Every year, in the time between autumn and spring, we’ll take day trips to go birding at many of the fantastic National Wildlife Refuges in California’s Central Valley.
There are so many choices from November to April. (Well, they are nice year-round, but are mostly full of birds when fall migration brings birds south, and then through spring migration when they head north.)
Among the places we have loved visiting are:
Sacramento, Colusa, and Delevan are a couple of hours, maybe three hours, north of us, so they are a bit of a drive. A little closer and more convenient are San Luis and Merced, which are part of the same NWR complex. They are about 90 minutes from our home, to the southeast past the small city of Los Banos.
So it is those two we visit most often, and where we spent a day in late February looking for our target birds, the Greater and Lesser Sandhill Cranes.
My wife got on the refuge mailing list, and was informed of a crane tour to be given by a naturalist ranger. I usually like going with guides, who would better know the birds and where they might be found. So off we went to what, it turned out, would be the last guided event of the season, as the cranes would be flying north at any day.
We got there early enough to drive one loop around the auto route by ourselves before we got back to the starting point to meet up with the guide. Nothing unusual or rare, but nice flooded fields with thousands of birds, birds everywhere!
This White-faced Ibis was a treat. You often see them in flocks overhead, or way across a pond, but this one was very cooperative and stayed close to our car for quite a while.
On the far side of our driving route was a parking area and lookout, and that was the prime location for spotting geese and cranes in a nearby farmer’s field. The Fish and Wildlife Service has worked with area rice and corn farmers to get them to leave crop residue in their fields after harvest, and the birds then come and feast during winter and as they prepare for spring migration.
And more birds settling in for the night. Caution with the video: It was a very windy afternoon, and that came through strongly on my phone video. You might want to have your speakers turned down before clicking on this:
It turned out to be a beautiful spring day, if windy. We were hoping to get the Sandhills coming in to an available pond for their nightly roost. We set up to watch at the rear lookout, as that is where the guide said the birds had been roosting for many days. However, maybe it was the wind, but the cranes chose to roost in another pond where we could not see.
Birdathon Fundraiser
As many of you will recall, every year my wife and I do a fundraiser for Santa Clara Valley Audubon Society.
We have greatly appreciated your kind donations over the past years, and we hope that you will be able to continue your most-generous donations again.
In the last few years we have managed to raise about $2,000 each year. As of this writing we are about halfway to that level, so won’t you please step up and help us reach our goal again? We can’t do it without you! After all, most of us will soon have some stimulus money from the feds, so why not put some of this extra where it will help a very worthy cause?
Our 2020 Birdathon will be 5 hours of birding on Sunday, April 26, in various locations in the south San Francisco Bay area. Because of the current coronavirus situation, we won’t be able to go out in a large group as we have traditionally done, but will divide into birding groups of one or two people, and will tally up everybody’s sightings at the end of the day by cell or email to create a team list.
Won't you please donate to help us out?
This will be our 17th year as members of an SCVAS Birdathon team. We will be on a team led by veteran Auduboner Bob Hirt, and we'll be walking in the fields, woods, or shoreline, counting bird species we see, talking and learning as we watch the birds in this beautiful location.
Our aim is to find more species than all the other teams! There is a good chance that we may even win a great prize for raising money, thanks to you.
And the money raised goes to a great cause: It's for the kids.
The SCVAS education programs reach hundreds of youngsters in Santa Clara County each year. Trained volunteers conduct hands-on, in-class activities and presentations to schoolchildren, teaching them about birds, wildlife, and the environment. Some of these presentations include live bird visits to classrooms! Volunteers also lead school field trips, taking many children into nearby natural areas each year to identify birds and learn about ecosystems.
Some of these city dwelling and immigrant kids have never been camping, hiking, or elsewhere out in nature. These field trips could be a child's first experience enjoying nature and learning about birds! Won't you help support SCVAS education and conservation programs by making a donation? We greatly appreciate any amount, no matter how small.
Two Ways to Pledge
Snail-mail us a check. Please make it out to Santa Clara Valley Audubon Society, or SCVAS. In the memo line of your check, please write my wife’s name, Carolyn Straub. If you wish to do that, please contact me through Kosmail and I’ll get back to you with our mailing address.
OR …….
You may pledge online. Click this link to donate. When that link opens, simply fill in the fields on the web page, indicate whether you wish to pay by credit card or PayPal, and then click the green Donate button to the right. That will ensure that your donation is credited to Carolyn Straub. (I can’t deny that we hope to get a nice, donated prize given to those who raise the most!)
Your pledge must be received before Sunday, May 10.
As a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization, all donations to SCVAS are fully tax deductible.
If you have donated in the past, we thank you for donating again. If this is your first time, then we thank you for joining in the fun and helping out this very worthy cause!
Thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you....!