Some Early Arriving Snow Geese at Merced National Wildlife Refuge

Winter can be a tough time for birds. Some can tolerate severe snows and survive at high altitudes or far northern latitudes. Many Arctic species have to migrate to more temperate latitudes, but over the course of history they have found their wintering grounds have been taken over by agricultural development.

The humans who took over the wetlands and lakes of the Great Valley have made some effort to encourage the survival of the birds, establishing a series of wildlife refuges that provide some haven for the birds (although in a trade-off, the chance to hunt them as well). There are half a dozen refuges in my immediate vicinity including the Merced National Wildlife Refuge, which is one of my favorite sites for bird watching.

At the height of the season, there will be tens of thousands of Sandhill Cranes, Snow Geese, Ross's Geese, White-fronted Geese in residence, along with Pelicans, Swans, and many others. It can get quite crowded by the time January comes around, and food sources can run short, especially in drought years when the fields cannot be adequately watered or flooded. But the effort is made, and many of the birds survive (some succumb to avian cholera and other diseases of overcrowding).

We visit the refuge as often as we can as the year progresses. There are a number of interesting birds present all year, but yesterday we were watching for the arrival of the winter migrants. Thousands of Lesser Sandhill Cranes have already arrived, but it doesn't feel crowded yet. The geese are not yet present in large numbers, but a few early migrants were hanging about. There were White-fronted Geese (above), whom we saw in large numbers farther to the north a few weeks ago at the Sacramento National Wildlife Refuge.

There were also a few dozen Snow Geese (Chen caerulescens). They generally arrive in large numbers in December when they'll fill the skies by the thousands.

Many of the Snow Greese seemed to be in family groups, with three or four juveniles hanging out with a mature goose. I don't know if they maintain such groupings, but it sure looked like it.

It was dry at the refuge, and many of the lakebeds are still totally empty of water. We've finally had a vigorous storm this week, and I am greatly hoping the storm is a harbinger of things to come. The wildlife needs a break, and a better chance for survival. Life is hard enough as it is.

Yellow-rumped Warbler on the Tuolumne River

There are lots of Yellow-rumped Warblers (Setophaga coronata) out and about this time of year. Once I started watching birds a bit more carefully, I've seen them in a wide variety of environments across California and Arizona, including my own back yard. The latest sighting came with my strolls along the Tuolumne River where our town is constructing a parkway trail. At this site, the river flows out of the Sierra Nevada foothills onto the floor of the Great Valley.

There are wild Elderberries growing in small thickets along the river channel, and at this time of year the berries are providing some critical nutrition to a variety of bird species. In the space of a few moments I had four different birds land over my head, including Black Phoebe, Phainopepla, the Warbler, and some kind of Thrush or Vireo.

The Yellow-rumped Warbler is a common and widespread species, with a range that extends from Central America to the farthest reaches of Arctic Alaska. They have evolved the ability to digest some of the more waxy berries, which allows them to have the northernmost range of any warbler species.

Their plumage is somewhat muted at this time of year; they get much more colorful during the spring breeding season. They are pretty any time of year, though, which is why they've shown up on this blog more often than most other species.

Phainopepla on the Tuolumne River Parkway Trail

This is a bird of the tropical southwest deserts, and as such is pretty close to the edge of its northernmost range here along the Tuolumne River. The Phainopepla (Phainopepla nitens) is not uncommon in our region, but until last week I had never seen one here (I've seen a few near Death Valley, at a great distance). I was standing quietly underneath an Elderberry bower and actually saw four species in the space of a few minutes. This was the one that surprised me the most. I didn't even recognize it right away, even though the crest on the head is very distinctive. I think of Phainopeplas as being pure black, but that is the color of the males.

The preferred food of the Phainopepla is mistletoe, and from it they derive not only their carbohydrates, but also their water. They rare drink any. The birds play a role in spreading mistletoe, as the sticky seeds can be transferred by their feet. This symbiotic relationship is great for the bird and the mistletoe, but not so much the trees. 

It's been a great year for mistletoe on trees across the state, and with global warming, I would not be surprised to see these birds expanding their range to the north. We can do without the drought and hot conditions, but seeing more of these grand birds wouldn't be so bad.

Cackling Geese Have Arrived at the San Joaquin National Wildlife Refuge!

Mind you, they may have been there for weeks. I've only had a handful of chances to check the Beckwith Road viewing platform. Two weeks ago I saw a few way off to the south. Today I saw a few dozen, maybe a hundred off in the distance. I turned back and started to look for Towhees and sparrows in the brush, but then a huge commotion broke out in the sky above. I looked up and there were thousands of birds overhead. It was astounding.

