Author: Loren

Birding Bodega Bay

We dodged rain and managed to get to Bodega Bay on our last day in Santa Rosa.  It seemed a little bit busier than usual because of how much rain they had recently.  Unfortunately, that meant there were less birds than usual, or at least fewer than I have been lucky enough to see in recent visits.  

Still, I’m never one to complain about a sunny day at the beach, no matter how few birds I might see.  This Willet was the only large bird I saw on the beach, and he insisted on running every time a walker came by.  

We saw far more birds in the wetlands across from the beach than we did on the beach itself, possibly because there were few birders than beach walkers. 

There were several Red-Breasted Mergansers, but this immature male was the only one who stuck around long enough to get his picture taken.

There were several Great Egrets, and they were as indifferent to people as Great Blue Herons are.  

The last photo of our trip to Santa Rosa was this Snow Egret on the docks by the restaurant where we stopped for lunch.

You Choose a Favorite

Hopefully visitors to this site realize that all they’re seeing is highlights of our birding expeditions.  I’m sparing the visitor from having to see all the bad shots that have to be taken before I can get a shot worth showing to others.  On the other hand, sometimes the visitor doesn’t get to see excellent shots that were arbitrarily deleted by the writer/editor/ proofreader/me.

Taking the photos is the fun part of this job; sorting through them, deciding which to delete and which to keep, and fine-tuning those chosen for publication is the hard part of the job. 

Sometimes deciding which photo to use can be the hardest part of all, particularly when I like all the photos in a sequence. For instance, I took 22 shots of the Snowy Egret that landed right in front of me on the swimming hole at Spring Lake as I waited for Leslie. Unfortunately, I loved all of them.  Not a really bad shot in the whole group, but I’m certainly not going to polish all of them up.  So,  here are six of my favorites from that sequence.

Birding Santa Rosa

The weather in Santa Rosa was not very cooperative with heavy rains for at least two of the days, but I did get out and walk from Lake Ralphine to Spring Lake twice, though the best birding area on Spring Lake was closed because of flooding. 

I’m definitely not going to complain when the days it wasn’t raining were bright and sunny.  There were lots of birds and in general they seemed to be accustomed to having people around and it was easy to get good shots of them. I do see lots of female Bufflehead around home, but seldom as close as this one was.

The males seemed particularly bold, though, perhaps because there were a lot more males than females, and the males had to seem courageous to attract a mate.

It takes nearly perfect light to capture both the black and white feathers of the male Bufflehead. It had to be tweaked in Photoshop, but I was really happy that the white feathers weren’t washed out.

There were a lot of birds singing along the trail between the lakes, but it was nearly impossible to locate them.  I felt lucky to get this shot of a Yellow-rumped Warbler.

This Spotted Towhee was hard to miss as it posed for its shot instead of disappearing into the underbrush as they usually do.

My favorite shot of the day, though, was this shot of a Western Bluebird which posed even longer than the Towhee. He posed patiently while I circled him to get the best angle.  

I’m always amazed by the number of birds I see at Lake Ralphine and Spring Lake despite the considerable number of people walking and riding bikes there.   

Final Shots from Sacramento NWR

In my last post I shared my favorite shots of our visit to Sacramento NWR. In this post I’ll feature Leslie’s photos.

This shot of a Northern Harrier leaves a lot to be desired, but since Leslie took more pictures of it than any other bird and still couldn’t get the bird or the light to cooperate, it feels like it deserved to be posted.

Other shots seem more post-worthy, though.  I joined the Sacramento NWR Facebook page and noted that the most often shared shots were those of Bald Eagles.

I thought this shot of the mature Bald Eagle was also as good as any I saw shared on their site, as was this shot of the immature Bald Eagle looking particularly regal..

It was quite windy the day we were there, as the feathers testify to, but my favorite shot of this sequence was this one taken a few minutes later.  

Hopefully, the immature Eagle learned why the adult Eagle chose a much bigger branch to rest on.

Leslie didn’t seem as impressed by this shot of a Black Phoebe

as I was, perhaps she doesn’t realize how many shots of a Black Phoebe sitting on a branch or railing I’ve had to settle for. Whenever possible, birds should be seen flying.