Noticing lxxxvii - an afternoon of birds (Merced NWR)

Snow goose (Chen caerulescens)
breeding (blue) and wintering
(rust) grounds

Yesterday Lynn mentioned that she'd taken a drive out to the Central Valley on Monday to see birds—especially snow geese and sandhill cranes. Her destination was Merced National Wildlife Refuge, north and east of Los Baños. She said it was well worth the two-hour trip (one way). She also mentioned that she's had the experience of going there and seeing thousands of birds, and a mere two weeks later finding . . . none. Or relatively few, anyway, and no snow geese. They just up and leave one day, not to be seen again for many months—on their way to the far north of Canada and their breeding grounds. I gather there are always birds of one kind or another at Merced NWR, but not necessarily in huge numbers.

Given that she'd had good success just a few days ago, I thought it might be worth dropping everything and heading out there ourselves. David was game. Spontaneity! Yay!

So this afternoon, that's just what we did. There's a five-mile auto tour that takes you past some big ponds as well as some fields. All the activity today was in the watery areas. I figure we saw coots, Canada geese, black-necked stilts, avocets, greater yellowlegs, killdeer, northern harrier hawks, northern pintails, cinnamon teals, northern shovelers, buffleheads, white-faced ibis, a red-shafted flicker, American white pelicans, sandhill cranes, possible snipes, and thousands of snow geese. Also a streaky-yellow-breasted songbird (Lincoln's sparrow?). The sights and sounds were spectacular.

Here are a few photos I shot (with my iPhone—it didn't even occur to me to bring the big camera with long lens . . . what was I thinking?).

From the observation deck at the entrance to the refuge.
From there, there's a five-mile auto tour around the perimeter.

We spent maybe twenty minutes here, watching as raft upon raft
of snow geese took to the air and flew into the sky, Pretty soon
that whole pool was just water again. It was spectacular.

See? Not to mention, the light kept changing!

Glory rays.

The sky was a riot of activity.

Shortly after sunset, looking west—as we take our leave.