Anacapa Island - 4 August 2014

We had a morning boat ride from Channel Islands Harbor in Oxnard out to Anacapa. It's about a 1 hour trip. I was expecting to see a lot of birds and we did but not many different species. Anacapa is the largest breeding ground for Western Gulls and they kind of dominate everything on the island.

Species today were:

Western Gull - thousands of them
Brown Pelican - a few were breeding on the island.
Brandt's Cormorant - because the Naturalist said so.
Black Vented Shearwaters - on the boat ride out at sea.

Big Sur Coast - 26 - 27 March 2014

On the way down Highway 1, we stopped at Lime Kilns State Park just south of Big Sur.

Not a lot of bird life but we did see several Dark Eyed Junco (Oregon variant).

Next morning on the beach at Cambria, a couple of new species - a Whimbrel on the beach and several Bufflehead Ducks in the lagoon behind the beach. 

Yolo Bypass Wildlife Area - 23 March 2014

Another trip to the Yolo Bypass area and what a difference a week can make.  Last week there was a lot of water around, but this week, the rice fields were drained (presumably by the farmers) and there was only a few areas of water.   This produced quite a different array of birds.   There were no Ibises this week, nor did I see any Ruddy Ducks or Stilts or Avocets and there seemed to be a significant greater number of Northern Shovelers.

New birds this week were:

Green Winged Teal
Cinnamon Teal
Northern Pintail
Yellow-headed Blackbird

Yolo Bypass Wildlife Area - 16 March 2014

The first post in a new blog to record our bird watching trips.   It beats ticking them off in a book.

On Sunday 16 March we paid a quick trip to the Yolo Bypass Wildlife area, just across the river to the West of Sacramento.  Something you pass by on Interstate 80 as you travel to the Bay Area, a wetlands area that is a safety overflow area of the Sacramento River when there are flood conditions.  While it has been an extremely dry winter, a couple of recent rainstorms have provided a little bit of moisture and I think the farmers have been flooding the area in preparation for rice planting.

Sightings today (he ones that I could name) were:

• Coot
• Great Egret
• Cattle Egret
• Great Blue Heron
• Glossy Ibis
• Black Necked Stilt
• American Avocet
• Northern Shoveler (the most abundant after the coots)
• Ruddy Duck
• Mallard (they are always around)
• Killdeer
• Red Winged Blackbird

We also saw at two different times, a hawk (not sure which one) clamped onto the back of a coot. The coot was either not too tasty or the hawk wasn't that hungry, because after a while the hawk took off and the coot popped up and struggled to safety.  I am not sure the second one survived - it was in bad shape.

Of course there were lots of other little brown things that I couldn't identify and likely a bunch of ducks that escaped me.