Birdwatching at Cosumnes River Preserve - Sacramento, California February 2020

Hello again my fellow bird people!  

Picking up from my last post - The Art of Sandhill Cranes - which focused on the beautiful cranes I found at twilight/dusk and how artful they look as they do their nightly fly in to safe waters.  

This post also has some Sandhill Crane photos but also shows a bit more of the Preserve, including the ponds where the ducks primarily gather and take us up to right when the sun sets behind the tree line and it was too dark for any more photos. 

The photos in the last post (and the first couple in this one) were taken at the ponds on the "back roads" of the Preserve - Bruceville Road and Desmond Road.  The ponds on these roads (primarily Desmond) are where I have seen Cranes flying in to.  

Cranes tend to spend the daytime hours in farmer's fields looking for food.  They fly in to ponds or near bodies of water at dusk in order to be able to easily escape into the water from nighttime predators such as coyotes.  

I have some amazing pics and videos of this process from Merced National Wildlife Refuge that I will be uploading soon, so please anticipate it.  :)

Also in these ponds, you can find other waterfowl.  Here we have some American Coots, Pintails, and Shovelers.

After spending some time in my car on Desmond Road, I headed over the the Preserve "proper" to walk the trails and boardwalk for a little bit until darkness came. 

You can almost always find egrets hanging around!

And Cranes are not the only ones who do a nightly fly-in!  Geese also follow this behavior.  It's such a beautiful sight and sound to see and hear hundreds of ducks and geese flying overhead. 

This was the view when I got to the parking lot.  The sun was low in the sky and just coming out of the clouds overhead.  What a gorgeous sight reflecting in the waters of the main ponds that front Franklin Blvd!

OMG, I am TERRIBLE at panning (following a subject in motion with a slower shutter speed), but I actually got an amazing photo!!  Why couldn't I do this during my photography assignment!?  

Seriously though, I have to give some props to the Olympus camera and M.Zuiko lens.  Wow.  It was pretty dark out and the entire photo was strongly tinted orange/pink.  In post processing, I tried to add some white back into the bird.  Not sure if it was really successful or necessary, but it's done, so...

The ducks in the main ponds settling in for the night. 

And of course the ever-present Canadians!

I kind of love this shot with the geese landing in the background. 

Another egret?  Or the same one?  I'm really not sure, but he seemed to like having his picture taken.

Oh my!  A little flock of extremely picturesque Buffleheads!!  Love these time ducks! So chic...

And equally picturesque Pintails!  Look at that blue bill!  

I really like this camera and lens combo...

And with that, the sun was sinking behind the tree line and it was really too dark to get any more photos.  

Birds, sunset, nature!  Wonderful way to end a day!

xoxo

Olympus E-M1 Mark 11 M.Zuiko 300mm lens

Visiting Modoc National Wildlife Refuge - California Travel Photos

I don't usually visit National Wildlife Refuges (NWR) in the Spring or Summer because I like to go when the migration is happening.  But I got word that Sandhill Cranes nest at Modoc and wanted to see if I could get some baby chick pictures.  

Spoiler Alert:  I couldn't.

But it was a beautiful experience anyway and I did, in fact, get some baby pictures...just not of chicks.  lol  I got there later than I intended and that may have figured in to my lack of Crane chicks.  When I arrived mid-morning, it was already starting to get hot and there were a LOT of people on the Refuge.

Apparently Modoc is one of the refuges that allows people to walk and bike ride on the auto trail during the summer months.  I even saw a couple walking their dogs along the trail which, as you can imagine, probably doesn't bode well for wildlife to be out and about.

So I got a lot of cool "landscape" photos.  :-)

To my happiness, there were birds and mammals around even though it conditions weren't exactly the best. 

Various Ducks, Egrets, Gulls galore!  And even Pelicans and Terns!

Even though Spring had passed, there were beautiful flowers blooming as well.  

So many Gulls!  But if you look closely, you will see a few black-headed Terns in the mix along with some Black-Necked Stilts.

And turtles!!!  

 Deer oh deer!  I saw LOTS of deer!

Technically, this isn't on the Refuge, but it is on the road just before getting to Highway 395.  I couldn't believe these two guys with their fuzzy antlers were just standing there looking at me.  They didn't move even while I turned around to get a better position.  Thanks mon bebes!

Next post will have the closeups and more birds and animals that I encountered.  Some very adorable and unexpected!!  Stay tuned!

xoxo

Nikon D600
Tamron Nikon Mount 150-600 F5-6.3 DiVC (handheld)

Beginning of the Strange - Mud Volcanoes @ Salton Sea

In my last post, which was all about adorable Owls, Bunnies, etc., I promised that there were a LOT of strange things to discover at the Salton Sea.

After I left the Sonny Bono National Wildlife Refuge, I headed down the rural roads to try to find the mudpots and volcanoes.  

The volcanoes are near what used to be Red Hill Marina.  There is no marina there now because the Salton Sea is slowly evaporating and shrinking.  As I drove, I saw these really cool trees in the middle of the "desert".

Funnily (or sadly) enough, just 10 years ago, this area was covered in water as evidenced by the photo below which I found on BirdGuy.Net.

You can see in my photo, not only is there no water, but one of the trees has fallen over due to death from the drought. 

I followed the roads in what turned out to be the correct direction until I came to an intersection thaat wasn't marked.  There was a motor home parked off to one side and a beautiful golden dog ran to greet me.  Soon the owner came over and he was so very nice and helpful.  Rick and Blondie soon pointed me in the correct direction and off I headed.

Just as I was going down the road, an SUV with a couple professors and a student pulled up.  I asked if they were going to the mud volcanoes and they offered for me to follow and hang out with them.  I did fall behind a bit because 1)  my car was not built for these bumpy dirt/mud roads, and 2) I had to stop for a couple photos!

I finally arrived and saw my first mud volcano!  It looked straight out of a science project that got out of hand.

There were about 15 volcanoes in the field and they were from 3 to 8 feet high.  the first grouping we came to were about 5 feet high and bubbling away.  

Some of the volcanoes has vents on the sides as well as the top.  This one was very wet and spitting muddy droplets!

It was a really beautiful day, but it was getting hot.  And not just due to the heat from the volcano!  It was the hottest week so far this year at the Salton Sea.  I came from temps in the 70's to a high of 93! 

I like this next photo, not only for the pretty sky, but also because you can really see the recent mud lava (mava?) flow on the side of the volcano. 

Inside some of the lower volcanoes were mud "caverns" which were really bubbling away.  

 I thought this looked cool; it's a previous mud pot, but in the process of drying out.  

 Along the same lines, this fully dried mud flow from a previous eruption looked quite artistic to me.

Bubbles and steam

But, truly, probably the only way to get the full experience across to visitors of this blog is through video.  So please enjoy my very amateurish attempt at an educational video!  

On that note, I hopped back into my car and drank an entire bottle of COLD water!  Then I proceeded down the bumpy road towards my next stop... Salvation Mountain and East Jesus. 

But on my way I found more wonderful burrowing owls and also more fields filled with Long-billed Curlews and Egrets!  Cattle egrets, this time. 

This one flew away to watch me from safe distance!  Sorry little guy!

This next photo is a nice illustration of their sharp talons!  

 Great Egrets, Cattle Egrets, and Long Billed Curlews

 And the occasional Gull as well. 

Then they, like me, flew away.

Off to look for salvation!

xoxo

Nikon D3300