Birding trip: Merced National Wildlife Refuge

October 28, 2007 by chuq · Comments
Filed under: Birdwatching

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.

Sandhill Crane, Merced National Wildlife Refuge, California

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.

Tags: Merced National Wildlife Refuge

Trip report: Birdwatching…

May 12, 2007 by chuq · Comments
Filed under: Birdwatching, Photography, The Offline Life

The original plan was pretty simple: Laurie took a week off last fall to make a run up 395 and visit Lassen for some hiking and photography; her timing was impeccable, it was the last weekend before the Rangers told everyone to go home and they shut things down for the winter. I was going to spend a week in Yosemite the next week, just prior to starting my job at StrongMail.

Then Laurie got sick, and things got interesting. Everything else got put on hold.

And now here we are, a few months later, Laurie’s life’s getting back to normal, I could really use a few days off, but we’re in the middle of the playoffs with the Sharks; I also know if I want to get to Yosemite, I better do it before the hard-core rush of tourists arrive. So with Laurie’s okay, I look at the schedule and realize that (assuming at the time) the Sharks were going to advance further in the playoffs, my only real shot was to sneak in some time during the latter stages of the first round and before the 2nd round really kicked in. Work was nice enough to allow this to happen, and I figured as long as nobody messed up the seedings and allowed the Sharks home ice advantage in the 2nd round so they’d start on the road that I’d be okay. (and fortunately, that actually happened). With XM in the car, hockey’s never too far away, even in Yosemite.

The plan was to spend some time in Yosemite mid-week, then he south to LA to visit the parents (and do tech support on the computers). The plan was to spend a few days completely unwired and unplugged; I got a room at Wawona (but more on that when I write about Yosemite) rather than the valley floor, and really loved it. The trip was designed around three main themes:

Yosemite. What’s not to like? It was about exploring and enjoying, doing some hiking, but mostly, just being there.
The camera. I’ve been going through a phase of self-examination, critique and evaluation on my camera work (hence the quiet on the photo blog), and it was time to go and spend some time through the viewfinder, and also spend time on different subject matter — most specifically, more landscape work, less chasing birds. Yosemite is a natural for this.
birdwatching. As long as I was out, while it wasn’t the primary focus of the trip, it was a good excuse to go after some serious birdwatching in a few places and see what happens.

I’ll talk more about Yosemite later; and the camera discussion will head over to Imaging Reality soon.

Right now, some birdwatching… I made a few birdwatching stops during the trip — on the way to Yosemite, I re-visited the Merced NWR to see how it’d changed since the trip I took in March. Then on to Yosemite, where I spent an afternoon birding the Happy Isles area (especially around the fen), but otherwise, I ran into birds as part of other activities. Down visiting the family (in beautiful Orange County, land of, well, Disneyland), I spent a morning down at a favorite sport the Newport Back Bay area, and then a quick stop at Placentia’s tri-city park, which has an artificial pond that, like most mallard-magnets, sometimes has other interesting stuff. And then on the way home, I revisited another trip I took last year, and took a bit of time out in Morro Bay to check out the harbor and Sweet Springs and see if I could pad my species count for the trip and have lunch.

I was hoping that with some luck I might hit 100 species. I didn’t do badly, totalling 87, including (thanks to Yosemite) 14 lifers. I started keeping track when I hit the 101/152 interchange going east, and stopped when I hit the same location coming north. Detailed species listing and soem comments below:

Bird list — Yosemite trip (87, 14 life)

(* = first time seen on trip)

152/101 -> Merced NWR (9)

I made a decision not to make stops on the way to Merced NWR; birding O’Neill forebay and then reservoir is not recommended at 65 miles an hour; on the other hand, from what I could see, the waters were pretty quiet; as usual, hawk and vultures were everywhere…

American kestrel*
Brewers Blackbird*
grebe* (prb western)
house sparrow*
Mallard Duck*
Red Winged Blackbird*
red-tailed hawk*
turkey vulture*
Yellow-Billed Magpie*
Merced NWR (29)

When we visited the refuge in March, it was still a very wet area and full of swans and geese.

