Birding trip: Merced National Wildlife Refuge

With the rains holding off for now, Laurie and I headed out to Merced National Wildlife Refuge in search of geese and Sandhill Cranes, and whatever else we could find.

The Merced NWR is a smallish area that is maintained as an artificial wetlands and grasslands area — to simulate the kind of environment that existed before the central valley was heavily modified for agriculture. It is a key wintering location and migration stop for birds along the pacific flyway, hosting shorebirds, ducks, geese and sandhill cranes.

With the migration going, they’ve started pumping water into the refuge to flood the fields. Today, the area near the entrance was still bone dry, but the back areas were partially flooded, and the first Sandhill Cranes and Snow Geese have arrived.

There are some riparian trails near the entrance through the trees, good for sparrows and warblers and sometimes woodpeckers. The main attraction is a 6km auto trail around the perimeter which allows you good views and access of the birds and wildlife within.

(photos from today, plus photos from previous trips to Merced NWR, are here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/chuqui/sets/72157603931162647/)

On Sandy Mush driving in, we saw an American Kestrel, red-winged blackbirds (duh), our first of many red-tailed hawks, Northern Mockingbird and Scrub Jay.

As we arrived, the first thing we saw was the rare and secretive Bob Power of Santa Clara Valley Audubon, herding a birding class around the refuge. That brought reports of Lincoln’s Sparrow and Hermit Thrush near the bathroom.

There were very few birds in the air — when we arrived, a few small flocks of Sandhill Cranes, plus a number of turkey vultures and Red-tails. We spent a couple of hours traversing the auto trail. the Sandhill Cranes were only close in in one location (a small group near the rear observation platform), and the Snow Geese insisted on staying in the center far from any reasonable viewing, but you could see the large mass of white bodies…

Highlight birds for the day:

Sandhill Crane

• Snow Goose
• White-faced Ibis

Near the start of the auto-tour, we had a flock of roughly 20-25 ibis fly in and fly back out again. I didn’t get a great look at them (and no photos), but they were likely white-faced.

Along the south side of the auto-trail, we stopped to check out sparrows — only White-crowned and some gold-crowned, but while we were there, we had a bird up on the power wires — an American Pipit:

There was also a flock of roughly 100 Sandhill Cranes hanging out on the opposite side of the road across the field near the irrigation channel.

On the way towards the observation tower we had a western meadowlark at the side of the road yelling.

From the observation tower in the back we had a large number of ducks and shorebirds, including Mallard, lots (and lots) of American Coots and Northern Shovelers, a few cinnamon teals, a number of Northern Pintails, Yellowlegs of some sort, a grey shorebird that I’ll call a Willet (well, lots of them), and the small party of Sandhill Cranes. In the trees at the tower we found two Yellow-Rumped warblers.

Past that point, it was still non-flooded and there wasn’t a lot of activity, other than a Peregrine Falcon that sat for a few photos.

Species list for today: (30 species, plus 2 reported we didn’t see)

• Lincoln’s Sparrow (reported, we didn’t see)
• Song Sparrow (2-4)
• White-Crowned Sparrow
• Gold-Crowned Sparrow
• Hermit thrush (reported, we didn’t see)
• American Pipit
• Black Phoebe (almost as many as mosquitos)
• Red-tailed Hawk (at least 15)
• Peregrine Falcon
• Turkey Vulture (6-8; on the way back on the 152 near the 5, we also saw a flock of ~20 soaring together)
• Scrub Jay
• Northern Mockingbird
• Marsh Wren
• (white-faced?) Ibis (20-25)
• Snow Geese (300-500)
• Sandhill Crane (500+)
• Greater White-Fronted Goose (25-50)
• Snowy Egret
• Great Egret
• Black-necked stilt
• American Avocet
• (?) Yellowlegs
• Willet (and possibly some dunlin)
• Western Gull
• Mallard
• Northern Pintail
• Nothern Shoveler
• American Coot
• Cinnamon Teal
• Yellow-Rumped Warbler
• Western Meadowlark
• Double-crested cormorant

We’ll likely go back in about 6 weeks, and again in mid-january and mid-late February; peak period for Merced NWR is generally end of October into March.

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