A Visit to Carrizo Plain National Monument

Saturday, April 4, 2020

Cindy had wonderful memories of visiting Carrizo Plain National Monument last year, when it supported a super bloom. She wanted to go back and visit there again for her Saturday outing. We knew it had the public parts closed so there would be relatively few people in the area, with 250,000 acres to spread out in. Indeed, we saw only a few other vehicles before 10:30 A.M. And lest then twenty- five over the course of the day.

Horned lark- one of the abundant species we saw

Common Goldfields (Lasthenia gracilis), interspersed with tidy tips and 

redstem filaree (Erodium cicutarium), an invasive weed

When we got to the closed Visitor Center, we saw three other groups of people, so decided to not walk the small loop trail that Cindy thought she could handle. But the road just outside it, gave us two of our best times. We watched a hawk and a prairie falcon fight repeatedly, as the prairie falcon attempted to chase off the hawk. And we totally enjoyed watching a San Joaquin antelope squirrel feed and pose for us.

The San Joaquin antelope squirrel posing

Cindy caught one of the several skirmishes - the prairie falcon- above - buzzed the hawk sitting on the post and the hawk responded by jumping up, turning over and presenting his claws

The prairie falcon then took a break on a power line post near the car before doing another fly over

We also spent a lot of time looking for Bell's sparrow, which is endemic there. We finally took a side road where Cindy remembered finding then last year and found a fe. I got one to sit close enough to get its's picture. This was a lifer for me.

Bell's Sparrow

We continued to work our way through the  refuge from northwest to southeast, along the Calliente Range, then turned to head towards the Temblor Range, eventually turning back northwest to drive along it. We continued to stop at Cindy's or my whims to take pictures. I had about 700 at the end of the day. Severe editing has about 100 saved.

The area used to hold lots of ranches - these tanks are probably the remains of one ranch

I glimpsed the orange/white pattern of pronghorn antelope and we slowed to get closer to them, stopping repeatedly to take pictures. We think this group of five were probably yearlings as they were very curious and looked young. They came closer to us after we stopped to watch them. We probably spent twenty minutes with them and took a few hundred pictures between us.

These are the fastest land animals in the Americas - can reach speeds of 53 mph

Their large eyes let them see danger from far away

Earlier this morning, when Cindy and I were moving our cars so we could take hers, she decided she could drive and did ALL the driving of at least one hundred twenty-five miles. But I did a lot more of jumping in and out of the car in search of the best picture angles and close-ups. 

Cindy shooting me deciding how to compose a picture.....

.....of San Joaquin milk vetch setting beautiful red seed after its yellow flowers - Soda Lake visible in background in front 

Cindy, preparing to take her main walk of the day - and stopping to read about the San Andreas fault - just before the brown at the top of the screen. It said this area is moving towards San Francisco at the rate of 1.34 inches per year -
in only 10,000 years, it will be there. 

Afternoon clouds made for better landscape pictures - we also had to contend with heat waves

While the winds made dust devils

On the way home, Cindy stopped at Shell Creek Road, a famous wildflower viewing area. It did not disappoint and we spent another hour or so there.

Common Hillside Daisy (Monolopia lanceolata)

Tidy tips (Lavia Platyglossa) with a honeybee visitor

Tidy tips with small lupines

I got really excited - have not found ANY native bees around - but this turned out to be just another syrphid

Baby blue-eyes - one of the rarest of the flowers we saw. 

Coastal Bush Lupine (Lupinus propinquus)

                     

Just as the flowers ran out, we ran into a flock of returning  western kingbirds - we probably saw twenty - fifty

A view near our turnaround point on the road

These forays out to spend time in the outdoors are the BEST preventatives and immune boosters. I hope you too, are getting out. 

          

Our VIP Visitor

 On Thursday, December 8, 2011, Dan Tankersley visited the Colusa NWR platform and found a falcated duck (formerly Falcated Teal), a very rare visitor to the United States from Asia. ( I can only find three other California submissions and one sighting that was not submtted to the rare bird committee.) This has caused great excitement in the birding community and all the volunteers were taken off their regular jobs so we could cover Colusa  and Sacramento NWR's all day.

I, of course, was the first to volunteer and got to go to the platform that afternoon. The bird had first been seen at the closest little islet but soon after it was discovered, two groups ignored the "no walkers" sign and walked into the auto tour which starts just past the viewing platform.  Of course, this caused all the birds in the pond to fly away, including the falcated duck.  It had not returned by the time I had to leave at 3:30P. At 4:00P, it again came to the nearest pond and the Refuge Manager got pictures of it. The refuge manager called for volunteer help to keep people from getting out of their cars on the auto tour or to and to greet them at the platform.

