Qualla: Last Stop on the Flyway https://qualla.com/delevan-national-wildlife-refuge en-us © 2026 Bendyline Mon, 20 Jul 2026 10:21:11 GMT Qualla serial false Qualla support@bendyline.com yes https://qualla.com/_m/9/q/c/p/delevan-national-wildlife-refuge-wp/hero-small.webp Qualla: Last Stop on the Flyway https://qualla.com/delevan-national-wildlife-refuge Last Stop on the Flyway: Introduction https://qualla.com/delevan-national-wildlife-refuge/ Photo credit Nzeemin, CC BY-SA 3.0. Ninety-five percent. That is how much of the Central Valley's original wetlands have disappeared over the past century -- drained for rice paddies, subdivisions, highways, and the hydraulic ambitions of a state that decided water belonged in aqueducts, not marshes. The five percent that remains carries the full ecological weight of what was lost, and nowhere is that weight more visible than at Delevan National Wildlife Refuge, where more than 200,000 ducks and 100,000 geese descend each winter onto 5,797 acres of managed wetland in Colusa County. They have nowhere else to go. The marshes their ancestors chose freely among are parking lots now, or almond orchards, or suburbs. Delevan is not a luxury for these birds. It is the last option.

Read more: Last Stop on the Flyway on Qualla

Image: Nzeemin | CC BY-SA 3.0

]]> Thu, 02 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/9/q/c/p/delevan-national-wildlife-refuge-wp/9qcp-last-stop-on-the-flyway-intro.mp3 0:06 1 full Last Stop on the Flyway: Marshland by Design https://qualla.com/delevan-national-wildlife-refuge/ Photo credit Nzeemin, CC BY-SA 3.0. Eighty miles north of Sacramento, Delevan sprawls across the floor of the Sacramento Valley as a grid of levees, impoundments, and water control structures that would look, from above, more like an irrigation project than a wilderness. That appearance is not deceiving. Over 4,500...

Read more: Last Stop on the Flyway on Qualla

Image: Nzeemin | CC BY-SA 3.0

]]> Thu, 02 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/9/q/c/p/delevan-national-wildlife-refuge-wp/9qcp-last-stop-on-the-flyway-marshland-by-design.mp3 0:06 2 full Last Stop on the Flyway: Three Hundred Thousand Guests https://qualla.com/delevan-national-wildlife-refuge/ Photo credit Nzeemin, CC BY-SA 3.0. Winter transforms Delevan. The quiet uplands and empty impoundments of summer give way to a spectacle of noise and motion as the Pacific Flyway delivers its annual cargo. Snow geese arrive in flocks so large they register as weather on radar. Northern pintails -- the most abundan...

Read more: Last Stop on the Flyway on Qualla

Image: Nzeemin | CC BY-SA 3.0

]]> Thu, 02 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/9/q/c/p/delevan-national-wildlife-refuge-wp/9qcp-last-stop-on-the-flyway-three-hundred-thousand-guests.mp3 0:06 3 full Last Stop on the Flyway: The Endangered and the Overlooked https://qualla.com/delevan-national-wildlife-refuge/ Photo credit Nzeemin, CC BY-SA 3.0. Below the spectacle of the winter waterfowl, Delevan shelters species whose survival depends on far less attention and far more luck. The giant garter snake, endemic to the Central Valley's disappearing wetlands, hunts frogs and small fish along the refuge's ditches and marsh edg...

Read more: Last Stop on the Flyway on Qualla

Image: Nzeemin | CC BY-SA 3.0

]]> Thu, 02 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/9/q/c/p/delevan-national-wildlife-refuge-wp/9qcp-last-stop-on-the-flyway-the-endangered-and-the-overlooked.mp3 0:06 4 full Last Stop on the Flyway: What Five Percent Means https://qualla.com/delevan-national-wildlife-refuge/ Photo credit Nzeemin, CC BY-SA 3.0. Delevan is one of six refuges in the Sacramento National Wildlife Refuge Complex, and together they form the backbone of wintering waterfowl habitat in the Pacific Flyway. The math behind their importance is stark. The Central Valley once held millions of acres of seasonal wetlan...

Read more: Last Stop on the Flyway on Qualla

Image: Nzeemin | CC BY-SA 3.0

]]> Thu, 02 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/9/q/c/p/delevan-national-wildlife-refuge-wp/9qcp-last-stop-on-the-flyway-what-five-percent-means.mp3 0:06 5 full