Tomales Bay Brant?

 

I spent the past weekend in a small cement block cabin nestled in the dunes of Dillon Beach. The dunes there are tall and formidable as the area is the convergence of several ecological zones: Coastal Bluffs to the north, Point Reyes peninsula to the south, the San Andreas fault to the east, and the Pacific Ocean to the west. The whole area is geologically turbulent, and Tomales Bay was born out of it. The bay is a rift valley created by the San Andreas fault, which runs underneath and along the east side of the bay. As it opened to the ocean, the valley filled in with sea-water sometime during the Miocene era. The bay is long, narrow, and shallow. It begins at Dillon Beach to the north and snakes southward towards Pt. Reyes Station, where it is fed by Papermill Creek.

The shallow bay and wetlands create an ideal environment for all types of coastal plants and wildlife. The Miwok indians, one of California's largest tribes, lived for thousands of years in this area and dried their catch in the very dunes where I comfortably camped. Another long time inhabitant of this bay is the Pacific Black Brant. Brant have historically come to this area in the thousands to gorge on the abundant beds of Eelgrass.  After heavy hunting depleted the population in the early twentieth century, a season was declared in 1915 and the population began to increase.  Today, there are about 125,000 Brant in the Pacific Flyway, 60% of which stage or stop over to feed in California during the spring migration from Mexico.  About 500 Brant are taken in California each year, but this small number has nowhere near the effect on the Brant population as the statewide depletion of eelgrass beds, which limits their staging areas. 

The decoy above is a traditional Pacific Black Brant decoy. The carver is unknown, but it is carved from solid redwood and has the simple paint indicative of Brant decoys from the Pacific Coast. It is unique in the inletted style of the joint connecting the neck to the body with six small nails. A dowel joint connects the stylish bill to the head. One clue to its origin is the repainting of the white areas of the bird. Often market hunters in the Northwest would repaint "snow geese as Brant and vice versa, depending on which species was most sought after at the time." (Wildfowl Decoys of the Pacific Coast, Miller & Hanson, p.19)   

Although I may never determine the exact origin or carver of this decoy, I was content to imagine, as I was sitting amongst the dunes of Dillon Beach looking out towards Tomales Bay, this decoy floating among its mates in the eelgrass and beckoning the large flocks to the blinds of the waiting hunters.