Sarah & I stopped by the Sacramento National Wildlife Refuge on our way home from Portland yesterday for a quick trip on the driving loop, as a nasty storm had just broken and we were hoping the birdies would be out shaking out their feathers.
The visitor’s center was closed until Jan 3 for the holidays, but the gates to the driving loop were open, so we got out our gear and headed in.
We were first struck by the huge numbers of Western Meadowlarks everywhere. We spotted first one, then many dozens as they flushed and flew from bush to bush. The Meadowlarks here seem quite a lot larger than the ones I see frequently at the Palo Alto Baylands – must be regional size variances or something.
There were a very impressive number of Ring-necked Pheasants afoot too – by far and away the most I’ve ever seen. Whereas I’ve most often encountered them in twos and threes, here they numbered in the hundreds and were essentially everywhere one cared to look!
The usual raptors (Red-tailed Hawk, Cooper’s Hawk, Northern Harrier) were in the trees, and lots of cute little bunnies were on the ground, waiting to be eaten by them.
Of ducks there were a-plenty, although nothing too rare or too interesting. A good many Common Moorhens were around, and gazillions of American Coots. There were only a few thousand or so Snow Geese and Greater White-fronted Geese, nowhere near the numbers of our visit last year, but we did get to see a few pondfulls take off. Only a few stragglers were to be seen right near the auto loop.
Sarah spied a solitary White-faced Ibis, which was a nice find, as I’ve only ever seen them once before, at Grey Lodge WLA in Dec ’04. Whereas the previous time they were in a small group, we saw just this one this time.
We stopped at the lookout deck to stretch our legs and talk to the few other birders around. One lady said there was a Bald Eagle near the end of the loop, which had us excited since, although we’ve seen them several times before, it had always been from a moving car on the freeway, and we’d never had a chance to look at one up close.
Sure enough, a little ways down the road, there was a lovely bald eagle perched in a tree. I got a few good photographs of it, but it didn’t look eager to take wing, so we moved onwards.
The list of birds we saw is:
– American Coot
– American Crow
– American Kestrel
– American Wigeon
– Bald Eagle
– Black Phoebe
– Black-necked Stilt
– Brewer’s Blackbird
– Bufflehead
– Cinnamon Teal
– Common Moorhen
– Common Raven
– Cooper’s Hawk
– Gadwall
– Great Blue Heron
– Great Egret
– Greater White-fronted Goose
– Mallard
– Northern Harrier
– Northern Pintail
– Northern Shoveler
– Red-tailed Hawk
– Ring-necked Duck
– Ring-necked Pheasant
– Ruddy Duck
– Snow Goose
– Song? Sparrow
– Turkey Vulture
– Western Meadowlark
– White-faced Ibis
– Yellow-rumped? Warbler
Not too shabby of a list for a 70-minute watch, eh? And a fine way to bid adieu to 2005.
Adam Paul 