BwBTC Sacramento Part 2

Howdee all,

We are currently in Sebastopol, Ca. visiting friends and staying quite busy..not much time for blogging and internet stuff…but having a great time.

Last post we had just finished the walking tour.

This is now the Auto tour around the Sacramento Wildlife Refugee.

Recognize this bird from the previous post?

American Goldfinch

  American Bittern …Great find!

A beautiful but very chilly and breezy day.  

  There is a Great Horned Owl in this tree…very well hidden…

The ponds which Larry and Geno say are normally filled with birds ..have just a few…

Snow geese. Coots, Pintails and a few Ross's Geese here…

    See the ponds on either side…Where are the birds?

A few Black Necked Stilts

Coots and Gadwalls

A few Northern Shovelers

But the most of the ponds had very few birds

    Looking at more empty ponds

A bit further and we see a few more Ducks and Geese

 

Still not the numbers that are usually seen here..

See them all in the sky?

   We do see a few areas full of Snow Geese..

Snow Geese and Long-billed Dowitchers

     Red-tailed Hawk

            But it seems that most of the ducks were in ponds further from us…and also

in the sky not many hanging out in the water..We did manage to tally 60 species between the auto tour, walking tour and the golf course.. 

I will save the golf course Burrowing Owl photos for my next post..

See ya at the golf course!

BwBTC Sacramento Part 1

Howdee all,

Sorry it has taken me so long to post more photos from the BwBTC outing.

Others have already posted their accounts and photos of the day.

Geno’s Post on the outing and the Burrowing Owls

Larry's Post on the outing.

Eric's photos 

I will be posting this in three parts…Mostly because I have a hard time weeding out photos..It was a beautiful area.

We started our morning meeting at 8am at the parking lot of Sacramento National Wildlife Refugee..

Coastal range mountains in the background. Autumn colors

It was very chilly! We were all bundled up as you can see.

We all gather and do the walking tour.

Snow Geese fly overhead

Turkey Vultures warm themselves in the morning sun

And the birders start to bird ..my shadow on Jeff's rearWe walked past ponds looking for birds.

On the drive up we saw thousands in the air…so it seemed promising that we would find them here.At the far pond we find a nice assortment of ducks.  Cheryl, found a beaver Dam. Most of the ponds we passed weren't very birdie…but it was just beautiful  The reflectionsReflections and fall foliage   Beautiful Golds in the trees and reds in some of the grasses.       So instead of birds here… I will show you how lovely it was But look…two blackbirds hanging out in the reeds.Awesome snow capped mountains      Paths lined with grasses…..     Marshy areas with bright greens and blues..   More mountain views….   Do you know what bird this is? Well it had us stumped for a bit.. And….see all those tiny black dots in the sky?

Those are ducks…thousands of ducks..   

From our very chilly morning walk we all returned to our cars to do the Auto Tour..

Ahh…warmth!

Stay tuned for Part 2…the Auto Tour

BwBTC Sacramento

Howdee all,

Yesterday was the Sacramento Bird outing with Bloggers from around the area.

we had a wonderful time birding with everyone!

I was very impressed by these bloggers who are actively working to preserve and protect our birds and Environment!

I will blog more about our day soon…but until then..

I will introduce you to the cast of characters.

1st row yours truly and hubby Jeff

Second row left to right..

Eric, Scott, Heather,Cheryl, Larry, Kathy, Geno

Eric is a photographer and yesterday was his first bird outing..I wonder if we got him hooked on birding?

Scott has 3 blogs. The one I was familiar with was JournOwl, Read about how Scott is trying to save a group of Burrowing Owls. Scott is also a keen Environmentalist, Conservationist. He has two other blogs Thriving Oceans and  Bio the numbers  that I just started reading.

Heather, Scotts wife, and photographer. whom I hope thawed out after yesterdays cold weather.

Cheryl, Also is associated with 3 blogs. She is working to save the Beaver population in Martinez and volunteers to rehab sea birds at the International Bird Rescue and research center.

Larry has the popular blog and online store The Birders Report.  Larry just received a grant from the Audubon society to make Burrowing Owl habitat in Northern California. Thanks Larry, for organizing where to bird yesterday.

Karen, also volunteers rehabbing  sea birds.

Cheryl and Kathy spoke about the 500 birds recently sent to be rehabbed that were hurt during the Algae bloom in Washington and Oregon, and how devastating this Algae bloom was to the bird populations. They are both discouraged by the amount of birds they are seeing malnourished.

Geno is a local, Birder, Biker, hiker and friend of ours, our Sacramento tour guide….  Check out his blog.

A great day!

More to come….