Running through the Central Valley’s patchwork of yellow, green, and brown farmlands is the deep blue of California’s largest river–the Sacramento. Once a much wider river, meandering across the flat valley floor, the Sacramento has been straight-jacketed by steep earthen levees and confined to a more controlled channel. On either side of the river, where once would have stretched seasonal floodplains dotted with gnarled cottonwoods, shrubby willows, and dense tufts of tule grass, there’s now a vast expanse of rice fields. Around 95% of historic floodplain habitat in the Central Valley has been lost to draining and agricultural conversion.