San Luis National Wildlife Refuge

September 18, 2016

I'm back.  I've been having some computer trouble over the last couple of months and have been a bit lazy about clearing it up.  It's all good, now.  Hopefully I can catch up with my blogger friends and get back into a groove.

Sandhill Crane -- San Luis National Wildlife Refuge, CA

Pongo

Actually, I'm only back briefly.  I'll be hitting the road with my pal Pongo for a couple of weeks.  He loves road trips.  He's been all over the West.  Yosemite.  Big Sur.  The Grand Canyon.  Sequoia National Park.  Crater Lake.  Lava Beds.  Pinnacles.  I think his favorite spots are the wildlife refuges we visit in California's Central Valley.  He likes to hang out the window and watch the animals.  I like travelling with him.

Sandhill Crane -- San Luis National Wildlife Refuge, CA

The first of the winter birds have arrived at the refuge.  When I say the first, I'm talking about probably the first sole flying flock of birds of the year at San Luis.  We saw a solitary group of roughly twenty sandhill cranes on the auto tour.  Some of the ponds have started to fill in, but it will probably be a couple of months before the refuge takes its winter form.

Sandhill Crane -- San Luis National Wildlife Refuge, CA

My main goal was to get some shots of the tule elk.  It was too hot on Sunday, though.  Most of the herd was either lying low in the grass or under the trees in the middle of elk compound.  I saw one group a few hundred yards from the fence.  They were too far away for good photos, unfortunately.  We saw a few rabbits, which is what Pongo really likes to see.  We saw a lot more rabbits on our last trip to San Luis.  There were traps out along the auto route, so I guess the refuge folks have been working on reducing their numbers.  That seems to have had an impact on the number of raptors at the refuge.  I saw only a handful of hawks and harriers.  This is generally a great place to see raptors even during these quiet months of summer and early fall.

Sandhill Crane -- San Luis National Wildlife Refuge, CA

I'm backed up on posts.  I'll try to get one or two more out before hitting the road.

Sandhill Crane -- San Luis National Wildlife Refuge, CA

Soundtrack:

• case/lang/viers -- case/lang/viers
• Ian McCulloch -- Candleland

Merced National Wildlife Refuge

October 30, 2015

After my last post about San Luis Wildlife Refuge, Garry Hayes (Geotripper) tipped me off to to the fact that a few thousand sandhill cranes have already taken up residence at the Merced refuge about ten miles from the San Luis unit.  I decided to take a drive to see the cranes on Friday.

Sandhill Crane -- Merced National Wildlife Refuge, CA

The cranes were spread out all over the refuge.  This is not what I'm normally used to.  My experience has been that the cranes are packed tightly together in a couple of locations.  I suspect this has something to do with the fact that most of the geese and ducks have yet to arrive.  They've had the refuge mostly to themselves for the last few weeks.  That is soon going to change.

Great Horned Owl -- Merced National Wildlife Refuge, CA

I almost always spot a great horned owl or two at the Merced refuge.  I saw four on my best owl day ever there.  Yesterday I found one deep in a group of trees.  This photo does little more than confirm I actually saw an owl.  Any day I see an owl is a good day, so I'll take it.

Sandhill Crane -- Merced National Wildlife Refuge, CA

Sandhill Crane -- Merced National Wildlife Refuge, CA

Red-tailed Hawk -- Merced National Wildlife Refuge, CA

Black-necked Stilt

As I was taking pictures I passed up a number of opportunities to shoot smaller birds.  That got me thinking about my interests and whether or not I consider myself to be a birder.  The answer is obvious to me, and it's no.  I certainly do a lot of things a birder would do.  I track my sightings on eBird (some of them, anyway).  I own a copy of The Sibley Guide to Birds.  I take a lot of pictures of birds.  That's the thing, though, it's all about the photos for me.  I passed up on photos of a northern shrike and tri-colored blackbirds because I wasn't interested in them.  Granted, the photos would have been tough to pull off but I had similar situations with the owl and the red-tailed hawk and I went after those.  Even more telling, I'd have dropped everything if an opportunity to shoot an otter or even a raccoon had come along.  I like ducks and geese and birds of prey and big birds like the sandhill cranes.  I think a birder would have been more excited about the shrike.

White-faced Ibis -- Merced National Wildlife Refuge, CA

Sandhill Crane -- Merced National Wildlife Refuge, CA

Sandhill Crane -- Merced National Wildlife Refuge, CA

Sandhill Crane -- Merced National Wildlife Refuge, CA

All in all, it was a nice little afternoon trip.  Thanks for the tip, Garry!

