The Gifts of the Day: Black-crowned Night-Herons at CSU Stanislaus

Some days are just gifts, and I can certainly say I've had more than my share. And this was one of those days for kind of a silly reason. I like to count things. It's just a quirk in my personality. I count the students in my classes. I count hits on blog meters. I count the days to pay day. I count all kinds of things. That's why birding was bound to eventually become an avocation (obsession?) for me, once I caught on.

So I record my bird sightings on eBird which has a whole bunch of neat ways to keep track of one's birding adventures. And one of those lists is the yearly tally, the birds one has seen since the first of the year (as opposed to the "life-list"). I've been dutifully keeping track of my bird sightings and the numbers mounted, with 98 birds sighted in the county since New Year's Day. And then I seemed to stall. There was the wonderful sight of the Bald Eagle two weeks ago, but there had been little movement since then. Lots of birds, but not new species. I was stalled at 98 and it bothered me in a "Monk" sort of way. I wanted to get to a nice even 100 and it just wasn't happening.

So I headed over to CSU Stanislaus for my evening course, and I decided to walk a little and see if I could find the rare Sage Thrasher that has been living on the campus the last few months. I found it and got a couple of pictures, but it wasn't bird 99 (I had seen it last month). But then another bird hopped into view and I recognized a Hermit Thrush! It was pretty, and it was bird 99. Now I was on a roll and I decided to search for the Black-crowned Night-Heron (Nycticorax nycticorax) that I knew was living in the reeds of Willow Lake. I couldn't find it but I decided to have a look at Warrior Lake too and there it was! A Black-crowned Night-Heron! And it was staying still. I got a bunch of close-ups from my spot on the bridge.

I was thrilled, but eventually I had to move on. And then from the other side of the bridge, I spotted another! This time it was a juvenile. And it cooperated for pictures too. So in the end, I got to see two of my favorite birds, but I also reached a nice arbitrary number as well, 100 birds so far this year in Stanislaus County.