Making Old Birds New Again

There's nothing better than a new bird except getting to show old birds to new birders. I got to guide a van full of new birders (although one grandfather was a duck hunter and rice grower) thru Colusa NWR yesterday, and had probably the best time of everyone.

I had already seen that there were way too many people on the refuge to expect to see the falcated duck so, after I gave everyone binoculars and a guide to waterfowl, and gave them a little discussion of what ducks we would see, we drove the auto tour.  We started out by checking out the over-sized feet of the coots in the road and discussed how they differed from ducks. Then we saw a big bird that wasn't a duck sitting on a little island.  In the binoculars, it turned out to be a peregrine falcon which then tried to fly off with its coot.  But it dropped it and then circled around several times for our extra enjoyment.  I thought it was circling back again but realized we had a harrier coming through.  We got to see another harrier later in the trip and some of the group could already call it. What brilliant students they were. 

We learned gadwalls, shovelers, mallards, and ring-necked ducks before we even got to the bridge.  Then we enjoyed two great egrets and a great blue heron sunbathing.  Soon everyone could decide what duck they were seeing. We found lots and lots of greater white-fronted geese, and got one good, albeit distant view of a male bufflehead.   We stopped to look at some golden-crowned sparrows and watched a couple of pie-billed grebes. Then we got to see a two cock pheasants and a deer in short order, and almost immediately after the deer crossed the road in front of us, we found an American Bittern sitting out in the open.   We rounded the last corner and enjoyed a close-up view of a red-tailed hawk, got a glimpse of a red-shouldered hawk, and got several looks at a kestral. And then I had to stop because I saw a single long-billed curlew on a levee. We also got distant looks at snow geese, none close enough to be able to find Ross's geese. Finally we enjoyed all the night herons in their roost just before the bridge.

The sunning great blue heron - (thanks for snapping the picture Charles)

Immature female red-tail hawk

Same bird front view

We got back to the viewing platform about  3:00 P.M. and were told by the other twenty or so people there that the falcated duck was actively feeding.  So I set up the scope and everyone got to see it and also enjoy closer views of the ducks and geese we had already learned.

Me and the birding group minus the photographer

The viewing platform after I removed the nine of us

It was hard to break away but I had strict orders to get back to Sacramento NWR by 4:00 P.M.Otherwise all of us were ready to continue birding until dark.

Looking Back at My First Year of Full-Time Volunteering

I started working at Anahuac NWR the first of November 2011.  Then I took October off to play before starting a new volunteer job at Sacramento NWR. Since this is a time of review, I thought I'd look back over my pictures from last year and remember some of the high points of my year.

I started the year on a very sad note when I saw the destruction Ike had rendered to our trees. This is the famous Willows, an internationally famous migrant trap, two years after Ike put an eighteen foot wall of water over the trees, drowned some of them, knocked others apart, and finally poisoned the remaining ones with salt. I was crying when I took this picture.  I determined that at least part of my volunteer job would be to work to replace habitat. 

I took off for several days at Thanksgiving and camped and birded in the Valley. This screech owl was one of my favorite finds.

And I loved using my macro lens to take butterfly pictures at Falcon Dam State Park.

In December, I got to spend several days with my grandson, Cian.  He got this bunk bed for Christmas that year.

  

I spent November and December helping the Friends of Anahuac raise money to buy trees. I started an adopt-a- tree program and made cards to represent each tree.  People paid the cost of a tree and gave it as a present. I also filled email orders. By the first of January, we were ready to order the trees.  The trees were delivered two days before a snowstorm and a big freeze.  It was a wild time as staff and volunteers packed up the trees and stored them in the maintenance building. Many of the volunteers couldn't make it to our planting day because of lingering ice on the roads.

But planting went on in January and February - the February work day got rained out except for a bus load of kids who planted willows in ponds. 

By late February, winter was over and the alligators were coming out of hibernation. 

 
I got my all-time favorite job - taking a videographer around the refuge. He was trying to get pictures of snow geese lifting off and other wintering birds. He came back in April for the migration and I was again able to guide him and feed him birds.  A friend and I even got a clapper rail to walk across the road in front of him after trapping it in a small patch of vegetation until he was set up.

And I got to go on the annual kayaking/birding trip to Choke Canyon State Park.  I've been leading this trip for many years.  It is one of my favorite places because it is at the junction of the Texas Valley and has eastern and western birds as well as Mexican birds. Green jays show up as soon as we put out sunflower seeds. This year I got to go as a participant only, which is WAY less work.

March saw the appearance of lots of wildflowers, in spite of the worsening drought.

In April I got to go back and paddle on the Bayou Teche in Louisiana.  This side trip into a swamp was one of my favorites since I love swamps. And I got to visit with paddling friends from across Louisiana and Texas and met new friends, some from as far away as Wisconsin.

In April,  we still had a few lingering shorebirds. But the water was rapidly drying up.  Many mottled ducks had to fly off to find water,  leaving  their hatchlings that were too young to fly, to die.

May was an exciting month because we had the grand opening of our new visitor center and office. I got to lead bird watching tours along the amazing trail/boardwalk that goes through an East Texas mixed forest, then doglegs into a cypress swamp before ending at the edge of Lake Anahuac.

In June I was STILL planting trees and shrubs. This was because we had around 200 trees left to plant after two work days and mostly just me to plant them. Sometimes, it would take me several days to dig the hole because the clay was like cement and I had to add water, dig a little, then add water and wait several hours or until the next day.

In August, I made a deal with Trinity NWR to make cuttings of their button bushes for our refuge and dig up cypress sprouts that were growing in the bottom of what is usually an 800 acre lake but which had dried to about 80 acres in the drought. I got them all potted up in the shade shelter we got this past spring. I also started lots of willows and got a few acorns to sprout.

In September, I spent lots of time taking pictures of dragonflies. This is one of my favorites.

And I continued my watering job which I had done all spring and summer. I hauled water by Kawasaki mule from our rainwater tanks until I used up all that water.  Then I had to haul water in a 120 gallon tank for ten miles from the volunteer site.  The water at the refuge is too salty to put on plants.

We had a volunteer dinner in September and I just managed to get in 3000 hours, 2000 of them in the eleven months I worked there as a resident volunteer.

 I took off the full month of October and said goodbye to friends and favorite places in Louisiana and Texas. The last thing I did was attend a Kayak Festival in Corpus Christi.  There I led a trip to Bird Island and had good visits with lots of my friends from across the state of Texas.

 Early in November I arrived at Sacramento NWR. Here the geese are the big story and I'm almost always in sight and/or sound of them. I hear them coming back to the refuge starting around 5:30A, see them flying up when a raptor flies over them, spend lots of time showing them people and discussing them and the ducks and also spend personal time enjoying them.

And we are really getting on the map due to our Asian visitor, the falcated duck - on right. In the first three weeks he was here, over 1000 cars came to Colusa NWR, mostly to look for him. I spent a lot of time in December at Colusa, helping people find the duck, directing traffic, and reminding people not to get out of their cars or walk behind closed areas around the pond. The duck has been coming closer and closer to the viewing platform to the delight of his visitors.

It was a very good year. And I'm expecting to have another great year.

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.