Lots of Ducks, Too

There were far more geese than ducks at the Sacramento National Wildlife Refuge, but there was a wide variety of ducks.  The Cinnamon Teal is a beautiful duck I seldom see, so I was looking forward to seeing one at the refuge, though they refused to cooperate.  The only one I saw close-up had his head tucked under its wing and refused to budge the twenty minutes Leslie and I were taking pictures at the mid-way outlook.  In the end, I had to settle for this shot of one in the distance.

There were, however, several male Gadwalls, another duck I seldom see,  that seemed more willing to pose.  I’ve long admired their subtle beauty. 

It’s also been quite a while since I’ve seen Ring-Necked Ducks locally, but there were several at the refuge, including this pair.

I’m embarrassed to admit that I didn’t recognize this duck 

until I saw it swim away and it became obvious it was a male Green-winged Teal.

I usually see them at Theler Wetlands where we are looking down at them from the dike or the bridge and seldom see them from the front.

Ironically, my favorite duck shot of the day is this shot of a male Northern Pintail,

a duck we see quite often locally.  What makes it special is that the ponds at the Sacrament NWR are higher than the road you are driving on, which allows you to see them at eye level. At Theler I would have to lay down in the wetlands to get this angle.  

Here a goose, there a goose,

everywhere a goose.

We have been visiting the Sacramento National Wildlife Refuge for several years, but I was surprised by the number of geese we saw feeding on the refuge on this visit.  We may have seen more geese in previous years, but they have usually been in the pond, not feeding on the refuge.  This time, just the opposite was true. I suspect that’s because the farmers’ fields have been rototilled in preparation for Spring planting, and the geese are forced to feed on refuge grasses before heading north.

We were greeted by flocks of Snow Geese

and Greater White-Fronted Geese

at the beginning of the auto tour, and they were far from alone as geese could be found throughout the refuge.

I generally dislike photos where parts of the main subject are cut off, but with so many geese it was hard to find a lone goose

or a pair close enough together to capture in a single shot.

If we lived in the Willows area we would probably take the geese for granted, but seeing so many Snow and Greater White-Fronted geese was quite a treat for us considering that they are a rare sighting around Puget Sound unless you are willing to drive north to Everett.  

Snipe Hunt**!

We finally managed to get down to the Sacramento National Wildlife Refuge, and the weather was nearly ideal.  The trip started auspiciously with Leslie capturing this shot of a Wilson’s Snipe before we even entered the driving tour.   

I don’t see enough Wilson’s Snipes to say they are a favorite, but I spent nearly five years looking for one to photograph before finally finding one.  I have seen them more frequently once I actually found one, but we rarely see them.  

So it was totally unexpected when she got a shot of another snipe a little later.  Who says lightning doesn’t strike twice in the same place?

I really thought we had hit a bonanza when Leslie said she had gotten a shot of a small flock of them.

I only got a glance at the flock because I was concentrating on locating a woodpecker in the other direction. However, I certainly thought it had been a small flock of Wilson’s Snipe after I took this shot a few minutes later in the exact same spot,  because this definitely a Snipe.

It’s only when I was home looking at the pictures on screen of the birds lifting off that they looked like Dowitchers, not Wilson’s Snipe.

Apparently we’re not the only ones who were confused by the two because the Cornell site shows a closeup of the two together and points out some of the differences — and they are fairly subtle differences.

Even without the Dowitchers that’s the most Wilson Snipes we’ve ever seen in a single day.

You See What You See

Whenever I recommend a birding site to someone, I try to describe what they MIGHT see, depending on when they visit.  I also warn that they will probably see different birds (or no birds) at different times of the day or the year.

Truthfully, even two birders riding together in a car looking out different windows are likely to see different birds or animals than the person they’re riding next to.  For instance, on our visit to Colusa I got this shot of a White-Faced Ibis that Leslie didn’t see.

Right around the corner she got a shot of a Double-Crested Cormorant in breeding colors that I never spotted.

I got a shot of a Great Egret fluffing its feathers, 

and she got a shot of two Wild Turkeys.

I couldn’t miss seeing the large Night Heron Rookery, but only Leslie could actually take pictures of it since it’s nearly impossible to hand-hold a 400 mm lens while pointing it out the opposite car window.

But that was okay because Leslie didn’t get to see the little Pied-Billed Grebe that popped up on my side of the car.

You never really know what you’re going to see while birding, but I do know that you never see the birds we saw at Colusa NWR while sitting at home on the couch.