Pine Creek Unit of the Sacramento River National Wildlife Refuge 👣 Walking Trail

We enjoyed seeing the Osprey and their nest during our walk through the Pine Creek Unit of the Sacramento River National Wildlife Refuge. Plus, there were so many butterflies that our visit felt magical...

Follow my birding adventures!

 

The quintessential early bird

American Robin

Sacramento NWR

Let's go birding!

 

Cosumnes River Preserve ~ Birding in Sacramento County, California

While we were walking the beautiful trails at the Cosumnes River Preserve, it didn't feel like the birds were cooperating with wanting their picture taken.

But when I went through the photos later, I found that plenty had turned out and were definitely post-worthy!

Which is a good thing considering we took over 800 photos of the wonderful wildlife and scenery we saw during our walk!

There were also tons of wildflowers blooming and I'll be posting those pretty pics over at Wildflower Wednesday.

Here is the website for the Cosumnes River Preserve so that you can plan your visit when/if you're ever in the area.

Be sure to subscribe to my YouTube channel!



Let's go birding!

5 Birding Tips for Beginners

Birding can be as relaxing or as adventurous as you want it to be. Watching out the window from the comfort of your recliner at home, a leisurely stroll in the park, or a trip to your local wildlife refuge where you don't know what kind of birds you're going to spot. Every time we go out in search of birds, it's not only fun but an eye-opening learning experience. So, today I thought I'd share a few tips to help you get started in this wonderful, inexpensive, life-enriching hobby.

1. It's easy to get overwhelmed, but don't! Learning to identify the birds you see takes time and is completely worth it. You don't just jump into learning and mastering a new language in one day. Same thing with birding.

Like anything else, birding takes practice. At first, you might not know the difference between a finch and sparrow, but in good time you will. The more you see of different birds (and the same ones, too), you'll learn to identify their differences, no matter how subtle they might be. A little stripe here, a dash of coloring there just might be the difference between two different species.

American Kestrel

2. Be patient. Birds don't always like to cooperate with your eyes or your camera. Waterbirds and shorebirds are larger and easier to spot, but they will fly away if you get too close. Imagine how wonderful it must be to be able to spread your wings and fly away at the first sign of trouble! Ah well, that's another post for another day.

Littler birds are even more difficult to pin down. Take warblers, for instance. Yellow-rumped Warblers can be the most frustrating to get photos of (at least for me anyway.) And don't even get me started on Mountain Chickadees. I'm sure every birder has one that continues to elude their eager camera lens.Yellow-rumped Warblers are quite possibly one of the cutest little birds I've ever seen and yet I can't seem to get a decent photo of one to save my life. Maybe that's part of what makes them so special.

There's a lot of luck involved when birding, and more often than not we find ourselves in "right place at the right time" scenarios.

Dunlin

3. Go easy on yourself. I've misidentified birds before (and still do!), only to have someone point it out to me here on my blog or on social media. There's always going to be someone better or more experienced than you, but that's all apart of the learning process I mentioned earlier.

Birds' plumage can vary greatly between summer/winter, male/female, and young/adult. Some birds (like Red-tailed Hawks) can even stump experts because there are so many different forms and variations.

American Robin

4. Get ready for an adventure. Not only are you opening yourself up to new knowledge about the wildlife around you, you're giving yourself the opportunity to see and experience the extraordinary. Spotting a Vermilion Flycatcher in a cemetery in Northern California continues to be one of the greatest experiences of my life. (Read more about that particular birding adventure here). Birds can go way off course from their migratory route and end up giving you the thrill of a lifetime!

You truly never know what you're going to see each time you raise those binoculars up to your eyes. Isn't that the reason for watching birds in the first place? The possibility of spotting something rare? You betcha!

Red-tailed Hawk

5. Appreciate each sighting, no matter how common. No matter how many White-crowned Sparrows I encounter, I still love each and every one of them. I enjoy seeing them wherever I go--the mountains, the coast, and especially in my own backyard. They genuinely feel like friends, popping in to say hello, and I take pride in knowing that the ones with brown stripes on their heads instead of white are young juveniles.

Every bird is special and unique in its own way, and it's up to you to never take that fact for granted.

Yellow-billed Magpie

I hope you find these tips helpful for when you're just starting out on birding adventures of your own. May you see flocks that take your breath away and individual birds that remind you that there is indeed an abundant supply of beauty still left in the world.

Happy Birding!
Rachelle Vaughn

Let's go birding!

Happy, Happy Holidays!

Birding at Ridge Lakes

Our latest hiking adventure in Lassen Volcanic National Park was to Ridge Lakes! After an incredibly scenic sunrise hike, we sat by the lake, ate our lunch and spotted a Red-tailed Hawk a ways up the mountain...

 He soared over the ridge for a bit, looking for a lunch of his own...

The sound of Red-breasted Nuthatches echoes through the park, but they don't always cooperate when it comes to posting for photos. This American Robin, however, was kind enough to let me take his picture...

For photos of beautiful Ridge Lakes (and their mirror-like reflections) and the surrounding mountains, please visit my travel blog Vaughn the Road Again...

Early Birds

Boy, was it cold at the Lower Klamath NWR when we went last week!

Look at all that frost sparkling in the early sunlight...

Our walk around the Discovery Marsh Trail was totally worth it because, luckily, birds don't care much about the temperature when there's food to forage and mates to attract!

Lots of Robins were out and about...

Don't you just love it when a bird hams it up for the camera?!

Great profile, buddy!

Check back tomorrow for pics of the bird that I almost didn't see because I was so distracted by a Dark-eyed Junco!

Juanita Lake

Because the heavy fog at Lower Klamath and Tule Lake National Wildlife Refuges put a slight damper on our birding trip, we did some exploring around the area so that our three hour drive wasn't for nothing.

Luckily, Juanita Lake is only a few miles off the main road and, boy, is it a beautiful gem! There is a campground and a paved trail around the entire lake, too. The elevation there is high enough to where there wasn't even a whisper of fog.

There were even a few trees showing their fall colors around the lake...

We heard a few nuthatches doing their yank-yank call up in the pine trees and this robin was kind enough to pose for us...

Next time, when we have the entire day to explore, we'll take that walk around the lake!

Lassen Volcanic National Park - Part 1

Lots of water rushing by in Kings Creek...

Careful not to get swept away!

The early bird gets the worm at Lassen VNP!

In this case, an American Robin was fishing for grub at Manzanita Creek...

Birds aren't the only critters out and about at the park...

So cute!!!

Read Part 2 here.