Fred and Idah Shultz Preserve

The history of this place is that in the 60s they dug out a ton of muck from the bay to maybe make a port and they dumped it here some places 15ft high. In 1995 when it was bought for a park it was full of pretty much only invasive species (or so I read) and not of much use. They tore all that out and I presume bulldozed things to be more what they wanted - I think I read they actually formed the islands and coast right next to this to make good habitat. SO - what you have is a very non-flat in terms of you walking on it peninsula with 5-15 ft hills at random. The plants out here are just very random. I recognized a couple invasive species but just a ton of shrubs/weeds I didn't recognize - very odd. I don't know if they are invasive house plants or just well planted natural stuff you don't usually see. Regardless - it means a lot of seed producing plants at ground and low-tree level for tons of birds to gorge on. And it's by the coast and water so birds are double attracted. We initially came out because we heard there were ducks out here but instead for the most part just found lots of warblers, blue birds, robins, cat birds - etc. The ducks - there were a few areas where there were water plants barely holding on in some depressions that probably turn into full on large duck ponds in the rainy season. There was one pond in the front that was surrounded by tall cat tails and covered in algae (duck weed) so it was hard to see and it didn't look like anything in it - but - we heard some very vocal gallinules in there somewhere.

An issue of concern though is that this place seemed like they were excited to build it and now they just want to forget about it. The road is half blocked off behind fence (see directions section). The parking lot is in tall fence. The main sign looks quite old. And all of that is fine but the problematic part is that on the trail the weeds are really tall. It's possible they CAN'T mow this thing because it's so irregular you couldn't do it - and I'm assuming they use actual mowers to cut grass on trails - I have no idea. Regardless - I was concerned about ticks. I've been COVERED by ticks not far from here at Wolfbranch creek in weeds shorter than this while on trail and with less sign of animal scat than here. In winter the ticks aren't as problematic but in summer the grass tends to be much much more abandoned on trails and it grows much faster. SO - I'd be really careful here in summer.