Merced National Wildlife Refuge, CA

San Luis National Wildlife Refuge

October 18, 2015

I took Pongo to San Luis National Wildlife Refuge yesterday.  It's been a while since I've taken him on an adventure.  We were in for a few surprises.

Northern Shoveler -- San Luis National Wildlife Refuge, CA

We always start with the drive around the avian sanctuary.  It's already been flooded.  The early arrivals are already there.  Northern shovelers mostly, with a few coots and mallards thrown into the mix.  I was expecting dry fields, so that was a nice surprise.

Sandhill Crane -- San Luis National Wildlife Refuge, CA

I wasn't too surprised to see shovelers.  They're generally the first to arrive.  I wasn't expecting sandhill cranes.  Maybe they're early arrivers too, I'm not as familiar with them.  I was happy to see 'em, though.

Sandhill Crane -- San Luis National Wildlife Refuge, CA

White Pelican -- San Luis National Wildlife Refuge, CA

If you can't tell from the pictures, the light as pretty bad.  It was dark, the sun was stuck all afternoon behind a group of dark clouds.

Tule Elk -- San Luis National Wildlife Refuge, CA

The bachelors were hanging out together in the elk refuge.  Poor guys.  Better luck next year.

Tule Elk -- San Luis National Wildlife Refuge, CA

Tule Elk -- San Luis National Wildlife Refuge, CA

San Luis National Wildlife Refuge, CA

San Luis & Merced National Wildlife Refuges

Like a Coyote

February 16, 2015

Pongo and I hit two wildlife reserves on Presidents' Day.  It was nice to have enough time to hit both the San Luis and Merced refuges, and a bit lucky too because after getting basically skunked on Saturday at Big Basin it would have been an extra disappointment given the low bird populations at San Luis.

San Luis National Wildlife Refuge, CA

It looks like most of the ducks are already gone at San Luis.  It's been a very mild winter and I think many have already headed North.  I could be wrong, It's possible they were all off looking for food or whatever.  I did see more ring-necked ducks and cinnamon teals than usual, but I suspect they were just easier to spot with the pintails and mallard populations as small as they were.

San Luis National Wildlife Refuge, CA

These birds weren't too interested in being photographed, either.  I only have a 250mm lens, so I need a little help from the birds to get nice close-ups.  No of these little guys were very interested in cooperating.  I don't mind too much at San Luis because I like the way the tule reeds and winter trees look in the photos, so I find the long distance shots to be appealing.

Jersey Cow -- Gustine, CA

We stopped at a ranch near Gustine on our way to the Merced complex.  They have the cutest cows at this ranch.  Pongo played shy with them on Monday.  I'm not quite sure if it's part of his act or he was actually being shy or a little scared.  I suspect it was a bit of all three.

Merced National Wildlife Refuge, CA

There were a lot more birds at Merced National Wildlife Refuge, which is maybe twenty miles away from the San Luis complex as the crow flies. No swans, though.  San Luis had swans.  Merced was rich with geese and sandhill cranes, both of which were almost non-existent at San Luis.

Snowy Egret -- Merced National Wildlife Refuge, CA

Cinnamon Teal -- Merced National Wildlife Refuge, CA

White-faced Ibis -- Merced National Wildlife Refuge, CA

As you can see, I had a lot better luck with the close-ups at the Merced refuge.  More birds means a bit more patience with cars and cameras, I guess.

Ross' Geese -- Merced National Wildlife Refuge, CA

So, now, for one of my pet peeves: birders and photographers that think they own the place.

I don't go to extremely remote places.  I spend my weekends at parks and reserves where I'm rarely more than a couple of miles from a main road.  I'm not talking about people who have hiked into the wilderness to earn some kind of amazing shot that they worked for.  I'm talking now about people who have pulled off to the side of the road to take pictures of birds (it's ALWAYS birds).

Merced National Wildlife Refuge, CA

When we got to the field where the sandhill cranes hang out there was already a woman out of her car taking photos.  I pulled over and Pongo and I got out of the car on the opposite side of the birds.  "mumble mumble mumble," said the bird lady.

"I'm sorry, what?"

"mumble your dog is going to scare the cranes mumble mumble like a coyote mumble."

Sandhill Crane -- Merced National Wildlife Refuge, CA

Look, I totally understand that we all want to get those killer shots.  I get it.  Sorry, though, I don't really care.  For the record, I'm careful with how I handle Pongo in nature and he's got a lot of experience.  He knows when to lay low and when he can get a little nutso,  We follow all of the guidelines and rules.  Yes, he was on a leash and  we were far enough away that the cranes weren't going to be concerned with my presence or Pongo's presence, let alone the presence of the woman standing on the road.  If a person is going to be annoyed by people cars or dogs, they should find some place more secluded than the auto tour road of a wildlife refuge.

