September 4, 2025River Partners helped conduct a test this summer on a portion of fallowed farmland at its 1,600-acre restoration site Dos Rios Norte at the confluence of the Sacramento and Feather rivers in the Sacramento Valley.
River Partners participated in BirdReturns, an initiative funded by the California Department of Fish and Wildlife and run by The Nature Conservancy, with the mission to create temporary habitat for migratory shorebirds by shallowly flooding fallowed agricultural land during the birds’ migrations. In this initial test at Dos Rios Norte, River Partners also partnered with The Nature Conservancy, Audubon California, and Point Blue Conservation Science—together, the Migratory Bird Conservation Partnership—as well as the Floodplain Forward coalition, Central Valley Joint Venture, and Lundberg Family Farms, a leading grower of Regenerative Organic Certified® rice.
During this five-week initiative, a fallowed field at Dos Rios Norte was flooded just enough to create temporary wetland habitat—in this case one of the 11 fields farmed this year by Lundberg Family Farms, which has also received significant restoration funding from Apple. The result was habitat akin to what migratory shorebirds would have cued into and utilized hundreds of years ago along the approximately 10,000-mile Pacific Flyway.
The test was an immediate success and another on-the-ground example of when you build it, wildlife often returns quickly.
A Dearth of Suitable Wetland Habitat
According to experts, approximately 95% of California’s native wetlands and riverside forests have been lost, and shorebird populations in North America have declined 40% over the past 50 years. Today, a mosaic of refuges, managed wetlands, and post-harvest flooded cropland, like rice, provide some places for birds to rest and feed. But with such little wetland habitat remaining in the Central Valley, migratory shorebirds still struggle to find what they require.
If wetland habitat in the Central Valley continues to degrade, or disappears altogether, it almost certainly spells disaster for migratory waterbirds. Among other impacts, surviving wetlands will shrink in size and grow warmer, while becoming more crowded with fewer food sources. And birds that do stop will be underweight and more susceptible to disease.
River Partners Associate Director of Restoration Science Michael Rogner said stopover habitats like the one at Dos Rios Norte are the grocery stores that fuel global migration.
“In one night of constant flying, birds can lose 40% of their body weight, so they need lots of nutrient-rich food to put that weight back on so that they can continue their migration,” Rogner said. “Without global linkages of migratory habitat, migratory species disappear. Shorebirds have some of the longest migrations of any animal species, so they are at heightened risk.”
Just Add Water
Migratory shorebirds are especially at risk because they require shallow water, around 1-4 inches and prefer little to no vegetation growing up through the water. Shorebirds also arrive in the Central Valley during late summer when most riceland is still in production and there’s little other standing in the otherwise-dry Central Valley.
The Nature Conservancy launched BirdReturns in 2014 to help fill this wetland habitat gap. This summer, Lundberg Family Farms, which grew five different varieties of rice this year over more than 1,000 acres at Dos Rios Norte, managed the 50-acre plot. After harvesting and clearing the plants and some light tilling, they shallowly flooded the plot to create suitable temporary shorebird habitat, occasionally irrigating the field more to keep the water level where the birds like it.
Rogner said the results from this surrogate wetland habitat were immediate.
“The birds showed up on day one,” he said, and over the next five weeks, the birds kept coming—in fact, a half-dozen shorebird species were recorded here to stop, forage, and rest, as well as a number of wading birds and others that used the wetland habitat.
“Our hope with the BirdReturns program is that we can slow and eventually stop the decline of shorebird populations,” said Billy Abbott, Avian Field Science Manager at The Nature Conservancy. “The long-term goal would be to help turn that around and increase the shorebird populations that exist in the Central Valley.”
Bringing private wetland managers, farmers, scientists, and conservationists together is a pioneering, scalable solution to restore critical ecosystems for declining wildlife, including birds and fish. It’s proof that agriculture and ecosystems can thrive together.
The Impact of Partnerships
On a quiet late-summer morning at Dos Rios Norte, towering sycamores and valley oaks stretch over a vehicle access road, providing much-welcomed shade to the morning heat. The sun doesn’t seem to bother a group of least sandpipers gathered in a field soaked by a few inches of water, as they clean up, forage for food, and take a much-deserved rest.
Gabrielle Katanic, Farm Analyst at Lundberg Family Farms, is inspired by a sight like this and marvels at the potential of increasing the scale of voluntary flooding on active farmland around the state.
“There are over 8 million acres of irrigated farmland in California,” Katanic said. “If we could just farm a small portion of that land in a way that offers more environmental benefits and habitat, food, and resources for wildlife, think about how much impact that could have on our state and the planet.”
While small, the 50-acre project site at Dos Rios Norte is part of a larger, crucial conservation movement throughout the Sacramento region and the wider Central Valley. And, River Partners is eager to increase acreage for this initiative in the future.
“This year was a collaboration with Lundberg Family Farms, to identify what acreage was possible for their rice growing operations, considering the available water and the other rice that’s being grown on the property,” River Partners Senior Restoration Science Ecologist Mike Davis said. “Fifty acres is what we could do this year, and we plan to do much more in the future.”
Combining Lundberg’s water management expertise with River Partners’ multi-benefit restoration ethos, it’s no surprise that the flood-up at Dos Rios Norte resulted in a meaningful collaboration between conservation-minded state and federal agencies and NGOs. Our joint efforts also align with the goals laid out by the Sacramento-based Central Valley Joint Venture (an independent partnership that aims to protect and restore habitat to benefit birds, other wildlife, and the community), providing a framework for supporting and recovering bird populations in the Central Valley.
“I think the scale at which we’re working appeals to our program partners, which of course is driven largely by the birds and the very large geography across the Central Valley they utilize during their migration,” Davis said. “And so necessarily it requires landowners across an enormous area to come together, to provide suitable habitat for shorebirds. And as the landowner of a fairly large ranch in Sutter County, River Partners is happy to support the program.”
Sitting at the intersection of conservation and farming, Katanic is optimistic that programs like BirdReturns are becoming more popular and continue to gain momentum.
“It feels like an untapped opportunity to integrate more wildlife-friendly farming practices and conservation agriculture,” she said. “BirdReturns is proving that agriculture and wildlife habitat can actually coexist.”
All bird photos courtesy of Alice Davis.
