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Western Screech-Owl (Megascops kennicottii) photos by Larry Jordan It’s been an interesting winter in my neck of the woods. Birders in Northern California have been treated to rare sightings of several species, sending avid twitchers from all over the west in our direction. There is a Falcated Duck at Colusa National Wildlife Refuge, Mountain Plovers and Northern Waterthrush near Sutter [...]

Every autumn, tens of thousands of Snow Geese arrive in California’s Sacramento Valley following their long journey from the Canadian Arctic (click on photos for full sized images). Waterfowl numbers at the Sacramento National Wildlife Refuge Complex may exceed two million by December, after the wetland areas of the Klamath Basin and other areas to the north become frozen. Snow and [...]

Greater Yellowlegs (Tringa melanoleuca) photos by Larry Jordan Shorebirds. Why are they seemingly so difficult to identify? One obvious reason is that most have plumage variations between their breeding plumage and non-breeding plumage. Plus many sandpipers plumages are very similar. Take the Greater Yellowlegs (Tringa melanoleuca) for example (click on photos for full sized images). You would [...]

Snowy Egret (Egretta thula) photos by Larry Jordan (click for full sized images) While visiting Arcata Marsh a couple of weeks ago, I had the pleasure of watching a Snowy Egret (Egretta thula) as it skillfully caught several fish in an inlet or tidal channel of the marsh. I was truly amazed at the number [...]

I spent this past weekend at the coast, travelling to Arcata for a Northern California Audubon Council meeting hosted by the Redwood Region Audubon Society.  This area includes Arcata Marsh and Wildlife Sanctuary, part of Audubon’s Humboldt Bay Important Bird Area (IBA). The Arcata Marsh is an innovative wastewater treatment facility consisting of 307 acres of freshwater [...]

Lewis’s Woodpecker (Melanerpes lewis) In Flight, photos by Larry Jordan Driving home from work last week I finally saw my first Lewis’s Woodpecker (Melanerpes lewis) of the fall.  Lucky for me, these beautiful and unusual woodpeckers can be found nearly year round in the oak savannah along the road I travel daily.  I consider myself extremely blessed as [...]

Delicious autumn! My very soul is wedded to it, and if I were a bird I would fly about the earth seeking successive autumns. – George Eliot Indeed….very much so. I think most birders can understand this sentiment, whether you care for the weather or not. As birders know, weather, going back to school, football, [...]

The California Quail (Callipepla californica) is the California state bird, inhabiting scrub, broken chaparral and woodland edges primarily in California, Oregon, Washington and Baja California.  They are part of a family of New World Quail which includes Gambel’s, Mountain, Scaled and Montezuma Quail, as well as the Northern Bobwhite.  All New World Quail are highly gregarious, typically found [...]

According to Birds of North America Online, the Great-tailed Grackle’s (Quiscalus mexicanus) breeding range has been expanding northward for several years. I must say that I agree with their assessment because we have been seeing more of them in northern California every year. Some fellow Audubon members recently spotted several male and female Great-tailed Grackles [...]

The California Thrasher (Toxostoma redivivum) is endemic to coastal and foothill areas of California, extending into adjacent areas of northwest Baja California.  Yup, another California native and a sweet songster to boot!  You can hear one of their varied songs here (Courtesy of Xeno-canto, recorded by Steve Hampton, file XC70739). I found this beauty hiking a [...]

I was lucky enough to get off work early the other day and thought I would head out toward Battle Creek Wildlife Area and try to get some better photos of the Harlan’s Red-tailed Hawk I’ve seen on Dersch Road.  This area we call “Millville Plains” is mostly grassland and oak savannah  and is an [...]

Traveling back home from a California Burrowing Owl Consortium meeting last week, I stopped at the Colusa National Wildlife Refuge, which is part of the Sacramento National Wildlife Refuge Complex just north of Sacramento. I didn’t really have time to stop, but as I was passing by, I saw hundreds of American White Pelicans fly [...]

Birders who have seen California Condors in the wild in the last 20 years should know just how lucky they are. And the condors themselves should count themselves even luckier. But to label the massive conservation effort that saved the California Condor from certain extinction as “luck” would be a serious disservice to the individuals [...]

My visit to La Jolla at the very end of 2010 was not my first visit to the gorgeous seaside cliffs in southern California.  I’ve visited several times, and have even blogged about the experience previously.  Though there is not a huge variety of birds, especially in winter, the birds that are there are acclimated [...]

Other than sharing my encounter with an amazing Rock Wren I have failed to blog about my 28 December visit to Bolsa Chica Ecological Reserve at all.  As always, Bolsa Chica, a restored wetland complex in Huntington Beach, California, was amazing, both for the number and variety of birds, to say nothing of the number [...]

The Western Scrub-Jay (Aphelocoma california) is a non-migratory member of the Corvidae family found in scrub and dry woodlands of oaks and piñon pine from Washington to Baja California. They are omnivorous and opportunistic feeders, taking mostly arthropods and fruit in the spring and summer and nuts like acorn and pine in the fall and [...]

As I have already mentioned in my post about finding and identifying a California Gnatcatcher I spent quite a bit of time wandering what little open spaces are left in the small portion of Yorba Linda I could reach on foot from where we were staying over the holidays.  I did this both because I [...]

One great aspect of visiting southern California in winter is that birds are everywhere that there is even marginal habitat.  On my trip we stayed in Yorba Linda in northern Orange County, which, you will be unsurprised to learn, is pretty much the archetype of sprawl.*  Despite the developed nature of the landscape there were [...]

After the sheer joy of finding my own life Thayer’s Gull I made an attempt to visit the San Jacinto Wildlife Area, which is down a dirt road that, after all the rain, was more of an obstacle course than a road.  The borrowed truck I was driving, which proved itself capable of handling relatively [...]

After seeing my life Burrowing Owls in San Bernardino I still had until 5 PM when I was supposed to pick my brother-in-law up at work.  That meant that I had about six hours of birding time ahead of me and I was determined to make the most of it!  What better place than the [...]