River is resurrected - The long-dry Owens now teems with birds and fish

In this case, his charge is the Lower Owens River, a 62-mile-long stretch left essentially dry in 1913 after its flows of Sierra snowmelt were diverted into the Los Angeles Aqueduct. After decades of political bickering, water was directed back into the riverbed in December, launching the largest river restoration effort ever attempted in the West.

Ecologists knew the Lower Owens would come back to life. But how fast would it rebuild itself? Which wildlife would appear first? Which plants?

Scientists have been surprised by some of the early answers, and to flesh out the details Hill recently took his first survey by kayak of the river. Hill, the lead scientist in the Lower Owens River Project, stepped into a blue inflatable 16-foot kayak, said "Let's go," and was soon scooting through the channel that cuts across the Owens Valley.

Hill's daylong journey, which included visitors in a separate kayak, was marked by striking displays of birds, fish and insects already setting up shop during the restored river's first summer. The water ran cold and, in this part of the channel, about knee deep. But the water was so clear that it seemed as though the kayaks were moving barely above the gravel bottom.

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Locals call this vast, arid region, about 200 miles north of Los Angeles, "The Big Quiet." It's easy to see why. The only sounds were the slosh of waves along the hulls, the dip of paddle blades and the occasional melodic konk-la-ree of red-winged blackbirds nesting in bulrushes.

"Wow! Look at that," Hill said, nodding toward a cloud of baby largemouth bass -- evidence of the species' first spawn in the revived river system -- wafting through a tangle of water lilies. Nearby, carp and Owens River suckers, some of them more than a foot long, grazed amid submerged pastures of moss that, in turn, fed on nutrients in the channel that for decades "had more cow poop than water in it," Hill said.

Great blue herons and kingfishers plucked fish from myriad shallow inlets created by the new flows. At dusk, bank swallows caught flying insects after emerging from small caves they had chipped out of steep riverbank cliffs.