Month: April 2025

A Day in Bodega Bay: Birdwatching Despite Unpredictable Weather

Although the weather on our first day in Northern California, the day we visited the Sacramento and Colusa NWRs, was delightful, the rest of the week could best be described as unpredictable. It rained so hard during our first full day in Santa Rosa that water was pouring over the gutters. I didn’t mind that too much because it gave me time inside to sort the thousands of pictures we had taken at the Sacramento and Colusa NWR.

For a while, though, I was afraid the weather would keep us from going to Bodega Bay, another regular stop on our Santa Rosa visits. When the weather forecast finally predicted a sunny day, we quickly arranged our plans to go. It was a sunny day. Unfortunately, it was also a windy day.

High winds are usually not good for birding, as proved to be true on this visit. Nevertheless, I saw things I’ve never seen, like this huge flock of Godwits sheltering from the high winds. I’d never seen anything quite like this, so it took me a while to realize they were birds, much less Godwits.

It was only when I used my 800 mm lens that I realized these were birds, not foliage.

They certainly looked like the grassy knolls they were sheltering on.

We found a much smaller flock of Godwits, Willets, and smaller shorebirds on our beach walk. Unfortunately, the flock was disturbed by people, one annoying young man in particular, and flew back and forth, making it impossible to focus on a particular bird.

This photo, shot at a high shutter speed, was much clearer than what I actually saw, which was little more than a blur.

It was equally difficult to focus on a single bird on the ground because there were so many birds in the picture frame — and the sun wouldn’t cooperate.

It didn’t help that these little guys would skitter among the much larger Godwits and Willets. It did illustrate that flying in large flocks can not only provide camouflage but also make it difficult for predators to focus on a particular bird, improving its chances of making it to distant breeding grounds.

Though the birder in me was fascinated by seeing how well a large flock provided camouflage, the photographer in me was frustrated and wanted to get well-focused, bright shots of these beautiful birds. As it turned out, I had to wait until we were coming back from our walk to get a good shot of this Marbled Godwit

and this Willet.

Overall, the day was a little disappointing in that I didn’t see nearly as many birds as I usually do there this time of year, but it still seemed a lot better than sitting inside waiting for better weather.

Highlights of Birding at Colusa NWR

After we left the Sacramento NWR, we headed to the Colusa NWR, about 50 miles south. We were a little surprised when we were greeted by hundreds of Snow Geese even though we had seen less than fifty at the Sacramento NWR where we’ve often seen thousands before.

Another pleasant surprise was that on this auto tour I, not Leslie, got the best photographs of the Black-Necked Stilt.

In fact, I got two shots that I couldn’t resist posting.

Although we hadn’t see a single egret at the Sacrament NWR, we did see a large number of egrets at Colusa NWR, like this one.

I can’t ever remember ever seeing White Pelicans at the Sacramento NWR, but I have seen them at Colusa before. So, seeing this small flock wasn’t particularly surprising, but it was a nice sighting since we seldom see them at home.

We ended our day of birding by spotting a few Night Herons where they had a rookery a few years before but had abandoned it for several years.

There definitely wasn’t as my Night Herons as we’ve seen many times, but it was still a welcome site.

The Colusa NWR is usually something of an afterthought, and we go there looking for one or two different birds than we’ve seen at Sacramento, but on this trip it turned out to be the highlight of the day. Once again proving the birder’s motto, “Birds are where you find them.” It’s a great time of year to get out there and find some.

Chasing Birds and Salmon: A Nature Lover’s Journey

My earliest adventures in Nature were fishing, mainly salmon fishing. There were good days and there were bad days. When you’re four years old and you’ve gotten up in the middle of the night and sat still for four hours and still haven’t caught anything, it’s an extremely bad day. Luckily, dad had a solution for that; if we’d been skunked, we would go catch bottom fish. In those days, bottom fish were plentiful. So, even if we didn’t catch the salmon we’d gone out for, we went home happy. I might even have spent the rest of my life fishing if I hadn’t gotten seasick so often.

Luckily, I discovered birding after I retired and it is a lot like fishing, without the accompanying seasickness. There’s a lot of sitting and waiting in both sports. Unfortunately, if you choose the wrong time or the wrong time chooses you, you may not see the birds you had hoped to see and you’ll end up mainly seeing birds you could have seen 600 miles closer to home, like this male Northern Shoveler

this male Cinnamon Teal,

or, even, this Greater White-Fronted Goose.

Luckily, though, there are often moments like this where hundreds of Dowitchers decide to circle

and land right in front of you, almost as if you were simply just another part of Nature, not merely an intruder in their world.

Moments like this can easily make you forget that you drove 650 miles to get here and have been a little disappointed by what you’ve seen so far.

Love the One You’re With

Usually where you find Black-Necked Stilts and White-Faced Ibis you also find American Avocets. Usually. But not always. We were nearly half way through the Sacramento NWR before Leslie spotted the first — and only — Avocets of the day. I think she actually sighted them with her binoculars because they were a long ways away, but she did manage to get a shot of them with the camera she was using

and I managed to get a little better shot of the same birds because I was using the newer camera and lens,

but I never got a really good shot because they didn’t come closer even after fifteen or twenty minutes of waiting for them to do so.

The best part of looking for birds that aren’t there at the moment is that you see birds that you might have otherwise overlooked, like this Great Egret

or this Snowy Egret. The only two we saw at the refuge on this visit.

There weren’t any Eagles or Doves, but birding is one time you really should take Steven Stills’ advice: “If you can’t be with the one you love, … love the one you’re with.”