People watching for the falcated duck the first afternoon after it was discovered

My boss allowed me to go to the refuge early on Friday and I got there at 7:00AM and found sixteen people already trying to find the duck in the predawn light. And about 7:30, the duck was gracious enough to come to the front of the back pond and take an hour and half nap in front of a tule clump so we could all (barely) see it. 

The small platform was almost full by 8:00AM on Friday

I really enjoyed getting to share this bird and others with people arriving at the platform.  A few of the first birders didn't have their own scopes, and even those that did, took a quick look as they arrived so they could see the bird and its location. I left at noon but got reports that he had been seen several times.

Saturday was a madhouse because the bird didn't show itself at all and no one wanted to leave.  Soon we were trying to squeeze in over thirty-five scopes and even more people and had to extend the viewing area to along the road and allow cars to park in the maintenance area. But Sunday morning, our visitor relented and gave lots of pretty short but adequate views of itself so people came and went normally.  The luckiest group had driven over two hours to get there and got good views of it in the first twenty minutes of viewing.  So the volunteers' work got a lot easier and we didn't overload the platform. 

The duck is still here over a week later and bringing in lots of visitors. We had 81 visitors yesterday, Saturday, and 105 today. And it is staying in the front pond and, for the last two days, has been continuously visible.  Today it even stayed active during its normal nap time of about 10:30 to 2:30 and delighted lucky visitors with a display - seemingly a "I'm the cock of the walk" that it does to male American widgeon which it likes to hang with. It first thrusts up its head and flashes its white neck and raises its crest a little and then ducks his head, lifts his tail and shakes it. I got to see the display several times today. 

Duck, on right with an American widgeon - he also has been courting a female widgeon -pic by Mike Peters

Falcated duck with greater white-fronted geese - Photo by Mike Peters

I'm even starting to get some distant pictures of him

I've enjoyed talking to the visitors, some who have come back multiple times. Because we are spending so much time in the same small area, we are also seeing other fairly rare sightings. Yesterday we had a flock of about 50 tundra swans fly over and immediately after that, several tree swallows flew through. Today we had two sightings of barn owls, a half-dozen ruby-crowned kinglets feeding on water plants in the creek, a white-tailed kite, an immature sharp-shinned hawk and a Virginia rail that flew about a foot above the water and a couple of feet in front of the viewing platform.

And we get to watch behaviors that we don't normally watch long enough to see.

Pintail love?

And today I met the Sutter Buttes Christmas Count Compiler. He;s going to let me join the count this Tuesday and I'll be in his group on his ranch in the Buttes. This will be the first count when I may be too interested in the scenery to find the birds. I'll definitely have my camera and an extra battery with me.

While doing traffic control, I got interested in some of the license plates. Word is that we have had some visitors fly in from New York, but I just got a few of the many places the bird lovers are coming from.   Many of them have driven 8 hours or more to get to us. Some reported driving all night.We are also getting locals from minutes to an hour away.

We expect the bird to spend the winter here. Hopefully we'll have lots more days like this weekend. He sure has been a great Christmas present for Colusa NWR and made a fun job even more fun.

P.S. One day later I found a link to a video taken of the bird.  Apparently I was doing my job of helping the public find the bird since that Texas drawl is definitely mine.  

A Blind Experience

Last Wednesday a new friend, Shelia, who works at the refuge, invited me to share her reserved photography blind. The refuge complex has 4 photography blinds on three different refuges. The blind we went to was blind 3 on the Colusa NWR.  The rules are that you have to get to the blind one hour before sunrise.  You can remain there as long as you like but once you come out, you may not go back. This is to minimize disturbance to the birds.

This blind can only be reached by wading through thigh-high water so we had to wear waders - rubber boots that are built into neoprene overalls. The day was expected to start in the mid-thirties so we also had to dress warmly. Shelia told me to be ready with camera, tripod, water, snacks and plenty of warm clothes at 5:00A.M.  We drove about a half hour to Colusa NWR and stopped at the restrooms to change into our waders.  We were screeched at by a couple of barn owls as we got out of the car. 

Then we drove down to the place to park the car, gathered up our gear and walked by flashlight down the path and found the turn to the blind along with a sled/boat in which to put our gear. We pulled the sled behind us as we walked about thirty yards through the water to the tiny blind sitting in a clump of tule (bulrush).