Since then, the migrating birds have departed, and the refuge has been allowed to dry out, turning much of it from marsh and wetlands to meadow. The day was very warm, and it was mid-day, with bright sun with lots of glare, not a great day for photography. For me, the highlights of the trip were the large number of white-faced Ibis hanging around the refuge, as well as what seemed to be Marsh Wren’s literally everywhere. the bad news was that I never got a location where I could photograph ibis that weren’t backlit and I ended up tossing all of the pictures as unacceptable. Will have to try again some day, I’m still looking for decent photos of them.

In fact, the only photos I kept from this stop were of a particularly cooperative (and noisy) Marsh Wren:

But then, that’s a nice enough photo that I won’t complain that I didn’t get the Ibis this trip… I do wish the photos of the Western Kingbird had been better, also, but they weren’t keepers, either.

American Avocet*
American Bittern*
American Coot*
American Goldfinch*
American Pipit*
Black Phoebe*
Black-Crowned Night heron*
Black-Necked Stilt*
Brown-headed cowbird*
Cinnamon Teal*
Dunlin*
Gold-Crowned Sparrow*
Great Blue Heron*
Great Egret*
Green-Winged Teal*
Killdeer*
Marsh Wren*
Mourning Dove*
Northern Harrier*
Northern Mockingbird*
Ring-necked Pheasant*
Ruddy Duck*
Snowy Egret*
Song Sparrow* (heard only)
tree swallow*
Western Kingbird (life) *
Western Meadowlark*
Western Sandpiper*
White Crown Sparrow*
White-faced Ibis*
Yellow-Rumped Warbler*

Merced NWR -> yosemite (1)

Scrub Jay*

Yosemite/Wawona area (3)

Then on to Yosemite, where I checked in at Wawona, then drove up to Tunnel View and spent the afternoon and evening watching the light on the valley and geeking photography with a few other souls who weren’t in such a damn hurry. The Wawona hotel area was pretty quiet for birds — Robins, Blackbirds, Juncos, Jays, the usual suspects — but up at Tunnel view, we were visited by a pair of young but very habituated Ravens. One of the ravens decided to try to break into a car:

but fortunately didn’t succeed. The funny thing is, every time he attempted to peck open the door, he made a funny sound that I swear was his attempt to sound like the sound a car makes when you unlock it; I really got the feeling he’d connected the sound to the opening of the door and felt if he got it just right, he’d be able to get in. There were ravens and Steller’s Jays everywhere, I counted 12-15 ravens on the trip, and close to 100 Jays.

American Robin*
Brewer’s Blackbird
Dark-eyed Junco*
Steller’s Jay*

Yosemite/Hetch-hetchy area (4)

With two fulls days, and two partial days at the park, I decided to focus on a few places; the first afternoon and evening up at tunnel view taking photos of the valley; the next morning, up early and out to Hetch Hetchy for some hiking and exploring; the second full day down on the valley floor, and then the final morning at big trees before heading out the south entrance to LA.

I’d never been to Hetch-Hetchy before, or if I have, it was long enough ago that it’s lost in the mists of time. It’s at a lower elevation than Yosemite, and it’s a mature oak habitat instead of more of a conifer/alpine. The trip involves heading up over Crane Flat, out the park up the 120, and then cut back in and up a narrow toad to get to the dam and the reservoir. On the way up, I had the windows open (the only way to visit the park, IMHO), listening for bird songs in case I heard something I wanted to chase. Mostly, I heard yellow-rumped warblers… As I was headed up, however, suddenly at the side of the road up popped a shape. I immediately saw it was a quail, but it was shaped wrong for California, and it’s topknot was wrong. the Mountain Quail stood there on the side of the road for about five seconds, suddenly realized there was a car near him, and just as suddenly ran off and back into the brush; just enough time to get a good look and ID, not long enough for a photo. So what else is new?

At the dam, I did some hiking up the trail towards the waterfalls. It was very nice day, a bit warm, and almost completely deserted, other than the search and rescue team, the large contingent of rangers, a bunch of white Tahoe’s with government plates, and the terrorist… well, faux-terrorist. Turns out they were spending a day of “catch the terrorist”, where they’d planted the evil nasty guy on the dam, and the security crews were supposed to work there way into the facility and capture him before anything really bad happened; we have to remember that O’shaunnessy is part of the water system in the state, and so they were practicing protecting it. Actually, everyone was cool, although they were careful to tell the few of us visiting what was going on so we didn’t freak. I even had a chance to talk to the terrorist a bit (he was the guy in the red hat); he even had a gun, although the only thing the gun was going to do was cool you off when he squirted you… but it was the thought that counted..

