A great day birding…

While everyone else was out shopping, Laurie and I packed the gear and wandered off into the central valley to do some birding. We started a bit after 8AM, and drove out to Merced NWR, arriving around ten. The plan was to bird Merced, lunch on the way north, and visit Los Consumnes for the afternoon and sunset, hoping to get some good sandhill crane action.

Merced NWR was wonderfully active, with a good number of birders using the auto trail. It was an warm and sunny, a bit hazy, but almost perfect weather. The birds did not disappoint.

Friday was a banner day for raptors; before we even hit the refuge we were seeing red-tails (6) and kestrels (2) on the drive in. We started by birding the bushes up by the bathroom, catching White and Gold-crowned sparrows, yellow-rumped Warbler, Northern Mockingbird and another American kestrel, along with California Towhee and the rare and timid Black Phoebe.

At the observation deck, where the area is now partially flooded, the coots have moved in, along with various sparrows. Along with the crowned sparrows, we had a few song sparrows. One sparrow flitting in the dark I thought was a white-throated, but after reviewing the photos this morning, it’s a song sparrow (why I like using photos later to verify my IDs….). One birder that was on the observation deck said he’d seen a Rock Wren but it flew out of the area and he never refound it. We never saw it, although we did see a Marsh Wren in the area, and some Bewicks Wrens out along the trail.

Raptors were the stars of the day — by the end, I counted at least 15 red-tails on the refuge site, light and dark morph, half a dozen Northern Harriers, one turkey vulture, and four American Kestrels (two on the refuge) a white-tailed kite, plus the absolute surprise of the day, a huge golden eagle sitting out in the middle of the refuge on the side of a pond. One of the other cars at the NWR was also some folks from Santa Clara Valley Audubon and we’d been sort of birding near each other, so when I put the scope out on eagle and looked, I simply called out “everyone to the scope, now. And please tell me I’m seeing what I think I’m seeing”. It was, but well beyond any possible photo op.. sigh. The red-tails were being very vocal, by the way. Lots of calling.

Shorebirds included the usual: black-necked stilts and american avocets, a long-billed curlew, willets, lots of peeps, yellowlegs, dowitchers and two or three other sandpipers I didn’t try to ID out.

As we moved along the side of the refuge, we found the cranes and geese. There was only one sandhill crane in easy view, the rest congregating far out on the edge across the fields semi-hidden. We could hear them in a number of locations but they weren’t being too cooperative. We did get good looks at the one for one of the people in the other car. Geese included a good number of Snow Geese (200-300 visible), plus Greater White-fronted (100ish), and standing next to them were a good number (25+) white-faced ibis, which was a life bird for one of the other birders there.

As we were scoping the geese (extra credit: “find the three Ross’s in the group”), I mentioned that in my previous trip, I’d seen Pipits in the area. Laurie noticed some lumps moving in the fields, and I scoped them; Killdeer, not the hoped-for quail. Shortly thereafter, the pipits in fact arrived to make me look like a genius… And then we had a snipe fly through — I didn’t get a great look at it, unfortunately, but someone from the other car called it.

Along the back of the refuge, the folks in the other car stopped and hauled out their scope. We pulled in close — they’d found a tree with three great horned owls. Two flushed and left, one stayed behind and kept a close watch on us.

In the back where the ducks congregate we stopped and scoped to look for interesting birds. It was primarily the usual suspects: Northern Pintail, Lots (and Logs) of Shovelers, Cinnamon teal, green-winged teal, mallards. Laurie saw a few Canvasbacks. Notably missing from the survey were blue-winged teals — but as my photo shows, they were there, as I caught a pair flying off. The other car found a loggerhead shrike and pointed it to us, a lifer for me (so is golden eagle).

In among the ducks and shorebirds were one single snow goose and one white-faced ibis, the only individuals of those species to make themselves available for easy viewing. That finally gave me the opportunity to get some photos of an ibis that didn’t suck…

Other notable birds included a woodpecker (probably acorn) that we saw in the trees in the first leg, but we were trying to get a look at a huge lump in a tree on an island in the marsh (a huge dark morph adult red-wing, it turned out) and it didn’t stick around long, and about 20 white pelicans and 1-2 brown pelicans.

One exceptionally strange bird NOT seen: Canada Goose. None. Nada. Zero. Not one. Nowhere. I even checked with some of the other birds, and they hadn’t seen any either. Strange…

After the ducks, we realized we were running late, so the last third or so of the refuge, which was still mostly cow pasture, we more or less skimmed through, but at one point I noticed a western meadowlark in the field and pointed it out to Laurie (we’d previously seen 3 earlier in the trip, which is when I took the photos). as we drove by, meadowlarks kept popping up and flying away from the card — 5, 10, 15, 20 — we ended up with over 30 meadowlarks all sitting up and visible in the field over about a 100 yard section of the cow pasture. Just amazing…

After that, we headed out, grabbed lunch in Merced and drove up to Consumnes, arriving there about 4:30. We parked in the secondary lot near the wetlands, and I was hoping to get Laurie some good looks of the Sandhills. Unlike my previous trip, though, the cranes were all in non-visible locations. You could hear them, but there were no cranes, no geese of any kind visible. Since it was already heading towards twilight, we didn’t go looking for them, but walked the boardwalk (didn’t see much, nothing unusual) then headed back to the car and watched the sunset. If my first sunset at Consumnes was an 8, this was about a 6, but we did have a few hundred sandhills fly in and settle down for the night, along with some canada geese (finally!), mostly as silhouettes. A group of about 20 did settle in within viewing of the parking lot so we got some so-so views of them. Oh well, if you want guarantees, go to Disneyland.. (grin)

As the light finally faded at Consumnes and we were packing up, I saw a large owl fly off into the marsh; it seemed about the same size as the great horned, but I’m not the person to pretend to ID something like that..

All in all, it was a bit over 300 miles for the day. In retrospect, that was too much ground to cover in one day, but it was fun to try once. We’re probably going to try to get back to Consumnes in mid-december or early january, and out to Merced again probably in Mid-January, and hopefully hit each one up again around march, but we’ll see.

Species list: (53 species)

Merced NWR area

Red-Tail hawk (20ish)
Crow
Northern Mockingbird
Red-Winged Blackbird
Brewers Blackbird
American Kestrel (6)
White-Crowned Sparrow
Gold-Crowned Sparrow
Song Sparrow
Savannah Sparrow
Black Phoebe
American Coot
California Towhee
Marsh Wren
Bewick’s Wren
Northern Harrier
Black-Necked Stilt
European Starling
Mourning Dove
? Snipe
American Pipit
Sandhill Crane
Snow Goose
White-Faced Ibis
Yellow-Rumped Warbler
Great Egret
Snowy Egret (only 1)
Great Blue Heron (5-6)
Northern Shoveler
Northern Pintail
Canvasback
Cinnamon Teal
Blue-winged teal
green-winged teal
mallard
? Wigeon (heard, never seen)
Killdeer
Dowitchers
yellowlegs
long-billed curlew
Peep sandpipers
two species of mid-sized sandpipers
Gulls
White Pelican
Brown Pelican
Western Meadowlark (30ish)
Golden Eagle
Woodpecker (possible Acorn)
Great Horned Owl (3)
Loggerhead Shrike
Turkey Vulture
White-Tailed Kite

Consumnes:

Canada Goose

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