Rice Field on Nelson Road, Butte County Live Cam

A rice field stretches north from Nelson Road near the farming community of Nelson in Butte County, California. Past a grassy verge and a dirt track, the flat field runs to a tree line and low ridges on the horizon.

Nelson grew up around a railroad station founded in 1873 and once shipped wheat, but rice is the main crop around it today. Rice paddies split by low levees and fed by canals cover this part of the Sacramento Valley. Flooded fields here serve as a stopover for ducks and geese on the Pacific Flyway.

The camera faces north-north-east across the road, and the field shows its whole growing cycle: groundwork starts in April, the harvest comes in August and September, and bird activity peaks from November to January. On clear mornings the summit of Lassen Peak, more than 100 km away, rises above the foothills on the left side of the horizon.