Hetch-hetchy seems to be a nice place for people visiting Yosemite to go if they want to get away from the crowds, even during busier seasons. There’s some nice hiking there, and I found it to be rather beautiful. There’s a simmering argument that continues about whether to tear down the dam and rebuild the valley, and to be honest, I can see why some people have that view. My problem with the plan is that it’s brutally expensive, it requires moving all that water storage elsewhere (basically meaning we have to screw up some other location to fix this one), that it’ll take decades — and even then, it’s unclear just how long it’ll take to bring it back to something approaching what it was, if you can. Given the continuing funding issues of the parks we currently have, I’m still convinced the money is better spent on what we already have than throwing it at a wish to undo something that was done a century ago. Maybe someday, but I’m still convinced we have other priorities to worry about and spend that money on.

The one key bird for me up at the reservoir was Townsend’s Warbler. No picture (but here’s one) — but trust me, I tried. I was only carrying my wide-angle lens, because I was primarily interested in shots of the area, but there was this one large, old oak, and I kept hearing calls out of it. I spent 20 minutes or so trying to get a clear view of who it was, since I didn’t recognize the call, and it finally popped out onto a branch a couple of times and sang, giving me good views. And my honor was satisfied…

On the way back down, when I was back in the inhabited areas and pastures, I realized that there were birds flying out of a stand of trees on the side of the road onto the roadway, and then back into the trees. Intrigued, since there was a pull-out, I stopped and parked and decided to see what happened.

What happened was finches; I realized they were purple finches, not house finches, and they were flying down to where there was a crack in the road and feeding — from what I could tell, it was the entrance to an ant hill, and they were grabbing ants. As I watched, though, a weird looking finch flew in with the purples; it was clearly a female, and and clearly not a purple or house finch, but I had no clue what it might be. Fortunately, then her mate flew in to join in, and the top-knot on the back of the head was clearly visible, giving me another life bird, Cassin’s Finch:

Which I’m told by some of my birder friends is a real catch, especially getting a decent photo of it. (I have photos that show the head patch better than this, but they aren’t as good as photos… so it goes).

Cassin’s Finch* (life)
Mountain Quail* (life)
Purple Finch* (life)
Townsend’s Warbler* (life)
Yellow-rumped Warbler

That pretty much ended things in Hetch-hetchy. On the way back, I explored the Cascade creek area a bit, and the Foresta road.

Deer, by the way, were very common and easy to see if you were paying attention. These deer crossed the road ahead of me driving back from Hetch Hetchy, and so I slowed down and got the camera ready, and sure enough, when I drove the by opening at the side of the road, there they were. They stayed just long enough to get some nice shots.

which, I think, is a good example of why you need to take your time, open your windows, shut your mouth and watch…

Yosemite/Cascade Falls area (1)

Cascade creek is little more than a turnout with some attitude, and a pretty little stream of watcher flowing down the rocks. At the same time, this may be one of my favorite shots of the trip:

It was also a place where I ran into another set of ravens more than happy to pose for the visitors:

American Raven
Juvenile Bald Eagle*
Turkey Vulture

Other than that, and a soaring juvenile bald eagle (bodacious!), not much birding the rest of the day, which I spent down on the valley floor scouting photo spots and grabbing dinner at the store…

Yosemite/Valley Floor (5)

I started out day 2 on the valley floor, mostly looking for good photo opportunities. Down on the merced river, however, I had a nice opportunity to shoot a pair of common mergansers

and, of course, it wouldn’t be a nature shoot if it wasn’t crashed by a Steller’s Jay that wants to be the center of attention. I heard this one coming in from far off, he finally flew in and posed, loudly declared his ownership of all around him, then flew back off again, chattering the whole way

By the way, lest anyone think photos like the mergansers are easy to get — I spent about 45 minutes at the pond, looking to get that shot of the pair together. The male spent most of the time wandering all over the pond, going behind things, swimming around, doing everything EXCEPT going near the female. The female, for its part, had her head under her wing in an eddy and was very determined to stay asleep. Not exactly the most enthralling picture….