Cackling Geese (Branta hutchinsii) are a new species, having recently been thought of as a subspecies of the Canada Goose. They were one of the first species to be listed under the Endangered Species Act, but efforts to rebuild populations have been a success story, and they were taken off the list in 2001. A large percentage of their population spends the winter at the San Joaquin National Wildlife Refuge west of Modesto in the Great Valley.

There are Sandhill Cranes in the region, but we are still awaiting the arrival of the Snow Geese and the Ross's Geese. December and January are noisy times at our local wildlife refuges, and they are a reminder of the rich abundance of wildlife that existed here before 95% of the valley was taken over for agriculture. I'm looking forward to winter!
 

Northern Flicker on the Tuolumne River Parkway Trail

I had an extraordinary walk by the river last week. Whether one gets pictures of birds can depend on so many things: the attention span of the photographer, the weather, the season, the time of day. I hadn't been seeing many birds on the last few walks, and I expected no different on this walk. I was mistaken. I ran across half a dozen species of birds in just one brush bower near the trail (I wrote about the birds in my blog Geotripper).

The first bird I saw on the river was a Northern Flicker (Colaptes auratus). These members of the Woodpecker clan are one of the more strikingly colorful birds in our area. They don't act like woodpeckers all that often. They spend much of their time on the ground digging for insects in the dirt.

I've been learning a lot about birds during the last two years, but one area that I'm lagging is bird calls. I have problems hearing certain high-pitched frequencies, but I always know if there are Northern Flickers about. They have a distinctive call, and aren't afraid to utilize it.

The Tuolumne River is a treasure, and our town is building a two mile long parkway trail to highlight the value of the waterway here in the Great Valley of California. I'm looking forward to being able to walk the trail as a loop rather than an out and back walk past the sewage treatment center. The trail will probably be completed in the next three or four weeks. Come and check it out sometime!

Cassin's Finch at Medicine Lake Highland, California's Largest Volcano

Our recent trip to the Cascades of Northern California yielded several "first" bird sightings, including the Pinyon Jay I noted a few days ago. After we left Lava Beds National Monument, we headed up the flank of Medicine Lake Highland. The Highland is a huge shield volcano, a basalt edifice with gentle slopes, but great width. MLH is actually the largest volcano in the state of California by volume. We weren't really expecting to see much in the way of bird life, as it was late September and birds are usually starting to migrate to lower elevations in preparation for winter. We actually saw quite a few, including the Hermit Thrush I posted on earlier.

We stopped for lunch along the shores of Medicine Lake itself. The lake occupies the caldera of the volcano, where the summit collapsed inwards after a series of voluminous eruptions. Normally the water would have sunk into the ground, but glaciers of the last ice age left large amounts of clay that sealed off the lake floor and keep water present year-round. It's a popular recreation area, with campgrounds and a few cabins, but no resort developments. It's a pretty quiet place on a Sunday afternoon. Sitting under some Lodgepole Pines, I saw a Cassin's Finch (Haemorhous cassinii) for the first time. They live in our region back home but mainly in the upland forests, and I haven't seen them there. It checked me out for a moment, long enough for a couple of pictures, and then moved on. So did we.

NOTE: If you are one of the literally dozens of people who've read this post, you might remember it being about a Purple Finch. Upon reflection and a revisit of the pictures, I decided it was a Cassin's Finch.

Yellow-rumped Warblers at Lava Beds National Monument

It was almost surreal watching the parade of different species visiting the water spigots in the campground at Lava Beds National Monument. As has been mentioned before, there are few open sources of water in the park, so the birds congregate at the campground in the mornings. There was some sort of pecking order, as one species would be drinking, they would leave, and then another would appear. We've already seen the Pinyon Jays, the Townsend's Solitaires, the Red Crossbills, and the Robins. In today's post we see the Yellow-rumped Warblers (Setophaga coronata). Their activity that morning highlighted an unfortunate problem at the campground.

I can't find any clear record of whether they like to eat mistletoe berries, but the warblers I saw in the campground certainly seemed to be foraging in the mistletoe clinging to the Juniper trees in the campsite. The mistletoe was the problem.

A bunch of American Conservation Corps (or YCC, I can't remember) workers were planting trees in the campground. When I asked, they pointed out that mistletoe was killing off most of the Junipers that provided shade in the camp, and so they were planting native Ponderosa Pines that will someday replace the dead Junipers.

The mistletoe berries provide a nutritious food source for the birds, but the birds also spread the sticky seeds from tree to tree. I imagine that a balance is usually maintained, but during the drought, the trees may not be able to fight off the parasites. That's my speculation, anyway.  In the meantime, it was delightful following the brightly colored birds throughout the morning in the camp.