Brown Creeper in Renton Washington

Here's a little bird which has never appeared on these pages before. It is a Brown Creeper (Certhia Americana) that I saw during my holiday travels in Renton, Washington. Lest you think I was out tramping through the snowbound forest to get my pictures, well, actually I was stepping onto the back porch to get a drink from an ice chest, and saw this little guy making his way up the trunk of a pine in the backyard of my relative's house.

Brown Creepers live across North America from Mexico to southern Alaska. They make their living creeping (isn't that a surprise) up tree trunks searching the crevices for insects, which is exactly what this one was doing.

Just How Close Can You Get to a Wild Bird? Great Egret at the Sacramento National Wildlife Refuge

Some of you no doubt saw my Facebook and Instagram post of a Great Egret (Ardea alba) at the Sacramento National Wildlife Refuge from last week. It's a phone picture, which is sort of unusual because as good as those phone cameras are these days, it's not often I can catch pictures of birds because I'm just never close enough, and I don't have enough zoom.

That wasn't the case on Saturday. We were following the auto-tour road at the Sacramento National Wildlife Refuge near Willows, and as we crept along, I saw this Great Egret alongside the road ahead and fully expected that it would be spooked by our passing and fly away. It didn't. I crept up to within three feet of the driver's side window, and still the bird stood there not caring whether I was there or not. I started fumbling for my camera fully expecting it to fly away, and still it didn't. I started snapping.

The detail is pretty amazing when you are only three or four feet away, and have a 60x zoom at your disposal. It's almost microscopic...for once I could look into the eye of an avian dinosaur and sense the creature within. Well maybe, anyway. I feel more affinity for mammals as a rule. These birds are pretty alien for the most part.

I took a bunch of pictures and the bird finally moved. It walked right around the car so Mrs. Geotripper could have her turn too! This was a defiant creature if I've ever seen one...

Christmas Crows in Issaquah

It's almost alliterative, Christmas Crows in Issaquah, but that's the best I can do! I'm snowed in at a hotel in Issaquah, Washington, and these American Crows (Corvus brachyrhynchos) were the first birds we could see this morning. The Crow (making its first appearance today on this blog!) is ubiquitous across the United States and Canada.

The crows are intelligent and resourceful, and I have little doubt that they will take over after humans annihilate themselves. I wish them well!

From all of us at Geotripper's California Birds, we wish you a happy holiday, a merry Christmas, and a wonderful new year!

Greater White-fronted Geese at the Consumnes River Preserve

The Cosumnes River in California's Sierra Nevada and Great Valley is unique in one very important respect: it is the only free flowing river left in the region. Although dams have been proposed at various times during the last century, none were ever built, so the upper river retains some of its primeval character (aside from the logging and gold mining, anyway). The lower reaches on the valley floor and near the delta were heavily modified for agricultural development, but a variety of agencies and organizations have cobbled together a unified protected area of 50,000 acres (nearly 80 square miles) called the Consumnes River Preserve. It is critical habitat for thousands upon thousands of migratory birds, as well as a great many year-round residents.

The Preserve's Visitor Center is easily accessed from Interstate 5 between Stockton and Sacramento, so it made for a pleasant first stop on our way north today for our holiday travels. A number of birds were about, including a small gaggle of Greater White-fronted Geese (Anser albifrons) feeding on an embankment near the end of one of the boardwalks.

The White-fronted Geese breed in the far north, and migrate in winter to a series of refuges along the length of the Great Valley, Texas, and on into Mexico. I often see them in massive flocks at the San Joaquin National Wildlife Refuge, but it is less often that I get to see them up close like I did today.

Cooper's Hawk at the San Luis National Wildlife Refuge

We were fighting the crowds at a couple of shopping centers in Turlock, saw that the sun was sinking in the west, and just simply decided we wanted some peace and quiet. The San Luis National Wildlife Refuge was just 15 or so miles to the south (specifically the Bear Creek Unit). We headed out of town and drove to the auto-tour and slowly crept along the road. The pools were all dried up so no migratory birds were present in that part of the refuge, but we did see a Cooper's Hawk (Accipiter cooperii) perched in the trees along the east edge of the trail. The Cooper's is similar in appearance to the Sharp-shinned Hawk, but the tail was distinctive enough that I went with the former as an ID.

Those red eyes are intense!

American Kestrel on the Tuolumne River

If you happen to love American Kestrels (Falco sparverius), the last couple of weeks on the Tuolumne River Parkway Trail have been good times to see them. There are at least three of them hanging out along the trail, including this one, which was perched on an oak at the edge of the bluffs at the top of the stairwell to the river. I had driven up to the trailhead, and literally took these shots from inside the car.

The name "American" Kestrel is about as true as can be: it ranges from the southern tip of South America to Alaska, with nary a sighting anywhere else in the world. They are relatively common, but their numbers have declined because of habitat loss and overuse of pesticides that have caused a sharp drop in some of the insects and small animals that are their prey.

Great Egret on the Tuolumne River Bluffs

Great Egrets (Ardea alba) are relatively common sights in our region on the floor of California's Great Valley. The pastures and riparian woodlands are ideal habitat for them, but for whatever reason I don't see a great many of them on my Tuolumne River walks. There is occasionally one hanging out on the river just downstream of the west end stairway up the bluffs, and sometimes I see one near the highway bridge. The last few times I've been down to the river, there has been one perched on the telephone pole at Reinway Park. I love their graceful posing, so I snapped shots on two different days, one of them at sunset. I'm presuming it is the same bird.