- Date: 10/23/2010
- Time: 07:15:00 AM
Sacramento National Wildlife Area
Field Trip
Join the Yolo Audubon Society to experience one of the great concentrations of wildlife in North America. The marshes will be full of waterfowl (geese, swans, ducks, grebes) and shorebirds. First thing in the morning, we will walk the marsh trail and then head out on the auto tour loop to the viewing platform for lunch. This is a good trip for birding beginners as well as veterans.
Meet in the parking lot near the Big 5 store at The Marketplace Shopping Center at Covell and Sycamore at 7:15 AM. Bring binoculars, spotting scope if you have one, a sack lunch and beverages. Dress in layers. Even if clear in Davis, the refuge can be cold and damp. Questions? Call Betty Berteaux, (530) 756-1686 or Sami LaRocca, (530) 908-0288.
TRIP HIGHLIGHTS
On a chilly, drizzly morning, the 6 of us visited the Sacramento Wildlife Refuge. The rain let up enough for us to walk the nature trail. As we walked along both a Barn Owl and a Great horn Owls were flushed from their day roost and flew so we could get great looks at them. Then we went on the car loop, here we had expected to see thousands of Snow Geese; we saw none. However, the White-fronted Geese were there in reasonable numbers and there were lots of lovely ducks and shorebirds to scope.
The highlights of the trip were: a Bald Eagle hunting and then landing on a bare snag with its prey for lunch; 3 Peregrine Falcons, one juvenile with an ridiculously full crop and another with a full crop making it too lazy to fly even though we stopped nearly under the branch were it was sitting; and a Cinnamon Teal displaying both the green and blue on its wing. We saw 66 species totally.
A trip to this refuge is never wasted; we were glad that we had gone in spite of the drizzle.