But eventually, the male wandered over to where she was, and she woke up. They interacted for about a minute, swimming together, and then the male decided it was time for HIS nap, stuffed his head under his wing, and decided to call it — and she swam off behind the island to do whatever it is Mergansers do (probably lunch). Window of opportunity, maybe a minute. Good photography, and Yosemite in general, are not good for the type A people out there (but more on that in the Yosemite essay).

American Raven*
American Robin
Brewer’s blackbird
Bullock’s Oriole* (life)
Common Merganser*
Mallard
Northern Flicker*
Northern Mockingbird
red-winged blackbird
Song Sparrow*
Steller’s jay

Yosemite/Happy Isles “fen” (8)

I then decided that instead of going to mirror lake (mirror meadow…), I’d explore the Happy Isles area instead. My reason was purely pragmatic — at that altitude, at my weight and in the kind of shape I’m in right now, I wanted to limit the total mileage and altitude change in my hiking. I know I could have taken the shuttle bus to Happy Isles, but I also wanted to get some regular mileage in and get started on the exercise, so I parked in the lot outside of Curry, and hiked my way into Happy Isles.

That was not a bad idea, because along the way, I noticed many, many Steller’s Jays in the trees, and while watching them, realized there were other birds flying around in the crown of the trees. Stopping to take a closer look, I realized they were woodpeckers. Specically, Acorns

I carried on to Happy Isles, where I wandered around looking for nice shots of the Merced River. Happy Isles is a former fish hatchery facility on the upstream locale of the Merced (oh, how our sensitivities have changed around Yosemite over the years; I’m old enough to remember playing golf on the Ahwanee golf course, and when they felt it necessary to dredge out Mirror Lake to keep it “natural”, and watching the firefall where they pushed the bonefire over the canyon wall), now converted to a learning center. It’s also the site of a major rockfall a few years back that killed one and reminded us that this park is one of constant transformation….

Happy Isles is an area where you’ll see a diversity of environment; there’s oak habitat, there’s the pine forest and a fair number of dogwood trees, which were just starting to bloom seriously. One area, known as the fen, is a marsh, which as you can imagine is home to a wide diversity of bird life. That’s where I spent most of my time in the area.

Another woodpecker (the second of four for the day!), the red-headed sapsucker

to red-breasted nuthatch

I spent about an hour in the fen, and a couple of hours at Happy Isles total, just kicking back and wandering about. I finally decided that was enough and hiked back to the car. Just as I was within view of the parking lot, I saw something flutter in the trees above me. Getting the binocs on it, it turned out to be my third woodpecker of the day, and one I’d actually hoped to get my eyes on:

the White-faced woodpecker, which did me a favor and gave me five minutes of good quality shooting time, or as good as you can get in the hard twilight of the canopy… As I was shooting the woodpecker, I heard a couple of people walk past behind me, and suddenly, from one of them, I heard “good eyes” — and I thanked them, and thought to myself “well, I’m getting there…”

Acorn Woodpecker* (life)
American Dipper* (life)
American Robin
Black-headed grosbeak*
Brown Creeper* (probable/life)
Marsh Wren
Red-Breasted Nuthatch* (life)
Red-breasted sapsucker* (life)
song sparrow
Steller’s Jay
townsend’s warbler (probable)
white-faced woodpecker* (life)
yellow-rumped warbler
Lincoln’s Sparrow* (life)

After that, I went back to the valley floor and spent the afternoon down in one of the meadows, mostly chasing song sparrows. We again had deer arrive and create a crowd, this time a small pack of young male bachelors who’s horns were just starting to sprout:

and the other my fourth woodpecker of the day — I suddenly had a bird fly out of a tree crown and fly across the meadow.

After that, I called it and headed back to the room. The next day was a travel day, and I got down to Orange County.

