A Cold Western Meadowlark at the Stone Lakes National Wildlife Refuge

I have a delightful backlog of bird pictures. With my time and attention on a great many other things of late, it's fun to finally work back through the last couple of weeks and see what I've missed in the picture files. In the middle of January I dropped someone off at Sacramento Airport, and on the trip back home I stopped by the Stone Lakes National Wildlife Refuge only to find it flooded and closed. All was not lost however. As I sat at the closed entrance gate, a Western Meadowlark (Sturnella neglecta) alit on the post. I slowly lowered the window and listened to its delightful song (and shot a short video as well). Be sure to turn up the volume a little bit!

Bird of the Day: Ruby-crowned Kinglet at Stone Lake and San Joaquin National Wildlife Refuges

Stone Lakes National Wildlife Refuge was an interesting little discovery this last week, but one of the things I've discovered is that there are birds that are very difficult to capture on digital media. First, it was the Sora and Sandhill Cranes I featured yesterday. Today I am featuring one of smaller birds around that aren't hummingbirds, the Ruby-crowned Kinglet (Regulus calendula). They average 0.2-0.4 ounces which compares to the 0.15 ounces of the Anna's Hummingbirds I see around the house.

Before this week, I had captured pictures of a Kinglet only once before, but it happened twice this week, and it wasn't easy either time. The birds move through the underbrush and never seem to stop. I have a bunch of shots of reeds and brush containing no birds, because I took an extra half second to focus. Most of the rest of the pictures show only a blur as the bird hopped to the next branch.

Where's the Kinglet? No wonder these little beasties are hard to photograph.

Are they hard to see? Take a look at the picture above. Even with a sharper contrast, how long did you take to find it?

Because it is only eight miles from the edge of town, we stop in fairly often to see what is going on at the Beckwith Observation Platform in the San Joaquin National Wildlife Refuge. It was built to allow distant views of the geese and cranes, but a lot of brush has been planted around the parking lot, and the plants always have a bunch of smaller birds hanging out, including Phoebes, sparrows, and as I found out yesterday, Ruby-crowned Kinglets.

If you are wondering about the "Ruby-crowned" part of the name, look carefully at the very first photo. You can just make out a bit of red on the head. It usually isn't visible except when the males are trying to impress the ladies.

As usual, I'm doing my best at bird identification as an amateur. The Kinglets look really similar to Hutton's Vireos, for instance. The small bills and the red patch in the first photograph were the identifying characteristics for me.

Bird of the Day: A Sora at Stone Lakes National Wildlife Refuge (and some bonus Sandhills)

It's been a busy week that left little time for blogging, but it's not for lack of finding birds. I was traveling from the Sacramento Airport when I noticed for the first time (out of my own denseness), that there is a National Wildlife Refuge practically in the downtown area (well, okay, out on the edge of town). It's called the Stone Lakes NWR, and it is one of the newer refuges in the system, established in 1994. I only had a few moments, but there was a nice parking area with three looping trails through some representative ecosystems called the Blue Heron Trails. Apparently it has been open for only a short time. I took a quick stroll along the accessible trails and saw a couple of interesting birds.

One of them was completely new to me, the new birder. Swimming birds to me used to be ducks or geese, so I was confused when I didn't find this distinctively colored bird in the duck section. It turns out to be a species of rail called a Sora (Porzana carolina). It is not an uncommon bird, but it apparently is very secretive and hard to see most of the time, which explains the fuzziness of the photos. It was at the far end of the pond and I was using the highest zoom setting.

The Soras range from Canada during the summer to the northern part of South America in winter, but according to Audubon, the Central Valley is one of the few places where they are resident year-round (along with the Las Vegas area and central New Mexico). Knowing that, I'll try to get some clearer shots next time!

The refuge is much larger than just the area around the Blue Heron Trails. The entire reserve encompasses more than 17,000 acres, and it is adjacent to the even larger Cosumnes River Preserve, with more than 50,000 acres.

I kept hearing Sandhill Cranes, and they sounded so close, but I couldn't see any at first. Their honking can carry a long way as it turns out. They were across the highway (Hood Franklin Road) about a quarter mile away. I zoomed in the best I could for a few pictures. Beautiful birds!