Moments of Beauty: Sandhill Cranes at the Merced National Wildlife Refuge

(Yes, this is the same post as the one I just did at Geotripper. For all I know, I may different readers of my two blogs!)

It's no secret to my friends and family that I have followed the political scene closely, as bizarre as it has been. The many discussions and worries lead to all kinds of stress. In times like that, it never hurts to step back a bit and see what is happening at the nearest national wildlife refuge. With that in mind, Mrs. Geotripper and I set out to explore the Merced National Wildlife Refuge today. It's situated darn near the geographical center of the state just south of the town of Merced. 

In the winter months the refuge plays host to tens of thousands of Snow Geese, Ross's Geese, Greater White-fronted Geese, and Sandhill Cranes, all of whom spend their summers in the Arctic. The birds that arrive here have traveled thousands of miles. Not many geese were in attendance today at the refuge, but we were treated with the spectacle of thousands of Sandhill Cranes (Grus canadensis).

The birds gather thousands strong in several relatively small wildlife refuges in the Central Valley of California. 95% of our valley has been altered for agriculture and urban development, but these islands of wetlands and prairies allow the survival of several million migratory geese and cranes. It's probably a fraction of the number of birds that once filled the pre-western civilization skies, but it is a dramatic sight nonetheless. As we watched, a flock of what must have been close to a thousand birds landed in the fields before us.

The birds in general are doing okay with stable or slowly increasing populations in most areas. They mate for life, and usually raise a single chick each year. They would be vulnerable to the destruction of the wetland habitats that they prefer.

One more marvelous aspect of the Sandhill Cranes is their intriguing call. It's hard to describe, but it reminds me of the purring of a cat, amplified hundreds of times. Because of the bass tones, individual birds can be easily heard from a good half mile away. When thousands of birds are together, the sound is riotous. Check out my video from this afternoon below...

Thousands of Aleutian Cackling Geese at the San Joaquin NWR. They were thought to be extinct for 24 years.

This is a reposting of a column at Geotripper

I live in California's Great Valley, also known as the Central Valley. It's one of the most important agricultural regions on Earth, in that it produces around a quarter of the nation's produce. It's an extraordinary geological province, 400 miles of almost perfect flatness. When I moved to the valley nearly thirty years ago, I thought I was moving to a boring place, featureless, and bereft of the kinds of terrain that makes a geologist's heart go pit-a-pat. I was wrong...

I must admit that an exploration of the valley can be a bit monotonous. Traveling Highway 99 or Interstate 5 involves hundreds of miles of featureless fields and orchards, interrupted now and then by towns whose cultural attractions consist of gas stations and fast food restaurants (don't get me wrong, some of our towns have fascinating cultures, but you may have to work to find them at times).

The valley environment ranges from oak woodlands in the north through semiarid prairie in the middle reaches to barren desert to the south. The land is actually well-watered, as the adjacent Sierra Nevada feeds numerous rivers that flow into the valley. The rivers have been mostly diverted for use in irrigation, but about 30% of the water continues on to the sea. About 95% of the land surface in the valley has been converted to agricultural and urban development.

What has enriched my life in recent years is seeing the valley the way our migrant birds see it: a series of "wilderness" islands that allow me to imagine the valley as it once was, America's version of the Serengeti Plains. The prairies and wetlands once supported millions of grazing animals and migrating bird species (along with the year-round resident species). Most of these "islands" are part of the National Wildlife Refuge system, while others are preserves administered by a variety of federal, state and private organizations. These refuges allow the preservation and survival of the remnants of the incredible ecosystem that once existed here. It took a long time to recognize what we were doing to these animals as we took away more and more of their habitat to grow our food, but now there is a movement towards rehabilitating some of the wetland environments. We are trying to undo the damage we've caused over the last century and a half.

I was reminded of these efforts this afternoon when I drove over to a viewing area at the San Joaquin National Wildlife Refuge, one of the main centers of the efforts to rebuild the wetlands (something like 400,000 trees have been planted in riparian habitats that had been converted to farmlands, later abandoned). I saw an astounding sight.

There were perhaps tens of thousands of Aleutian Cackling Geese (Branta hutchinsii leucopareia) gathered in a plowed cornfield (planted by the refuge employees to provide food for the birds). The birds are closely related to the Canada Goose, but are considered a separate species based on DNA analysis. The species had gone into a steep decline due to hunting, the introduction of foxes on the island where they bred, and loss of winter habitat in the Central Valley. They were actually thought to be extinct for twenty four years, as none were seen after 1938, but a group of several hundred were found on some isolated islands in 1962. They were listed officially as an endangered species in 1967.

Aggressive efforts began to protect the birds from extinction, and in fifty years, the results have been successful enough that the bird has been removed from endangered status. From a population of less than 1,000 birds, there are now more than 120,000. And I was looking at a large percentage of the entire population of these birds at the San Joaquin National Wildlife Refuge this afternoon. It was stunning.

