Month: October 2025

Just One Good Bird

When I started birding many, many years ago with Ruth, after a day seeing too few birds, she would say, “All we need is one good bird.”

Of course, it was just a positive way of saying it sucks to be skunked, but, as a photographer, there is some truth to the statement. When you’ve been taking bird photos as long as I have, I rarely capture even a single picture that I end up keeping because I already have better pictures.

Birding at Lake Ralphine/Spring Lake was slow during our recent visit. I didn’t see hardly any of the birds that I usually see there — no Mergansers, no Night Herons, no Acorn Woodpeckers, etc. By the time we arrived at Spring Lake and saw a few more birds, my camera battery had run out of power, and the backup I had picked up on the way out the door turned out to be empty as well.

Needless to say, though I enjoyed the walk after driving all day the previous two days, I was disappointed by the lack of photos.

It was only when I downloaded the photos that I found a shot that I really liked:

A snowy white egret perched on a wooden post, displaying its elegant plumage against a dark background.

Here’s What Loren Saw at Colusa

One of the appeals of birding is that you never really know what you are going to see, and that’s particularly true in places that you only occasionally visit, like Colusa NWR.

We went expecting to see hundreds of Snow Geese, and, when I first looked, I thought all those white birds beyond the Great Egret were Snow Geese.

A great egret standing in a wetland surrounded by tall grasses and other birds in the background.

A closer look, though, showed they definitely weren’t Snow Geese. Before taking a closer look on a monitor, I assumed that the smaller ones were Snowy Egrets because the two are commonly seen together. A closer look at the bills made it clear that they weren’t Snowy Egrets, and were, in fact, immature Great Egrets, a bird I’ve never seen before.

A variety of waterfowl including white egrets and brown ducks are seen among green grasses and water in a natural wetland habitat.

If I’d realized that they were juvenile Great Egrets, I might have spent more time studying their behavior, but I quickly shifted my attention to this Snowy Egret and the White-faced Ibis surrounding it.

A white bird, possibly an egret, standing among several dark birds in green grass near water.

And because this was the closest I got to White-faced Ibis on this trip, I shifted my focus to trying to get the best shot of them I could get.

A glossy ibis standing in shallow water surrounded by dry vegetation.

Unfortunately, I had to choose between a clear shot of its elegant beak

A colorful bird with iridescent plumage searching for food in a wetland area with dry grasses and a blue water background.

or the beautiful plumage.

Back at home, looking at the shots Leslie and I took, I wondered for a moment if we had taken them in the same place. It was clear that we had very different experiences there.

Why Colusa NWR Outshines Sacramento on Our Visit

Most of the time, the Colusa NWR isn’t quite as impressive as the larger Sacramento NWR, but it proved to be just the opposite on our recent visit. There may have been larger numbers of birds at the Sacramento NWR, but the birds were much closer at Colusa because there was more water near the auto route.

Leslie managed to get some great shots of Black-Necked Stilts; this shot took up the full frame and wasn’t cropped at all:

A black and white bird standing in a shallow body of water, with a long beak and pink legs, against a blurred background.

Leslie seemed to see very different birds than I did from the driver’s seat. For instance, I didn’t see a single Long-billed Dowitcher,

Two birds standing near the water's edge on a log, with one bird prominently displayed in the foreground.

and, as usual, I couldn’t even see the Night Heron Rookery from my side of the car, though it’s questionable if it is still a rookery because Leslie could only spot a single juvenile Night Heron.

A close-up of a juvenile Black-Crowned Night Heron perched among green foliage, showcasing its distinctive striped feathers and attentive expression.

We both saw a lot of Yellowlegs, but most of them were quite far away. This might be considered underexposed, but it’s my favorite shot of the day.

A solitary bird wading in dark water, with its reflection visible on the surface.

Timing is All in Birding

I was hoping that birding in Northern California would be better than it was here at home. It wasn’t. I think we saw fewer birds at the Sacramento NWR than we ever have, even though there were large numbers of birds in the distance. The main problem was that they hadn’t flooded the fields closest to the auto tour and wouldn’t be doing that for a few more weeks.

That said, we still enjoyed seeing birds we haven’t seen for a while and got a few shots that we liked, like this one of a flock of Whimbrels.

A flock of Whimbrels standing in shallow water, reflecting in the water's surface.

On this visit, the Greater White-fronted Geese were definitely the dominant species,

A flock of geese standing in shallow water, with reflections visible on the surface, surrounded by a grassy landscape.

though we could see smaller flocks of Snow Geese just beyond the White-Fronted Geese.

A flock of Greater White-Fronted Geese and other birds gathered near a water source in Northern California, showcasing a blend of dark and light plumage against a brown and green background.

Somehow, it seemed strangely appropriate that the best shot of the morning was this shot of a Vulture.

A close-up of a Turkey Vulture perched on straw-like ground, showcasing its distinctive red head and dark plumage.

We were a little disappointed on this visit, but only because we’ve been so amazed on previous visits.