Placentia area (2)

American Crow*
house sparrow
house finch*
northern mockingbird
red-tailed hawk

newport back bay (17)

Saturday morning I had some free time, so I hauled myself down to Newport Back Bay, a nice area to bird, It was early, a bit chilly, grey and hazy, and I left the camera packed up (in retrospect, probably a mistake, but I wanted to spend time birding, not shooting). It started out rather slow; I stopped at one of the turnouts to look and saw nothing but ring-billed gull, a few forster’s terns and some coots. Not an auspicious start. Another birding family appeared and stopped and we talked a bit. they noted they’d heard you could find blue-grey gnatcatcher in the bushes on the hill-side of the road, so they took off into that area, and a bit later, I decided to follow. I found a few hummingbirds and both cliff and barn swallows decided to come out and chase bugs, and the inevitable song sparrows bellowing. At one point, I had an overflight of four birds that were the right shape and size for the gnatcatcher, but I didn’t get a good enough look for me to ID the birds, and they didn’t return. I also later had two birds chasing each other that I’m pretty sure were loggerhead shrikes, but again, the ID remains wishful. Other than that, and a cooperative and very pretty common yellowthroat, that was about it.

Before I left the stop, I decided to check the terns again, just in case. Smart move. While I wasn’t looking, the forster’s had been joined by a few Caspian terns, and I suddenly realized one of the Caspian terns had a funny beak — it was one of the local Black Skimmers, hanging out and trying to look tern-like. Almost worked, too. And then I noticed another bird in the group that looked funny; one line Bonaparte’s Gull, who couldn’t look like a tern if it had to, but could hide in a group of white birds if you weren’t looking too closely.

The other highlight was a flock of black-bellied plovers, including a few in full breeding plumage. Now THAT was a pleasant surprise in the scope…

Anna’s Hummingbird*
American Avocet
American Coot
American Crow
Barn Swallow*
Black Skimmer*
Black-bellied Plover* (incl. 1 in full breeding. pretty!) (life)
Blue-winged teal*
Bonaparte’s Gull*
Canada Goose
caspian tern*
Cinnamon Teal*
Cliff Swallow*
Common Yellowthroat
Double-Crested Cormorant*
Forster’s Tern*
Great Egret
Mallard
Marbled Godwit*
mourning dove
Red-Winged Blackbird
ring-billed gull*
Ruddy Duck*
Snowy Egret
Song Sparrow
Western Grebe*
Western Gull* (2nd winter, moulting)
willet*
Yellow-rumped Warbler

wishful ID

(loggerhead shrike?)
(blue-grey gnatcatcher?)

Tri-city Park, placentia (4)

After that, I headed to my parents. My last stop was tri-city park, a small artificial lake that acts as a “mallard magnet” in the area. Sometimes it has nothing, sometimes it has some interesting birds, and always it has a small flock of Egyptian geese wandering around.

The real highlight for me was that someone is now managing some bluebird boxes in the park, and gave me a good opportunity to look at some bluebirds, and as I was heading back to the car, I saw a bird fly by, and when I tracked it down, it turned out to be a Wilson’s Warbler. All in all, not bad for 20 minutes.

canada goose

Double-crested cormorant
Egyptian Goose*
Forster’s Tern
greylag goose*
Mallard Duck
Western Bluebird* (life)
Wilson’s Warbler (Pacific)* (life)

After spending time with my family, I came home via 101. I’d decided early on to take a little time and eat lunch at Morro bay and see what was going on in the harbor and on the rock, and if I had time, revisit sweet spring and see if there was anything interesting. It was very grey and foggy, limiting any view of the rock (no peregrine).

and, of course, there were otters and seals

Morro Bay Harbor & Rock (5 new)

Western Gull
Pigeon Guillemot*
Song Sparrow
Brown Pelican*
Pelagic Cormorant*
Common Loon*
Surf Scoter*
Western Grebe
Great Egret
Snowy Egret
Marbled Godwit*
Blue-winged teal
American Coot

Sweet Water Spring reserve

Sweet water, unfortunately, was more or less a complete loss. A couple of song sparrows and one lousy yellow-rumped. Not even any sign of an egret this trip, much less a belted kingfisher or some interesting warbler. Ohwell, timing is everything, and this trip, it wasn’t good timing. Last year’s trip to Morro went a lot better….