Sandhill Crane -- Merced National Wildlife Refuge, CA

For the record, I didn't respond to the lady.  Pongo explored as far as his leash would allow and I took more pictures than I had originally intended and no cranes were bothered by either me or my dog.  Sorry for all the passive-aggressive drama.  Well, I'm not really sorry.  I wanted to vent.

Great Horned Owl -- Merced National Wildlife Refuge, CA

Our final bird of the day was a great horned owl in her nest.  What a great way to end a nice three day weekend.

Merced National Wildlife Refuge

January 31, 2015

Soundtrack:

• Steve Martin & Edie Brickell -- Love Has Come for You
• White Stripes -- Get Behind Me Satan

While I wouldn't say Pongo and I got skunked last weekend at San Luis, it was not one of our more interesting visits to a wildlife refuge.  We didn't sit around and lick our wounds, though, we jumped right back in on Saturday with a trip to Merced National Wildlife Refuge, which is just a few miles away from San Luis and is part of the San Luis National Wildlife Refuge Complex.  We had a lot better luck on Saturday.

Merced National Wildlife Refuge, CA

Snow Goose

You'll notice in these first couple of pictures that the sky is gray.  That's smog.  It was actually a bright, sunny day.  From what I understand, that smog doesn't all come from the residents of the Central Valley.  A lot of that is Bay Area smog that gets blown inland.  Smog isn't a problem where I live and this is why, our strong coastal winds haul it all off to Modesto and Merced.  Sorry, Central Valley folks.  It's so not cool.

Merced National Wildlife Refuge, CA

Great Horned Owl

The best part of the day came about half way through the auto tour.  There's a little trail that loops through what I imagine is marsh in non-drought years.  In the middle of that marsh is a small group of trees, and sitting in one of those trees were two great horned owls.  Holy cow.  The sun was behind the birds, but luckily the trail took us right by the tree so I was able to get a lot of photos with the sun at my back.

Great Horned Owl -- Merced National Wildlife Refuge, CA

Great Horned Owl

Even with the sun in the right spot it was tough to get good photos.  The branches had no leaves but they were still quite dense.  I don't think I got even one clear shot of either of the owls, but I still got plenty I was happy with.  I also had to deal with the fact that auto focus is broken on my 250mm lens.  Actually, that probably didn't hinder me too much since the camera would have struggled with all the different branches and things to draw its attention.  If I'd had my tripod I could have used the touch screen to choose the focus point, but I left it in the car.  I simply wasn't expecting anything this exciting.

Can you blame me for humming the Totoro song all the way back to the car?  If these guys had fur instead of feathers and a nose instead of a beak I'd have had my eyes peeled for a catbus.  Well, except Totoro is nice, and these just looked like they were sizing me and Pongo up for a potential meal.

Great Horned Owl -- Merced National Wildlife Refuge, CA

It wasn't just the owl sighting that made the trip a success, though.  This refuge has more snow geese and sandhill cranes than I've ever seen in any one place.  The Sacramento refuge has a lot of geese, but not like this.

Merced National Wildlife Refuge, CA

Merced National Wildlife Refuge, CA

Merced National Wildlife Refuge, CA

I found a nice place to stop the car for a while to watch the geese and cranes.  Unfortunately, the cranes were too far away for my cameras, so you'll have to take my word for it that they were entertaining to watch.  I have a few pictures of the show the geese put on, though.  At one point thousands of them took to the air and flew around in circles like you'd expect from a flock of starlings.  It's cool when starlings do it, but because of their size and propensity to honk in flight it's a whole other thing when the geese do it.  Pongo enjoyed this part, although he lost interest in the birds when a rabbit hopped up to a spot about ten feet from the corner.  He didn't lose focus on that rabbit until we pulled out to finish the tour.

Merced National Wildlife Refuge, CA

We saw one more owl on our way out of the refuge.  The bird was too far away to get a decent photo with my 250mm lens, so I switched to the SX50.  I loaned my old SX40 to my mom and she lost it so she bought me this camera as a replacement even though I told her not to.  Parents, they never listen, do they?  It's been gathering dust in my garage since Thanksgiving, but it has about four times the reach of my  250mm lens so I thought I'd see how it works as a supplemental camera.  The photo quality isn't nearly as good, but I was able to get a few shots I'd have had to just pass on without it, so I'll probably start bringing it along on a regular basis.

Great Horned Owl -- Merced National Wildlife Refuge, CA

Finally, on the way home we stopped on the side of the highway to see some cows.  Pongo loves cows.  He gets nervous when we get close to them, though.  These cows seemed as interested in Pongo as he was in them.  Every time he'd get too nervous and look away one of the cows would moo and draw him back to the window.  So silly.