Burrowing Owl on the Prairie!

We been really hunting for owls on our last few trips. We haven't seen many this year, and had become curious if there are actually fewer of them around. I've been watching our "owl trees" at the Merced and San Luis National Wildlife Refuges without success, and last spring we searched our known owl nests and didn't see much there either. I've had a few fleeting views of Barn Owls while driving home in the darkness, but of course photography was out of the question. I've heard a few Great Horned Owls at night. But our favorite, the Burrowing Owl (Athene cunicularia) remained elusive. About four days ago we had a quick glance of one on Willms Road in the late twilight, but it wasn't until tonight that I got a good look at one.

I was taking a roundabout route to the CSU Stanislaus campus in the late afternoon and decided to check the north shore of Turlock Reservoir, a spot where I've seen Burrowing Owls before. Out of sheer habit I check a particular barbwire fence along Lake Road where I had seen one a year ago, and much to my surprise, there it was, perched in almost the same exact spot. I guess we recognized each other because it didn't up and fly away when I pointed the camera.

It's nice to see them out and about.

A Late-afternoon Surprise, a Burrowing Owl near Turlock Lake

I don't see a lot of owls because they are mostly active at night, and I'm not. Mostly they are a ghostly presence on fences in the farmlands that I travel through on the way home from work. There are exceptions: the Great Horned Owls at the Merced National Wildlife Refuge are usually visible when the trees lose their leaves in winter, and there is a singular Burrowing Owl that hangs out on Dry Creek that we'll sometimes see when taking the backroads to Knight's Ferry on the Stanislaus River. But today we had a nice surprise. We were out on a spur-of-the-moment birding trip at Turlock Lake State Recreational Area, which is an irrigation reservoir in the Sierra Nevada foothills just east of Modesto. We saw a fair assortment of bird species, but as we were leaving I saw one more bird perched on a fencepost and I knew right away that it was too stocky to be another Meadowlark. It was a Burrowing Owl (Athene cuicularia) only about fifty yards from the highway. I got a couple of decent shots before it took off into the adjacent field.

Ospreys Nesting on the Tuolumne River

It's spring and the big birds are nesting. We've kept an eye on four or five Osprey nests that we know of in our region on the Tuolumne, Stanislaus and Merced Rivers. One by the Roberts Ferry Bridge didn't have any occupants last we looked, but another nest between Turlock Lake and the Tuolumne River was certainly occupied last week. Both mom and dad were hanging out nearby. I'm sure we'll check up on the chick's progress as the weeks roll on.

The Osprey (Pandion haliaetus) is one of the few success stories in the bird world in the sense that we just about wiped them out with DDT last century and finally came to our senses. They have expanded their range and their population has grown, especially when posts have been provided where they can build their humungous nests.

It was certainly a pretty day last week when we went hunting birds in the foothills of the Sierra Nevada. The snowy high country contrasted strongly with the green slopes around the reservoir.

Ash-throated Flycatchers at Turlock Lake and on the Tuolumne River

I seem to see these birds at one time of the year, as I posted on them last May, and a year earlier in late April. We were at Turlock Lake State Recreational Area and this Ash-throated Flycatcher (Myiarchus cinerascens) landed in the oak tree on the hill top hardly ten feet away from me. It sang for a fair amount of time (enough for the video below), and actually waited for me to wander away.

This species of flycatcher is really a desert species, with a range across the U.S. Southwest and winters spent in Mexico and the tropics. They aren't seen much north of Oregon. Being creatures of the desert, they don't need to drink, getting most of their moisture from their food.

Strangely enough, after not seeing them for almost a year, I saw a second Ash-throated Flycatcher just up the road at the Joe Domecq Wilderness Area along the Tuolumne River near Basso Bridge!

Canada Goose "Gang Brood" at Turlock Lake State Recreational Area

It was a beautiful spring day, so we headed out for a short excursion up the Tuolumne River. We hunted for birds at Turlock Lake State Recreational Area for a bit, and then headed east on Lake Road towards the Joe Domecq Wilderness (a county wilderness park developed on an old dredge field). On the way between the parks, we passed an overflow pond for Turlock Lake Reservoir and I saw lots of Canada Geese and a few goslings. We stopped for a few moments to have a look, and soon I saw a caravan of twenty goslings between two adults. I've never seen such a large group of young ones, but apparently the geese like to form "gang broods" of up to five individual families. It's sort of an avian kindergarten, I guess. Whatever it is, it was the cutest thing in my day! 

Osprey Fledglings on the Tuolumne River and Anthropomorphizing.

We've been gone for 6 of the last 8 weeks, so we missed out on the childhood of the nestling Ospreys that are living along the Tuolumne River just upstream of our town. We last looked in on them in late April (story here), so we took a short excursion yesterday to see if the fledglings were still hanging out at their nests. They were, at least two of them, one at Roberts Ferry bridge, and one at Turlock Lake State Recreational Area. They looked healthy and active.

I know we're not really supposed to anthropomorphize wild animals, but looking at these scenes somehow brought back memories of teenagers... 

The "I can't handle listening to this kid whining so much" look...

The "you've destroyed my life forever" look...

The "I'm not speaking to you" look...

The "you WILL NOT talk about my child that way" look...(teachers get this one)

The "first driving lesson" look...

And...the response to the "birds and the bees talk".

I don't know, maybe there is something to anthropomorphizing after all.

Western Meadowlark near Turlock Lake

The Western Meadowlark (Sturnella neglecta) has such a breathtakingly beautiful song, but it has some beautiful coloring as well. I was out near Turlock Lake State Recreational Area on Davis Road the other day where I saw a dozen or more spread out along the fences enclosing the grazing lands. One of them was kind enough not to panic when my car rolled to a stop. It was a bit coy about showing off the brilliant yellow and black breast, though.

