Photos from the Effie Yeaw Nature Center in Carmichael

Published March 27, 2016 | By Elizabeth Weintraub

American River at Effie Yeaw Nature Center shows off a strong current in March 2016.

Through the process of elimination, it seemed like a good idea yesterday to visit Effie Yeaw Nature Center in Carmichael. It’s one of those places you know is there, and maybe you’ve been there before, but it slips out of your memory banks. Then, after a visit you’re kicking yourself as to why you don’t go there more often. Even a busy Sacramento Realtor needs to get in touch with nature every so often, just to stay grounded, in touch with what’s really important in life, which I’ve come to understand is life itself.

We first had planned to drive up to Daffodil Hill. We called and they said all the flowers were crushed by our recent rainstorms. Well, Daffodil Hill is 50 miles away, more than an hour from Land Park in the foothills. A closer spot to observe nature would be the Yolo Bypass Wildlife Area, between Davis and West Sacramento. Also closed, due to flooding. Although that’s not from rain. That’s from opening the weirs and allowing excess water to flow into it because it is a . . . Bypass.

I list and sell a lot of homes in Carmichael, but I never stop by the Effie Yeaw Nature Center. It’s so close, too. It took me forever to print out the trail map, for some reason, and then I left it at home on my printer. It’s emblem is the acorn woodpecker, which is an interesting looking bird (oh, aren’t they all?). Big round eyeballs, with a bandit mask around its face, white stripes on its black wings and a red Yarmulkeh on its head. We found many acorn woodpeckers but since I also left my Canon Sureshot at home, I didn’t capture any photos of those.

What did startle me was a deer who appeared out of nowhere on our trail, then hopped off like a rabbit through the fields to meet up with the rest of the deer off yonder by the Valley Oak trees. Butterflies flitting about. There are rattlesnakes, a poisonous type, so the signs caution that you should not go off the path, like rattlesnakes know where to go, but they do tend to stay away from people. Wild turkeys also run free, gobbling and chit-chatting as they tromp about so defiantly.

Below are photos I shot with my iPhone during our journey on the trails and to the American River at Effie Yeaw Nature Center. Some, obviously, were taken indoors in the education center. I tried to get the kestrel and owl in photos but they were not cooperating, and it’s tough shooting through glass.