The birds certainly still face problems. They are crowded onto relatively limited lands, and drought years can limit the amount of maize and wheat that can be planted on their behalf. The drought also limits that available wetlands that they prefer for roosting. But still for a few moments this afternoon, I was reminded how the valley used to support millions of geese and cranes. It may still do so again. It's possible to share the bounty of our valley with the original inhabitants.

I imagine some people would think I was exaggerating a bit when I said there were thousands, maybe tens of thousands of birds at the refuge this afternoon. I certainly couldn't fit them all into a single picture, so I invite you to see a video I took, sweeping across the crowd next to the road. Enjoy!


More on the recovery of the Aleutian Cackling Goose can be read here: http://www2.humboldt.edu/wildlife/faculty/black/pdf/Minietal2011_AleutiansWildfowl.pdf

Bird of the Day: A Different Canada Goose, the Cackling Kind. Evolution on the Continent

If you've ever been accosted by a Canada Goose at the local park, pictures like these might give you the shivers. If one of them can deliver a nasty bite, just imagine what a few thousand of them can do. But take heart, these scenes are no nightmare. They aren't even Canada Geese. The birds occupying this field in the San Joaquin National Wildlife Refuge west of Modesto are Aleutian Cackling Geese (Branta hutchinsii). It's true, though, that before 2005 they were Canada Geese. Allow me to explain.

The Canada Goose lives in many environments, and in some cases particular flocks broke away and colonized different islands or territories (see yesterday's post for an extreme example). The presence or lack of food sources or differences in the nature of predators favored certain traits (size and behavior, for instance) in the young. The geese who summered on the Aleutian Islands were long recognized as a smaller subspecies of the Canada Goose, but recent DNA analysis has led researchers to consider these birds an entirely different species. And so these birds are not Canada Geese, they are the much smaller Aleutian Cackling Geese, which are genetically distinct from the Canada Goose.

The Cackling Geese winter by the tens of thousands in the wildlife refuge a few miles west of my home. It is a stunning sight to see so many of the birds in one place. From the observation deck on Beckwith Road, one can see and hear thousands of birds taking off and landing, and in general making a racket (cackling, as it were). They have been encouraged to stay here instead of nearby agricultural fields through the planting of corn and other food plants. In April they will pick up and leave, headed north to breed in the Arctic.

The refuge is also home to thousands of lesser Sandhill Cranes. We could just make out a flock of them in the far distance. Snow Geese also winter in the area. There were five of them among the thousands of Cackling Geese yesterday, looking mildly confused. They usually arrive in large numbers in late November or early December.

"George, are you SURE this is the right place? Shouldn't you have asked directions in Oregon?"

As we were standing and watching the flocks there was a tremendous BOOM, and thousands of the geese immediately took flight. A huge dust plume over to the west revealed where the explosion had come from. And why.

It was a huge net. Several dozen of the birds had been trapped and for the next few minutes we could see Fish and Wildlife employees tagging them.

As usual, the picture quality from YouTube sucks (the compression process I suppose), but you can get a sense of the cacophony of sound from the flying geese from the short video below.

Bird Watching in (Semi) Urban Settings, Part Two: The Campus Drainage Pond/Mini-Wilderness

The primordial Great Valley of California must have been a fascinating place. I can only imagine the large herds of Tule Elk, Pronghorn Antelope, the Grizzly Bears and Mountain Lions, and the migratory birds. Vast prairies would have stretched for hundreds of miles from the present site of Bakersfied to Red Bluff, but because of the adjacent Sierra Nevada, plentiful river water would have been available in the near-desert environment. The snow-free winters and available food supplies would have made the valley a magnet for migrating birds.

Beyond the baseball field lies the "mini-wilderness"

Not much is left of the original environment, no more than 5% or so. It began with a wave of agricultural development, followed by creeping urbanization. The effect on the uncounted millions of birds who wintered in the valley was devastating. Hundreds of thousands of birds are able to survive because of a patchwork of isolated wildlife refuges that preserve some small part of the original prairie/wetlands, or which have utilized abandoned and purchased farmlands that are being returned to a semi-natural state.

I teach at a community college (Modesto Junior College), and I have come to realize that campuses and parks in urban settings provide a small but maybe critical piece of bird habitat. I spent the first 25 years of my teaching career on the highly urbanized "east campus" near the middle of the city. The campus has some very nice trees, but nothing resembling decent bird habitat. It's simply too crowded and too paved over. But we have a strange property situation with our campus.

Hammond Army Hospital in the 1940s (Source here). The barren drainage pond is just left of dead center of the photograph.

Years ago, the federal government established a hospital complex west of town center to treat World War II wounded. Years later the property became a mental hospital, but when "reform" kicked many mentally ill people onto the streets in the 1970s, the land was given to our college district, and it developed into a "west campus" just three miles from the east campus. True to its origin, our campus has a "split" personality.

