Variety at Gray Lodge

We saw a variety of different birds at the Gray Lodge Wildlife Area!

Pied-billed Grebe

Black Phoebe

Great Egret with the best view in the house!

European Starling with something to say

Anybody home???

Let's go birding!

Birding in the Rain

These aren't the greatest photos I've ever taken at the Sacramento National Wildlife Refuge, but in my defense, we got caught in the rain and had to cut our visit short!

(You can view the video from our visit on my travel blog Vaughn the Road Again.)

When the sky is this beautiful, it doesn't matter that there wasn't enough light for my camera!

 This Swainson's Hawk was the star of the show on the auto tour...

We'll go on the wetlands walk next time!

Tomorrow's post will include the bird we saw at the refuge that we've also seen in our backyard birdbath!

Birding Variety Pack

In yesterday's post about our walk through the Discovery Marsh Trail at Lower Klamath NWR, I focused on the American Robins we saw. But there were a lot more birds than just Robins there!

We saw Song Sparrows, Golden-crowned Sparrows and European Starlings...

In fact, I was so distracted with getting pics of this cute little Junco that I almost didn't see the Flicker perched right next to him in the same tree!

This Red-winged Blackbird was so engrossed in his energetic song that he didn't even pay any attention to us at the observation blind...

And, according to my ID app, we also spotted our very first Say's Phoebe!

Too cute!

Tomorrow I'll be posting some birds of prey, posing in front of a magnificent backdrop...

Star of the Show

Today's photos come to you directly from my backyard. I love watching starlings bee-bop around in the grass, looking for grub, but they are soooo difficult to photograph when they're motoring along at full speed ahead! When I noticed that one had landed and was actually standing still, I quickly grabbed my camera and managed to get a few photos before he flew off again.

They're a cool looking bird and I love how their bills turn yellow in the summertime.

They're especially beautiful in the sunlight and I was ecstatic to get a little bit of that rainbow effect in this shot...

Lema Ranch

We finally made it back to Lema Ranch! When we went last summer, I knew it was a special place that I'd like to revisit in every season.

This time we saw dozens of bird and duck species! There were coots, ruddy ducks, ring-necked ducks, redheads, grebes, wigeons and mallards on the pond. And along the path we saw (and heard) starlings, robins, mourning doves, spotted towhees, and several different woodpeckers.

Here are some of the best pics of the day:

Our first Spotted Towhee EVER!

These Redheads were the reason for our visit!

I'd seen in a birding forum online that someone had spotted redheads on the pond

and I've never seen one.

One more species for our Big Year 2017!

Tomorrow, the Acorn Woodpeckers we saw are getting their very own post!