Monday, March 31, 2014

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.



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