January 31, 2005
County clean-up
Today Roger Adamson, Joan Humphrey and I decided to go and take care of some of the more challenging county year birds. We returned to pay our respects to the third county record of Red-necked Grebe, year-ticking White Pelican in the process and finding a smart adult Western and a first-winter Glaucous-winged Gull amongst the flock.
The Red-winged Blackbirds had decided Spring was in the air, and were noisily displaying from the surrounding ditches.
We had a good experience with raptors on Road 96, including this dark-morph Red-tailed Hawk...
... and this wonderful Prairie Falcon.
Don't think I've ever got three raptor species in the same shot before!
A quick dart over to the Port of Sacramento provided a single Western Grebe, plus surprising high counts of 46 Common Mergansers and at least 20 Forster's Terns. Nearby, two Mew Gulls were in their usual spot along the Sacramento River. After an unproductive lull in bird activity mid-afternoon, Roger struck gold by spotting a Mountain Plover in a bare field at the intersection of roads 102 and 17. Soon another head popped up from a furrow, then another, and before you know it 41 of them appeared from nowhere!
It was a treat to watch these hard-to-find birds - we even heard them call as they flew around (having been spooked by a Northern Harrier). Roger and I finished the day in north Davis, watching two of the three Merlins that are wintering in town. This bird has a pale grey mantle and looks very different from the individual I photographed last year.
