Brief western sojourn, Oct. 8-11, 2010

There's been a brief hiatus in posting to this blog because I made a quick trip to northern California over the weekend to attend my son's wedding. There was not much opportunity for avian observation, but I did note a few species. I lived in California throughout much of the 1970s, though was not a very active birder at the time. So, while this trip wasn't a matter of going into entirely new territory, it was still a treat to venture outside my normal sphere.

I flew into Sacramento on Friday, the 8th, and drove down I-5 to Stockton late in the afternoon. The Interstate here goes through largely open country, much of which is farmland, but there are also a number of rivers in the area. I saw quite a few water birds of some sort in the air, but was not able to identify them. Roughly the size of small ducks, but clearly some sort of wading birds. Not herons. Buff-colored, and often flying in small flocks. I really can't make even a good guess about what they were; accurate identification will have to wait until my next trip!

However, I also saw a few Sandhill Cranes. Seeing the migrating cranes at the Hiwassee Refuge in Tennessee was always one of the highlights of my birding year, and I will greatly miss the chance to see--and hear--them this winter.

The wedding was at Lake Tahoe, a very different environment from that of the northern Central Valley! For starters there's a huge difference in elevation. The Sacramento airport is at about 25 feet above sea level, whereas Tahoe is about 6,200 feet, high in the Sierras. The mountain forests must offer great opportunities for birdwatching, and I hope to go back sometime to do just that!

Steller's and Western Scrub Jays were numerous, the former moreso than the latter. I was able to note a couple of Nuthatches of some sort, but can make no more specific determination than that. There were also numerous Chickadees flitting around in the trees, and I'm reasonably sure that at least some were Mountain Chickadees, which are a new species for me.

There were several large hawks flying over fields along Route 99 as we drove from Stockton to Tahoe on Saturday. Unlike here in the east one cannot automatically assume that a buteo of a particular size is a Red-tailed Hawk, though these may well have been one of the dark morphs of Red-tails. On the drive back over Donner Pass from Tahoe to Sacramento, a very large raptor flew over the highway--a young Bald Eagle, I'm fairly sure. 

I look forward to future return visits to the Golden State, and the chance to expand my birding horizons.