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Map Satellite This large, brackish lagoon was formerly an estuary and is now normally cut off from the ocean by sand dunes. Much of the lagoon is fringed with salt-marsh vegetation, Distichlis sp. and Salicornia sp., though there are freshwater marsh species, Scirpus sp., etc.
It is a favorite resting and feeding area for many migrant waterfowl and, as such, is well known to bird watchers. Whistling swans, Dior columbianus, and black brant, Branta nigricans, are among the more noteworthy birds sighted here regularly.
The three-spined stickleback, Gasterosteus aculeatus, is very abundant. Surf perch, Embiotocidae, and sculpin, Cottidae, have been netted in the lagoon, probably having entered during one of the occasions when the lagoon opened into the ocean.
Integrity: Formerly used for hunting, there are some fences and blinds. Now in the Point Reyes National Seashore.
Use: Educational, research, observational.
January 1976
Inventory of California Natural Areas
Revision © 2008 Steven Louis Hartman
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