It was still several minutes to first light as we took out some of the little short boards to make places to point our cameras. The blind has two layers of boards that can be removed and then two or three layers of strips of screening and shade cloth. We can shoot from two levels.  The lowest is at just above the bird's heads.

We had to move quietly and be careful as we stuck our cameras out through all the layers of screening in order to not alarm the birds. In a few minutes, we had our gear stored, cameras ready and were sitting and eating our cereal bars and listening to the geese come back to the refuge from their nightly foraging. Then, as it got lighter, we started to see the dark forms of coots and then mallards. By 7:30, the birds were getting active and feeding and grooming. I think I must have taken about 1000 pictures. 

Shelia took pictures of me for my blog but declined to star in it. 

On a little break while waiting for more birds

Coots appeared first

What big yellow feet you have

Mallards and coots were the most numerous in our photography area

I'm SOO handsome

We had two male and one female cinnamon teal. They breed here and are the most common teal.

This pie-billed grebe swam through the blind area and was gone in about three shots

Morning stretch

A female ringed-neck duck swam through our field a couple of times

Gadwell pair

Greater white-fronted geese

Gotta polish my image

Mallard and cinnamon teal pair

Ahhhhhhhh

Leaving

Car bound

Finished with the blind  but the birding never stops

Sacramento National Wildlife Refuge - First Impressions

I was really dragging by the time I got to Sacramento National Wildlife Refuge.  The last day, I had to drive 700 miles, then couldn't find my camp site for hours.  I finally got to bed around midnight. I had been unable to make the buttons on my watch work to reset it back two hours so had to calculate the actual time. On Thursday morning, I overslept and saw it was 6:30 A.M.  I leaped out of my sleeping bag, packed the inside of the tent, pulled down the tent and stuffed it in its bag,  grabbed a quick shower and got dressed for my first appearance at the refuge.  THEN I calculated the time!

Having an extra two hours was a good thing.  I had time get lost again, get a cup of coffee, and stop for a great leisurely breakfast. I even had time to spend a few minutes at Calusa, one of the refuges in the complex, and get a duck and goose fix before reporting in at Sacramento NWR.

I spent most of that day unpacking and trying to fit everything into one room - still an ongoing project but I'm down to one messy corner. But of course, I had to take a few pictures and have taken a few more since I've been here.

The second morning I was here, we had a rainy day and this was the sunrise. 

The CCC built some of the refuge.  This arch is one of the remnants left.

The posts are outstandingly beautiful.

That beauty is due to several species of lichens growing on the rocks.

 

 The sky continuously fluctuates from no birds to a sky crowded with honking geese - both snows and greater white-fronted - and mostly silent ducks.

We have a six mile driving loop.  It's easy to spend a couple of hours going around it once. Here is a little of what can be seen.

I don't understand how pheasants haven't become extinct.  First of all the males are like beacons when the sun is on them. Then, when they see danger, they first run around looking like they are saying, "What to do? What to do? Finally they they fly off low and slow.

I see racoons by the 4's and 5's.  I expect I'm seeing families that haven't yet broken up. 

This is a ground squirrel.  Apparently he doesn't have any better a reputation then his tree-dwelling cousins.

This is a teasel.  It is beautiful alone but the plants form a barrier between the road and the wetlands in many places. No one is allowed out of their cars on the drive, except at the blind/rest stop. This plant might help keep the people in the cars.  It is an invasive species.

Pintails are the most numerous ducks here. After getting to eat a few breasts tonight, I can also say they are very delicious. Some of my housemates - I live with four guys - like them the best of all the ducks. This is very different from Anahuac, where we have relatively few pintails.

There are also more widgeon here than at Anahuac.  And we also have some Eurasian wigeon but I haven't gotten close enough to photograph any yet.

 And most amazing to me of all is that we have deer and wild turkey on the refuge.  The first morning I was working, I was given the auto tour. We saw a young buck spook from the vehicle in front of us and cross a pond, putting up several hundred snow geese. I made yet another vow to ALWAYS carry my camera.

I took this picture at the very end of the auto tour in a field just north of the bunkhouse. The sun is setting around 5:00P and the day is already starting to cool off by 2:00P.  This also feels very different from our longer fall and winter days. But I don't have to be at work until 8:30 so do have some morning hours to be outside playing. The ducks and geese have flown out to feed on surrounding fields, leaving only the coots.