Thankful

With November drawing to a close, and the Thanksgiving holiday approaching, I'm grateful to take be able to take a breath and reflect on this year's highs and lows. Within the realm of my conservation work, the highs include: 

• Publication of the Central Valley Joint Venture conservation objectives.
• Pulling off a successful Riparian Summit, including a diverse array of scientists, practitioners, artists, and policy makers. I'm particularly proud of the workshop on multiple benefits I organized with colleagues at Point Blue and The Nature Conservancy.
• Another great season of field work complete at the Cosumnes River Preserve, including some new soil and vegetation sampling for carbon stocks as part of a new effort to examine synergies across bird, soil, and vegetation metrics - presented as a poster at the Riparian Summit.
• Organizing a workshop with experts in groundwater research and management, and getting some great input on how Central Valley bird habitat (wetlands, flooded ag, riparian floodplains) can also contribute to groundwater recharge.
• Having a paper about the long-term response of birds to riparian restoration on Putah Creek accepted for publication (anticipated for early 2018), and finally submitting a paper from a huge inter-disciplinary project on urban biodiversity conservation.
• Making great progress on our global meta-analysis of riparian carbon sequestration.

I am so thankful for the many colleagues and partners I worked with this year (and in most cases, for many years!), without whom none of this would have been possible.