The winter migrants have mostly left for the northlands, but I've been seeing more of our year-round birds and southern migrants. I saw a single Kingbird earlier this week, but on Davis Road I saw several dozen. Spring is definitely here!

Ospreys nesting near Turlock Lake

I did a brief little explore on Sunday to the area around Turlock Lake and the Joe Domecq Wilderness on the Tuolumne River in the Sierra Nevada foothills. There were a fair number of birds out and about, including Meadowlarks, Red-winged Blackbirds, and Western Kingbirds. The attention-getter of the day were the Ospreys (Pandion haliaetus).

The Ospreys are common in the area, as the Tuolumne River and Turlock Lake both provide plentiful fish. It's nesting season, and I saw two different nests as I explored.

The nests are massive. According to Cornell, they can reach 13 feet deep and 7 feet across. It makes one wonder how the trees or poles don't fall down (or maybe they do).

Rock Wren at Turlock Lake State Recreational Area

It's the same place and maybe the same kind of bird, and it seems like Turlock Lake State Recreational Area is the place for me to see wrens. I'm relatively sure this is a Rock Wren (Salpinctes obsoletus), since the head is not as flattened as a Canyon Wren, but as always, I appreciate corrections.

It's too bad that it costs $11 to visit Turlock Lake. I suppose the entrance fee is high because of the boat traffic during the right season, but the lake is so low this year that boating isn't really feasible. On the other hand, we almost never see anybody else at the park. We went down to the campground in the park a little later, and the host seemed grateful for a bit of company. She made me feel like a bit of an expert (ha-ha) since I knew a fair number of the birds that she asked about.

It was sweet of the wren to hold still for awhile for pictures. I still note the lack of rocks for the wren to live in, but the notes suggest they use buildings sometimes as well. I'll be listening for the song as well the next time I can afford to visit!

Downy Woodpecker at Turlock Lake Campground

Okay, I was half-joking when I said in the last post that I would try to capture photos of a Downy Woodpecker for the next post, but that turned out to be what happened. We made a short excursion out to Turlock Lake in the afternoon to see what was out and about, and down in the campground area there was a Downy Woodpecker (Picoides pubescens) in the tree above us.

The Downy Woodpecker is among the smallest of the Woodpecker family, and size is one of the ways one can distinguish it from the similar Hairy Woodpecker. The bill is shorter, too. It looks a bit like a Nuttall's Woodpecker, but the Downy has a white patch on the back, as today's did.

As is my usual pattern, I got a very fuzzy picture on the first attempt (two days ago), barely enough to identify it, and on the second try (today's attempt), I got sharper pictures, but not great ones (then again, do I ever?). Next time they will be marvelous!

The Downy Woodpecker is common and ranges widely across North America from Alaska to the Mexican border and the Eastern Seaboard. They are mainly missing in the deserts of the southwest. Which means I should have noticed them a long time ago!

Speaking of getting sharper, nicer pictures on the third sighting, check out the nice sharp sunlit photo of a Northern Flicker that was hanging out in the next tree over from the Downy Woodpecker. It was in interesting day, and a few more birds from this afternoon will make an appearance on the blog.

Bird of the Day: Rock Wren at Turlock Lake

Turlock Lake State Recreation Area is a reservoir that stores irrigation water for the valley floordownstream. It consists of low hills composed of gravel and sand washed down ancient rivers of the Sierra Nevada. The site is mostly composed of grassy hills with occasional oak woodlands, and some landscaped trees and shrubs around the parking areas. We've not fully explored the birdwatching possibilities of the park, but we occasionally stop by, especially since seeing the Bald Eagle there last November. We stopped in for a few minutes the other day, and saw a Rock Wren (Salpinctes obsoletus) on the fencing along the high ridge above the reservoir. It was kind enough to stay still for several shots.

I got to know wrens in another place and time. Canyon Wrens were a constant companion during my journey down the Colorado River in the summer of 2013. Their lilting song was one of the most beautiful and haunting sounds I have ever heard. This Rock Wren wasn't singing for us, but it was nice to see one up close. As their name suggests, they usually live in rocky settings like talus slopes. There weren't a lot of rock piles where we were at, so I wasn't completely sure of my identification, but they apparently will use buildings for nesting at times, and we were near a few structures.

As usual, I am open to gentle corrections in my identification of birds!

Bird of the Day: Bald Eagle at Turlock Lake State Recreational Area

I finished a pile of grading and the sun was still up this afternoon, so Mrs. Geotripper and I headed a few miles east to Turlock Lake State Recreational Area. The park lies along the Tuolumne River in the Sierra Nevada foothills, where it serves as a storage unit for irrigation water. We drove along the shore looking to see what birds might be around (answer: not many). I was glancing upwards at the power lines when I saw something I've not seen all that often around here: a Bald Eagle (Haliaeetus leucocephalus).

The Bald Eagle is, of course, our national bird, and we showed how proud we were of our national symbol by almost poisoning them out of existence. The heavy use of DDT in the last century caused metabolic changes in the eagles (and probably we humans too) so that they laid eggs with brittle shells that could not withstand the weight of the parent. At one point the eagle population in the lower 48 states was less than 500 breeding pairs. Once DDT was outlawed and shooting of the birds made illegal, their population rebounded and today they are found across the United States. I've seen them three times in the last year or two. But not this close (I was probably 200 feet away with a zoom).

Like most reservoirs in California, the water level is very low. I hope the rains come and fill the lake soon, but not too soon because a former student of mine and a fellow professor are researching the Mehrten Formation that makes up the rock around the lake. They are hoping to find the remains of late Cenozoic creatures in the sediment, including mastodons, horses, camels, and if they are lucky, the remains of the saber-toothed salmon, an eight foot long fish that once existed here!