Sacramento National Wildlife Refuge 12-23-2010

If you're like me, and you probably are, you've never heard of the Sacramento National Wildlife Refuge. You may in fact have been thinking when you came across the title of this edition of the Green Family Happenings blog, "Sacramento National Wildlife Refuge? I wonder what that's all about." Well, sit back and relax, because when we're done, you'll have a pretty good idea what the Sacramento NWR (all the people in the know, like me--and soon, you--abbreviate it) is all about.


But first, an introduction: I first came to find out about the Sacramento NWR, henceforth to be referred to as the NWR (although there are multiple NWRs around), when I was doing some research on the Pacific Flyway while I was preparing some activities for my Webelos to do to earn their Naturalist activity pin. The Pacific Flyway is one of 5 migration routes that migratory birds use (in the United States) to travel between the Arctic and the Equator (not all go that far). I learned that one of the major stopping points for these migratory birds is the NWR, and December through February is supposed to be the best time of year for wildlife viewing. I was starting to get excited. Then I learned that the NWR does a geocaching scavenger hunt, and I was sold. I called up the Queen of the GeoCache, my mom, checked our schedules, and planned a Green family happening.


The first thing we learned was that there is no logical explanation for calling this place the Sacramento NWR. It is not really in Sacramento; it is near Willows, which is about 60 miles (or so) north of  Sacramento. But it turned out to be awesome. There is a cool visitors center, a walking tour (which is where the geocaching scavenger hunt took place), and an auto tour. We started with the walking tour which was cool, but I have no documentation of it because we did not bring the camera. we kind of just started out without really planning or preparing. A few of highlights were seeing about 8 turkey vultures roosting in a couple of trees, an owl, a number of other birds, a large pile of scat (or possibly cough pellets) with crawdad parts, a heron, and some fur from an unlucky animal, later identified by a ranger as a rabbit. 

Then we returned to the visitors center to sign the logbook after completing the geocache scavenger hunt. While there, we heard that an eagle had been spotted by a number of people the previous week, but that no one had seen it in the last couple of days. Acting on faith (or something like that), we bought the NWR magnet with the picture of the eagle on it, crossed our fingers, and headed for the auto tour. Here's what we saw:

Read the words in the picture and you'll get it.

Our first wildlife sighting

We thought this big guy was dead at first, but we saw it move.

These are called American Coot (or plural Coots?)

Oh yeah, one other item of note: Our camera batteries were dead, so we were relying on my mom's sweet Canon. Since I had the front seat, and our sliding doors don't have windows that roll down, I was in charge of taking pictures and let me just say that it was awesome! I felt like I was on assignment for National Geographic. OK, I pretended I was on assignment for National Geographic. I thought (in my humble and untrained opinion,) that a lot of these pictures turned out pretty well.

One last note before I let you get back to what you're really interested in (although I thank you if you are still reading--I like to think that what I have to say is important . . . or interesting . . . or at least mildly interesting): Don't put complete faith in my attempt to identify bird species. I'm very much an amateur. In fact, if you can identify any of these species or recognize any misidentifications, please let me know.

One example of just how many birds there were gathered together

I took like 10 shots of these 2 ducks trying to get them both sticking their heads underwater at the same time. Then when I looked at the picture, I saw the other three on the left. I'm telling you, National Geographic.

It might look like just plain sky, but this is a picture of the Pacific Flyway and some of its traffic.

You're supposed to stay inside your vehicle during the auto tour except here at this viewing platform.

There's Nana. Note the binoculars, another awesome contribution Nana made to our trip. I've never really been interested in birds before, but using the binoculars and especially the camera made it pretty dang exciting.

Rachel and (pre Sly Park) Lennon observing wildlife and Meghan pouting. Note Abby's absence. She was being a dare devil and climbing on the outside of the viewing platform and was banished to the car. Safety first!

(Snowy?) Egret

This is a great horned owl that wouldn't let us get a very good picture of it. If you look at the full size picture though, you can see its right eye very clearly. (I'll take what I can get)

some kind of hawk?

This was some dead bird remains hanging on a branch on the left of the hawk in the last picture. If you look closely on the left, I think that's a head and an eye ball. Maybe not.

Another hawk or falcon

Then we saw a few cars gathered together up ahead and knew that something cool was over there. As we got closer, we recognized it:

The Bald Eagle. Oh yeah, baby!

As the other cars ahead of us moved forward, we were able to get closer

And closer

Until we were pretty much right under it. I was having so much fun photographing this baby. I think we have about 40 pictures of it.

Then he got tired of all the attention and majestically flew off. It took me about 5 shots before I found the eagle, so I missed out on some sweet close up flying shots. Dog gone it.

This seemed like a different kind of hawk than the ones in the other shots, but I don't know.

a lone Mallard

Snow geese in the center. Notice all the birds both on the water and in the air in the distance.

Closer view of the snow geese (and maybe some other type of goose as well)

I thought this picture of the hawk? in flight was pretty cool

And this one of it coming in to land

and at rest

Turkey vulture and something else (Stealth bomber in the distance maybe)

3 turkey vultures

American Coot. I'd been trying to get a closer shot of one of these the whole trip.

My pseudo artistic series of some cool looking plant

Here's a hint of what I was going for in this picture: "tuppence a bag"

my special bird lady

This turned out to be a really awesome trip. I highly recommend it. It's too bad that my Webelos had already earned their Naturalist pin. This would have been the perfect place to take them. (Although it was kind of a long drive).

Note: I originally put these pictures in extra large size, and they looked awesome, but they got cut off. I would exhort you that when you see these pictures, that you would click on them and see them full size. (Especially the last one, that's some good looking wildlife!)