Schoolhouse Creek Common, the beautiful community-build park at Curtis and Virginia, urgently needs help weeding and spreading new gravel on the paths! Join them 9 AM – noon, Saturday, May 12.

Work for all, all ages welcome! Snacks and drinks provided. Bring your own work gloves if you have them.

For information contact Jamie Day, day7715@gmail.com.

Sudden Oak Death is a fungus-like water mold that threatens our beautiful Coast Live Oaks. Besides their beauty, oaks are critical to the survival of many plants and animals, and the functioning of our watersheds. Dead or dying oaks greatly increase fire danger, and trees or limbs can fall suddenly, endangering people or property.

According to Dr. Matteo Garbelotto, head of the Forest Pathology Lab at UC Berkeley, writes: “2011 was a bad year for our oaks. Prolonged spring rains have resulted in a significant spread of Sudden Oak Death throughout the state,” including the East Bay.

Please mark your calendars for Saturday and Sunday, April 28-9. After an hour-long training by Dr. Garbelotto at 1 PM Saturday on the UC Berkeley campus, you’ll collect suspect bay leaves (the main carriers to oaks) on your own time, and where you choose, for lab testing. You return suspect samples to a drop-box on the UC Berkeley campus by Sunday evening.

We will gladly help you plan a route — just ask on the signup form. This year’s blitz will follow a new protocol that makes it possible to estimate the actual local SOD infection rate!

Sign up for the training at http://sodblitz2012.eventzilla.net.

Meet at 9 AM at Waterside Workshops, Bolivar Drive between Addison and Bancroft (AC Transit 51B). Bring binoculars if you have them, but you can enjoy birds without them. Information: www.fivecreeks.org, f5creeks@aol.com, 510 848 9358.

The walk is free, but please register with Albany Senior Center, 846 Masonic Ave., 510 524 0122.

Do you like photography? nature? Join the California King Tides Initiative documenting the year’s highest tides — levels likely to become the “new normal” as sea level rises due to global warming. King Tides will occur about 8:50 AM Fri., Jan. 20; 9:40 AM Sat., Jan. 21, and 10:30 AM Sun., Jan. 22. The idea is to (a) identify areas vulnerable to tidal flooding, erosion, or other damage and (b) gather compelling images to promote awareness and support action to deal with climate change. The project seeks photos of areas likely to flood or erode, that have infrastructure that might be affected. For information, go to www.californiakingtides.org.

Friends of Five Creeks would like to document the “heads of tide” — the farthest inland reaches of tides in creeks and channels. For information and ideas on good sites in the East Bay, click here.

UC students working with Aquatic Park EGRET controlled weeds and improved trails at Aquatic Park. Students did major sprucing up at Schoolhouse Creek Common and Halcyon Commons, parks developed by neighborhood volunteers. At Schoolhouse Creek Common, they also hauled heavy fill to shore up the play area. Berkeley Path Wanderers added ten new steps to LaLoma Path. Student volunteers helped East Bay Green Parks Association roll up a carpet of invasive ivy at Codornices Park and also pruned and weeded at the Berkeley Rose Garden. In a new project just days from the 20th anniversary of the Oakland Fire Storm, students led by Friends of Five Creeks began removing fire-prone French broom in the area of the Tilden Park Carousel (see photo).

Congratulations to Thousand Oaks Neighborhood Association on restoring two of the giant concrete urns that graced the 100-year-old subdivision. (BPFP is fiscal sponsor for this project.) Please join Berkeley Path Wanderers Association on a 1 PM walk from Great Stoneface Park, exploring Thousand Oaks history and ending at 3 PM with dedication of the urns. All welcome!

In 12 years of leading all-volunteer Friends of Five Creeks, Susan has transformed over a dozen waste places into vibrant green areas welcoming people and wildlife. Thousands of hours of hands-on work and organizing have, for example, renewed Berkeley’s Mortar Rock Park and the shoreline of Shorebird Park, revitalized almost a half mile of Cerrito Creek in Albany and El Cerrito, restored natives and access at the mouths of Schoolhouse and Strawberry Creeks, built an observation railing and trail along Codornices Creek in Berkeley and Albany, and removed acres of invasive broom, yellow-star thistle, and perennial pepperweed from Berkeley to Richmond.

Susan also organizes regional projects including East Bay surveys for frogs, pepperweed ,and Sudden Oak Death; a four-language brochure on invasive dodder; and a web site showing water-friendly developments in the East Bay. She started Berkeley Path Wanderers’ program of opening undeveloped paths, as well as the Greening Berkeley partnership, engaging thousands of UC Berkeley students in outdoor volunteering. She develops interpretive signs and leads informative walks.

These volunteer projects restoring nature in cities mean that children can splash in creeks; folks in wheelchairs can savor sun; and all can enjoy nature close to home. Just as important is inspiring volunteers to do more. Many F5C volunteers go on to full-time environmental careers or leading their own projects.

Go on line at http://www.coxconservesheroes.com/san-francisco-bay-area-ca.aspx to see short videos on the nominees and vote. Please ask family, friends, and colleagues to vote. Voting ends September 19!

See the wonderful ivy removal and “return of the natives” brought about by Los Amigos de Codornices and BPFP partner group East Bay GPA.

Chat about what other citizen groups are doing for open space and recreation. Or just relax and enjoy the beautiful setting. Family and friends welcome.

Bring a dish to share. We supply plates, cups, utensils, and (non-alcoholic) drinks.

Codornices Park is on the east side of Euclid Avenue in Berkeley, just south of Eunice Street, opposite the Berkeley Rose Garden. As you enter the park, walk down the hill past the basketball court and playground on your left. Follow trails upstream to the picnic area, on the north side of the creek.

For information contact Ivo Violich: amigoscodornices@gmail.com