Obviously few trees had been planted in the 1940s as the hospital was hastily constructed, but some were eventually planted, and now after 60-70 years, many of the trees are mature, and some are even dying. The diseased and dying trees are quickly removed in the populated parts of the campus for obvious reasons, but in the isolated corners, the trees go through the entire process of life and death without intervention. In particular there is a drainage pond on the northwest corner of the property that has become a sort of mini-wilderness over the years.

A small oak woodland, with a few Deodars and Eucalyptus trees.

Part of the "mini-wilderness" is fenced off, as the agriculture division occasionally has sheep grazing in the compound. Otherwise the site is generally undisturbed. It has developed into an admittedly artificial ecosystem that is surprisingly robust. There are a variety of adjacent environments: a meadow, a lake/pond, a swamp/wetland, and a mature hardwood forest. There are sheep as occasional grazers, rodents, and even a few predators: a fox (see below) and at least two feral domestic cats.

And lots of birds. Since I started exercising by walking the perimeter of the campus (about 2 miles), I've photographed around three dozen species of birds. Many have been temporary visitors, but some have been around continuously, including a beautiful Great Egret, and some cute Black Phoebes. And of course the usual mockingbirds, sparrows and mourning doves (like the young one that was hanging out next to my third floor classroom the other morning, in the first picture).

From some angles, the pond is positively beautiful, especially in the evening sunset. That's the observatory dome in our Science Community off in the distance.

Although I'm mostly seeking out birds to photograph, the other night I saw the fox for the first time after hearing rumors about it for more than a year. I was astounded to see it, and appreciated that it stood still long enough for a couple of pictures.

So this has been an introduction to my second bird observation spot, which I will always be calling the "mini-wilderness". It'll be our secret, because I hope the powers-that-be will continue to ignore it and not develop this little wild corner of the campus. In a lot of ways, I think it has an ecological importance as an environmental "island" that far outstrips its modest size.

A Red-shouldered Hawk (Buteo lineatus) that I saw in the mini-wilderness for only the first time a week or so ago.

Welcome to Geotripper's California Birds!

Yellow-billed Magpie (Pica nuttalli), possibly California's only endemic bird species.

Welcome to Geotripper's California Birds! You possibly know me from my long-running blog Geotripper, which covers geological topics in California and across the American West. As many of my friends know, I have taken up bird photography for the total fun of it, and I have amassed thousands of images of our feathered friends during my travels. I make no pretenses of being an expert on ornithology, and can barely be described as an avid birder (my life list is laughable), but I enjoy the challenge of learning about the rich world that exists around us, even in our own neighborhoods.

Western Scrub Jay (Aphelocoma californica) in the local pasture.

No birder would be surprised at this, but I was astounded to find there was a rich and diverse bird population within walking distance of my home in a small farm town in the Central Valley of California. In my ignorance I thought the bird ecosystem consisted of crows, mockingbirds, mourning doves and sparrows. I started walking and photographing the birds in my neighborhood  and local region and soon amassed a list of 70 species. There are lots more to be discovered, as the bird list for my county (Stanislaus) is around 300 strong.

A Cedar Waxwing (Bombycilla cedrorum) in my front yard.

So what's ahead? What am I trying to accomplish with this blog? I've been doing this long enough over at Geotripper to know how things will work. My primary goal is educational. I want to get lots of pictures out there that can be used for school projects and teaching. So if you discover this site, feel free to use the pictures in your projects on birds. Like any author/photographer, I would appreciate knowing that you found the site useful, and that my pictures are correctly attributed. If you are seeking pictures for texts or other profit-making objectives, please contact me privately.

A Western Tanager (Piranga ludoviciana) in the Clark Fork of the Stanislaus River in the Sierra Nevada

My second goal is also educational but in a different sense. The old adage "canary in a coal mine" was a real thing. The canaries were more sensitive to bad air than the miners, so if the canary stopped singing, the miners knew to get out of the mine. Birds are very sensitive to changes in the climate and changes to the landscape. California's Central Valley was once a critical part of the North American migratory flyway. Agriculture and urbanization have co-opted 95% of the original landscape, and bird species have been severely impacted. A system of wildlife refuges and natural waterways remain, and so millions of birds still winter in the valley, though only a fraction of what once was. In the larger sense, all ecosystems are being impacted by global warming. We may be on the verge of an extinction event on par with that which destroyed all but the avian dinosaurs. 50% of all bird species are at risk in the coming decades. Let's learn about this together.

The California Condor (Gymnogyps californianus), a bird on the verge of extinction

My third goal is simply to have fun. I have been driving my Facebook friends crazy with daily updates about the birds in my region, and I look forward to sharing my avian adventures more widely.

A slightly younger Geotripper, with friends in Australia.

I hope you will enjoy the adventure. As I said at the outset, I'm no expert, so I welcome any comments or corrections, especially where bird identifications are concerned.