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Wildlife Relationships <br /> The very limited riparian habitat currently found on the property does not provide enough <br /> contiguous habitat to support a diverse avifauna characteristic of riparian forest in the Great <br /> Valley. Thickets in swales have developed and provide cover for a variety of understory <br /> birds. However only California Quail (Callipepla californica), wrentit, and rufous-sided <br /> towhee (Pipilo erythrophthalmus) are dependent upon the thickets for nesting. These <br /> thickets do support winter flocking sparrows such as white-crowned (Zonotrichia <br /> leucophrys) and golden-crowned (Z. atricapilla) sparrows, as well as understory sparrows <br /> such as fox (Passerella diaca) and song sparrows. <br /> Isolated clumps of riparian trees around the Tracy Lakes provide very limited habitat for <br /> nesting songbirds. Blue grosbeak (Guiraca caerulea)might utilize dense thickets, as might <br /> lazuli bunting. It is the riparian emergent trees that provide roosting and nesting sites for <br /> larger raptors on the property including Swainson's hawk. The latter species nested on the <br /> ranch in 1992 in an emergent Fremont cottonwood (Biotics Survey 1993). Enhanced <br /> riparian habitat could provide enough trees to actually increase the raptor nesting population <br /> on the ranch. The success of this would primarily depend upon proper grassland <br /> management on the ranch as well as continued ranching and farming in adjacent fields. As <br /> with the sandhill crane, the greatest threats to raptors in northern San Joaquin County <br /> remains conversion of ranch lands to vineyards and orchards, and urbanization. <br /> 2.55 Aquatic Deep Water Habitats <br /> Riverine <br /> The River system sensu Cowardin (1985) and Mayer and Landenslayer(1988) includes the <br /> Buckeye Ranch Resource Plan (November, 1993) <br /> 60 <br />