room kennel No. 46, ID No. 34385.
The male domestic medium hair mix is 2 years old, has a plush gray coat and weighs 8.6 pounds.
He has big gold eyes and has been neutered.
He is in cat room kennel No. 11a, ID No. 34357.
To fill out an adoption application online visit http://www.co.lake.ca.us/Government/Directory/Animal_Care_And_Control/Adopt/Dog___Cat_Adoption_Application.htm .
Lake County Animal Care and Control is located at 4949 Helbush in Lakeport, next to the Hill Road Correctional Facility.
Office hours are Monday through Friday, 8 a.m. to 5 p.m., and 1 p.m. to 3 p.m., Saturday. The shelter is open from 10:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. Monday through Friday and on Saturday from 1 p.m. to 3 p.m.
Visit the shelter online at http://www.co.lake.ca.us/Government/Directory/Animal_Care_And_Control.htm .
For more information call Lake County Animal Care and Control at 707-263-0278.
Email Elizabeth Larson at
UPPER LAKE, Calif. – Sutter Lakeside Hospital has donated a building that previously housed its Upper Lake Medical Clinic to the Upper Lake School District this summer.
The modular structure, originally a $247,000 investment, was constructed on school property in 1997.
“We’ve had to make some difficult financial decisions here at Sutter Lakeside over the past year in order to become more affordable to our patients,” said Sutter Lakeside Chief Financial Officer Krista Touros.
“Because caring for everyone in community is our mission, several employees from the former Upper Lake Clinic are now working at our Family Medicine Clinic,” Touros said. “Our Mobile Health Services Unit visits the Upper Lake High School campus every Tuesday to provide care, as well. We want to ensure that our patients have access to quality health care.”
The building continues to house the Healthy Start program, a not-for-profit organization.
“We’ve been great neighbors with Sutter Lakeside for years and we’re grateful to them for giving us the keys to their building,” said Upper Lake High School District Superintendent Pat Iaccino. “Now, we’re searching for a new tenant to share the space with Healthy Start to add even more value to the space.”
Debbie Fenton, formerly with the Upper Lake Clinic, is now practicing in the Family Medicine Clinic on the Sutter Lakeside Hospital campus.
The Mobile Health Services Unit can be found parked at the Upper Lake High School on Tuesdays from 9 a.m. to noon and from 1 p.m. to 3:30 p.m.
CLEARLAKE, Calif. – The Lake Family Resource Center is commemorating Domestic Violence Awareness Month with a number of events throughout October.
The final event will be a clothesline workshop and t-shirt display from 4 p.m. to 7 p.m. Thursday, Oct. 25, at Lake Family Resource Center’s Clearlake office, 15312 Lakeshore Drive.
The workshop will be available for those who wish to honor a loved one, a domestic violence survivor or victim.
The resulting display of the art t-shirts bearing witness to violence against women, men and children will be hung until Nov. 1 at the Clearlake office.
Shirts created that day will be hung again next year as part of the continuing display of art honoring domestic violence survivors and victims.
Shirts and paints are being provided for your art. Don’t miss the opportunity to make your statement.
Lake Family Resource Center is determined to call awareness to the tragedy of domestic violence in the hope of ending it in Lake County.
The center provides a multitude of services to build family stability and strength, and supports Lake County residents in achieving stable, self-sufficient, and healthy families and communities.
Call them at 707-279-0563 to find out more about what they offer.
LUCERNE, Calif. – Lucerne residents are urged to attend a workshop this week to find out more information about proposed water rate hikes in their community.
California Water Service Co. will host the rate workshop beginning at 6 p.m. Wednesday, Oct. 24, in Lucerne Elementary School's gym/multipurpose room, located at 3351 Country Club Drive in Lucerne.
The corporation has submitted a general rate case application with the California Public Utilities Commission, seeking a 77-percent rate increase in Lucerne between 2014 and 2016.
Representatives from Cal Water will provide details about planned water system improvements, how rates are set, and other important information about water rates.
Audience members also will have an opportunity to ask questions.
More information is available at www.calwater.com .
California’s first significant rainfall of the season, combined with cooler temperatures, has allowed Cal Fire to lift the statewide burn ban effective Monday, Oct. 22.
Cal Fire had suspended all residential burn permits and various types of outdoor burning within the 31 million acres of State Responsibility Area on Aug. 15.
While the statewide burn ban is lifted, local burn bans set by Cal Fire’s 21 operational units may still be in effect. Each of the 21 Cal Fire unit chiefs will determine when local weather conditions will allow for safe outdoor burning.
Lake County’s burn ban remains in effect.
Following the lifting of local burn bans, burn permits may be required in some areas so residents should always check with their local fire station and air quality district before burning.
“While the threat of wildfires has not diminished completely, many areas will be receiving enough rainfall to allow homeowners to safely burn outdoors once their local burn bans are lifted,” said Chief Ken Pimlott, Cal Fire director. “It is still important that residents monitor the weather closely, as a warming trend could increase the fire threat.”
This fire season has kept firefighters across the State very busy as fire activity has been significantly higher this year.
To date, there have been over 5,500 wildfires in Cal Fire’s jurisdiction that have burned nearly 130,000 acres, compared to last year when there were 4,100 wildfires during the same time period that charred over 55,000 acres.
Even with the cooler weather, there is still the possibility of wildfires and CAL FIRE remains prepared to respond.
For more information on the burn ban and tips on safe burning visit the Cal Fire Web site at www.fire.ca.gov .