Oh boy, ready or not, Nevada County in NorCal has a winter weather warning approaching, starting Tuesday. Better get your play time in now! On top of that, we'd had the feeling that too much grass had grown under our feet since we'd been Out and About spying on birds and "communing with nature." Or too many chores and party shenanigans! Today (Sunday) was a good day to fix that, with warmish temps and a partly sunny day.
I'd seen on the news that migratory birds had returned to the central valley. Jimmy and I saw this spectacle once before, more than several years ago, but I was keen to see this sight again. Each year more than a billion birds follow the Pacific Flyway, one of the four primary migratory routes in the Western Hemisphere which connects such far-flung habitats as the Arctic tundra and the wetlands of South America. And, here's NorCal, sort of in between the tundra and So America, and teeming with millions of birds.
Sutter Buttes.
A week or so ago, a friend told us about "all the birds" at Gray Lodge Wildlife Area in the Central Valley, roughly sixty miles from our home, so that made our destination easy. I'd never heard of Gray Lodge before, but learned it has approximately 9,100 acres providing food, water and shelter for more than 300 species of resident and migrant birds and mammals.
Surrounded by rice fields and backed by the Sutter Buttes (considered the world’s smallest mountain range), more than a million waterfowl feed in the rice fields and return to the wildlife area’s wetlands. Flocks of Snow geese and Ross geese make up the bulk of the birds seen here (wherever you see white, that's geese). Also, plenty of White-fronted geese, American Wigeons, Northern Shovelers, and Black-necked stilts. Others, too, I'm sure.
With walking trails and an auto tour loop, we covered quite a bit of territory. Not many people were here on a Sunday (I thought it might be crowded), and we basically had the place to ourselves. Nice. Yes, it was peaceful, but not certainly not quiet. The cacophony of a million birds makes quite a din, but not unpleasantly so.
We saw more than waterfowl. I watched an American Kestral grab a small bird from a tree branch and fly away with it -- all in the space of a second. Numerous hawks perched high above, keeping watch. Even a couple of buzzards found a spot to dry their wings, looking like giant bats up on bare tree limbs.
There seems to be something for every creature -- grassy fields and wooded riparian areas, but reflective ponds are the big draw. They are beautiful.
If you're lucky, and your camera is ready, one bird will give a silent signal, and suddenly the flock will take wing ... while you stand mesmerized ... and clicking the shutter. Up they go. What a sight!
Noisy, too.
My favorite.
Clockwise, from top left: Great Blue Heron hiding in the tule reeds, Great White Egret ready to fish, California Quail crossing the gravel road to get to the other side, and a reflective Northern Shoveler.
We weren't in a hurry, yet we managed to put over three miles on our feet. Every pond or waterway we passed teemed with life.
Oh, I almost forgot about the Coots. Of course we saw Coots!
They're everywhere!
Hints of autumn color remained, though the winter storm fixin' to blow through NorCal will probably put the kibosh on colorful leaves. It was a lovely day to spend time outdoors, communing with nature. Hours flew by and the afternoon sun dropped low in the sky before we had our fill. I hope we can come back before the birds migrate northward in the spring.
