Month: October 2014

Tule Lake National Wildlife Refuge is a great place to see a wide variety of birds, particularly grebes. It’s hard to believe that less than five years ago I would have had no idea what a grebe was if someone had asked me if I had seen one. It was only last year that I learned the difference between these Western Grebes

and these Clark’s Grebes.

Before that I would have identified both species as Western Grebes and might well have misidentified them if I’d somehow gotten a shot of a Clark’s Grebe, though I find it relatively easy to tell the difference between them now.

I’ve also learned to recognize the distinctive Eared Grebe in the last two years.

And, of course, the first grebe I learned was the Pied Grebe

because it’s commonly found on local lakes. I’m also fond of photographing Horned Grebes, though I ‘ve never seen them at Tule.

This background made it relatively to recognize this as a Grebe of some kind,

but I really had no idea what kind it was when I first saw it. I just wanted to get a shot of it so I could identify it later. It seemed too large for a Pied Grebe, too small for a Western Grebe, but I didn’t recognize it as an Eared Grebe until I later noticed similar birds definitely swimming with Eared Grebes.

I’m far from an expert birder, but I’m amazed when I reflect on how much I’ve learned in the last five years and how many new places I’ve discovered while birding.

Wanting to see more birds on my vacation, but not wanting to go too far out of the way on our return trip, I decided to go to Tule Lake National Wildlife Refuge in Northern California, nearly on a straight line from Tahoe. Since I’d never been there this time of year, I wasn’t sure what to expect, but I knew we were in California when we were greeted by a Great Egret flyover.

Being California, we saw several on the refuge, both in the water and in recently harvest wheat fields, but my favorite shot of the day was of this one taking off from the wetlands.

I do occasionally see Great Egrets in Washington, but I really knew I was in California when I saw several Snowy Egrets standing on the dam, refusing to fly no matter how long I aimed my camera at it.

I am more used to seeing Brown Pelicans in California than White Pelicans, but this one was accommodating enough to drop in just as we were about to leave the refuge.

We were really â€?”just passing through” on our way to Crater Lake, but I definitely got my bird fix, one that would last until I got home and could get to the ocean to catch the last of the Fall Migration.

Bodie offers an interesting slice of history since it operated from 1859 to 1912 when it began to decline but wasn’t abandoned until the 40’s. It also suffered some disastrous fires, so what you see is an interesting mix. I would assume this mill, for instance, was much newer than most of the houses that are still preserved.

Of course, if we had taken the Mill tour I would have known that for sure.

Here’s a long shot of the â€?”main” road running through town taken from the place where I took the shot of the mill.

That road you see stretching into the distance is the road back to the main highway.

Our visit to Bodie was enhanced by the company of an East Indian physician who went to school in England and had moved around America until he ended up in Southern California. Surprisingly, he told us that seeing Bodie was a childhood dream, and he certainly seemed to know an awful lot about the history of Brodie, much more than we knew.

We spent the next three hours with him exploring Brodie.

It was delightful seeing American history through the eyes of a recent immigrant to our country and listening to him talk about the importance of his own family’s history.

I enjoyed seeing the changes that took place in the relatively few years Bodie was in existence. Both of these â€?”fire engines” were in the town’s firehouse.

The biggest contrast, though, was between this beautifully restored truck surrounded by some of the original buildings.

As I said in the original posting, it was a pleasant surprise. In fact, this trip made me question again if it wasn’t better not to have â€?”expectations,” to just experience life as it happens and not building expectations by planning so much ahead of time.

Anyway, it would be hard to drive by again without stopping in and spending more time exploring the buildings we didn’t have time to explore in the three or four hours we spent there.