No, not those kite things on a string. These were White-tailed Kites (
Elanus leucurus) at the San Luis National Wildlife Refuge. We were thrilled to see not one, but two of them, and even better, I got the best pictures I've ever managed to take. I don't see the White-tailed Kites very often, maybe only four or five times, and so they've only made
two appearances on this blog. I even got the eyes, and that hasn't happened before.
The San Luis National Wildlife Refuge is one of the premier places in California for bird watching. The main visitor-related portions of the refuge include a new visitor center and two marvelous auto-tour routes along with a number of hiking trails. There's even a large compound where visitors can see one of the few herds of California's unique Tule Elk. On eBird,
more than a thousand bird counts have been conducted here.
But there's sort of a step-child at the refuge. It's called the Bear Creek Unit. It's northwest of the main part of the refuge, but is easily accessed from Highway 165. There is a two-mile long auto-tour, but only just over a hundred birding reports have ever been conducted there. I'm not sure why, but the area just didn't get the visitation. Sometimes there is a simple lack of water in the wetlands so few birds are around. Yesterday we had the place to ourselves aside from one other car. And there were quite a few birds out and about, including several thousand Red-winged Blackbirds. And...two White-tailed Kites!
The refuge system in the Great Valley preserves in some cases and works in others to reconstruct the native ecosystem that existed here in the millennia before colonizers established the vast network of farms and ranches. The valley is critical winter habitat for millions of migratory birds, and they survive only because of the string of refuges up and down the landscape. It was marvelous to experience the sky and prairie yesterday during a break in the huge storm that slammed into California this weekend.
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