What a great weekend for birding! I didn’t get enough of it — of course — but still, it was so great. We were camped at a reservoir in the foothills of the Sierra Nevada mountains. The river was dammed and has backed up to fill many, many valleys and canyons with water. We were camped on the top of a hill that juts out into the water. It is oak tree country and grassy. Utterly beautiful. I took as many pictures as I could but the light was not great and my skills are not great and so many did not turn out. Mostly, they were just so that when I washed them out and zoomed in, I could see enough detail to ID the bird. I did get a bunch of life birds but I haven’t entered them into eBird yet to see how many I got.
This California Towhee posed beautifully for me in this bramble at Columbia, California — an historic Gold Country town that has become a State Historic Park while still being a real town. Very cool. And, we bought great homemade chocolate there so . . . it’s well worth a stop!
Here’s a brief bird list:
California Towhee
Spotted Towhee
Oak Titmouse
Acorn Woodpecker
Hairy/Downy Woodpecker
Dark-eyed Junco
Western Bluebird *
Northern Flicker *
Ruby-crowned Kinglet
Phainopepla *
Mockingbird
Canada Geese
Turkey Vulture
White-breasted Nuthatch
Wild Turkey
Hawks of many varieties
Immature Bald Eagle
Here are a few of the photos I got that I was pleased with . . .
So, while I could have wished for better light all weekend, I can’t complain about the birds I saw. Greg heard an owl in the middle of the night but it stopped hooting as he rolled over to wake me up.
Oh, and other wildlife . . . I saw three Mule Deer (Odocoileus hemionus) and a Black-tailed Jackrabbit (Lepus californicus) and we all saw a Bobcat (Lynx rufus)!
mother. wife. friend. teacher. writer. reader. photographer. birder. quilter. blogger.
Liza Lee Miller 