The Merced National Wildlife Refuge is one of those magical places I will return to whenever I can. Sand Hill Cranes may be its major draw, but it’s the diversity that will bring me back. I love places that are alive, no matter what particular birds I might, or might not, find there at a particular time.
While trying to capture shots of the Cattle Egrets I’d never seen before, I saw this Wilson’s Snipe
and urged Leslie to try to get a shot of it.
She did better than that; she got this wide-angle shot
which captured not one, but three, snipes, and her even wider-angle shot captured this shot of the three snipes and a Killdeer.
Though we didn’t see a single Avocet, we saw lots of Black-necked Stilts
and even more Dowitchers,
not to mention, hundreds of ducks and geese.