Merced National Wildlife Reserve, 11/1/2008

I had to drive to SoCal today for a (hopefully final) meeting with the lawyer and mom on the estate, and I decided to make a run at Merced NWR and see if I could get there for dawn and the fly-ins, weather permitting. The rain fortunately held off, but it was very overcast and darkish and grey. I got up really early and was out the door by 5AM, and arrived at Merced NWR at 7:05.

As I drove in the entrance, I saw my first neat bird, a great horned owl sitting on a telephone wire. It was still dark, just the beginning of a hint of color on the horizon, so I started the auto route looking for a possible place for dawn pictures. I stopped at the first interpretive sign to unpack cameras and set up equipment. While parked there, I heard a 2nd owl calling from the trees back towards the entrance area, and then a third one flew in from the marsh and flew into the trees. Not bad for, oh, 5 minutes on site.

this was followed shortly by my first hawk, which overflew me; the underside made it clear it was Ferruginous. that was the first of many raptors, but all of the others were red-tails or kestrels (but I’m not complaining). the owls disappeared as the light came up, and I didn’t go chasing for them.

The dawn color faded out, so that didn’t work out, but as I was standing there, I heard the sandhill cranes suddenly all wake up and start chirring. Really a crazy/awesome sound. Just amazing. Birds started flying around, suddenly I started getting waves of snowy egrets flying into the refuge and landing in the marshes. By the time I was done, I had well over 100 come by. The cranes continued to make noise, and some started flying about. I continued through the refuge, and after making the turn and heading off to he first of the ponds where the ducks hang out, I stopped to see what was going on. Huge (massively huge) numbers of coots and shovelers, plus large numbers of good numbers of pintails; smaller numbers of other ducks such as mallards and teals.

I decided to finish the run around the refuge to see what was where, then do it again with better light for photo possibilities. there were a good number of sandhill cranes along the back area. I continued back to the entrance area and started again. The second time through, the geese had flown in, and were continuing to fly in; I scoped out the goose flocks — I didn’t see any Ross’ geese among the snow geese, and I saw small numbers of greater white-fronted and canada; no brandt’s.

While scoping the geese, I heard a call behind up; up on the telephone wire was a loggerhead shrike. I then had a small group (about 6) of ibis fly past, followed by another group of about 20. Continuing to drive back to the duck areas, I found another group of ibis feeding in the marsh. I didn’t stop at the back observation platform, so the only shorebirds I saw were off with the ducks, and those were limtied to a large number of stilts and random killdeer wndering around.

On the way back to the entrance area I ran into a flock of meadowlarks in the pasture; they were a no-show on the first run; in the trees right at the end of the autotrail, I ran into two birds flycatching. I stopped to look, and saw the bright yellow chests — western kingbirds (which ebird finds notable this time of year; so did I).

Back at the observation area at the entrance, I decided to see if I could scare up a rail. using a few clapper or virginia rail tapes merely pissed off a couple of marsh wrens who chewed me out. The mosquitos were fairly annoying and I was out of time, so I cut it short and headed out. (memo to self: add DEET to the car’s emergency kit).

Driving out Sandy Mush to Hwy-99, I crossed an irrigation canal, or tried to. The canal, the road, the bridge were all covered with great egrets; I stopped and counted and passed 50. I HAD to stop, they weren’t inclined to actually get out of the way of the car until I honked a few times, then they gave me a dirty look and moved out of the way, reluctantly. I also had 2 yellow-billed magpies near 99.

there were many large flocks of blackbirds; I didn’t scope them too closely, but everything I saw was a red-winged. Ditto the LBB patrol; huge numbers of winter sparrows, and I declined the detailed investigation, but everything I did stop and look at was a crown, running about 10:1 for white-crowns. Lots and lots of white-crowns.

The refuge looks to be about 75% flooded, and open for winter business. If you want to make a run to look at cranes and geese, go. If you haven’t done the crack of dawn patrol, it’s a lot of fun. Bring DEET. trust me. I was flushing moquitos out of the car in the grapevine…

I’m coming back monday afternoon. Not sure what (if anything) I’ll do; my heart says sunset at mono lake and across tioga pass, my head says “that’s insane, assuming tioga is open after this storm”. More likely, I might try for Soda Lake, or maybe something along the coast. Or just straight home… We’ll see.

Location: Merced National Wildlife Refuge
Observation date: 11/1/08
Number of species: 35

Greater White-fronted Goose 50
Snow Goose 600
Canada Goose 25
Gadwall X
American Wigeon X
Mallard X
Cinnamon Teal 10
Northern Shoveler 1000
Northern Pintail 750
Green-winged Teal 15
Great Blue Heron 6
Great Egret 50
Snowy Egret 150
White-faced Ibis 60
Northern Harrier 1
Red-tailed Hawk 15
Ferruginous Hawk 1
American Kestrel 6
American Coot 1000
Sandhill Crane 400
Killdeer 8
Black-necked Stilt 250
Mourning Dove X
Great Horned Owl 3
Anna’s Hummingbird 1
Black Phoebe 6
Western Kingbird 2
Loggerhead Shrike 1
Yellow-billed Magpie 2
American Crow X
Marsh Wren 2
White-crowned Sparrow 500
Golden-crowned Sparrow 50
Red-winged Blackbird 1000
Western Meadowlark 25

This report was generated automatically by eBird v2(http://ebird.org)

You might also want to read:

1. Moon Over Merced ...
2. Visiting Merced Wildlife Refuge William Henderson at Hold the Eye Images has a nice piece on Merced Wildlife refuge Merced Wildlife Refuge, a photographic treasure – Hold The Eye...
3. Recalling Yellowstone National Park’s Historic 1988 Fire Season | National Parks Traveler Recalling Yellowstone National Park’s Historic 1988 Fire Season | National Parks Traveler: No one realized it at the time, but when a lightning strike ignited...
4. 2008 Playoff predictions. Still not at the point where I’m hockey blogging reliably yet, but wanted to get this in (and once I free up some time and...
5. A good day Birding — Merced NWR, O’Neil forebay Update: photos now available here: Laurie and I joined Bob Power of Santa Clara Valley Audubon on a group outing to Merced NWR, O’Neill Forebay...