More Birding on the Backroads

A few more birds we spotted while driving down a country backroad near the Sacramento National Wildlife Refuge...

Juvenile Great Blue Heron

Female Belted Kingfisher

Snowy Egret

Killdeer

Birding on the Backroads

Here are a few of the birds we spotted while driving down a country road near the Sacramento National Wildlife Refuge...

Canada Geese

Savannah Sparrow

Rainbow after the storm

Greater White-fronted Geese

The Fisher King

If you've been following my birding adventures, you know that we have some of the best luck finding birds on Road P, a country backroad near the Sacramento National Wildlife Refuge. (The Road P posts are archived here.)

After our latest visit to the refuge, we drove through and, sure enough, we spotted this male Belted Kingfisher on a telephone wire...

I just think he's one of the coolest birds!

Double Dose of Phoebe

I have to say, our backyard birdbath does really well ensuring that we have return visitors. The other day when I posted excitedly about the Say's Phoebe we received a visit from, I had no idea he would return the next couple of days in a row!

Although they're in the same family, the Black Phoebe is so much puffier than the Say's! I just love watching these cute little guys flying around catching bugs near the birdbath.

He's not a flycatcher, but here's a bonus Lincoln's Sparrow to complete today's post...

He obviously wasn't too happy about the latest heatwave, (hey, at least we provided him with some refreshing water!) but I 'm confident it's the last one of the season and that fall weather is finally on its way!

Say, is that a Phoebe at my birdbath?

We were thrilled to spot this cute Say's Phoebe at our birdbath!

We've only ever seen this type of Phoebe one other time on the Discovery Marsh Trail at Lower Klamath National Wildlife Refuge, so it was awesome spotting one in our own backyard!

Apparently, we live in its migration path and are happy to provide fresh water to this weary traveler!

Safe Travels!

#PhotographyFails

If you follow my travel blog Vaughn the Road Again, you know that we've been having a great time hiking our way through Lassen Volcanic National Park. Our latest hike to Boiling Springs Lake and Devil's Kitchen was supposed to be great for birding, according to the brochure anyway.

While we did see and hear a lot of birds along the trail, they WOULD NOT cooperate for the camera at all. In fact, I'd go as far to say that every yank-yank of the Red-breasted Nuthatch and every dee-dee-dee of the Mountain Chickadee was to mock us. I'd like to say that my photography has improved over the years, and that's bound to happen when you have a lot of practice at something, but these mountain birds have proved frustratingly elusive for my camera lens.

I had dozens of photos to post on VTRA from our hike and when I scrolled through to post the bird photos here, I came up with a big fat goose egg. We hiked over 7 miles that day through the forest and meadows and around a lake and I still couldn't find a decent photo to post for you.

Well, I take that back. There was one Cassin's Finch (or Purple Finch according to the app) who took mercy on me and turned toward the camera for a split second.

As for his fellow avian buddies, here they are in all their "no pictures please" glory...

Dark-eyed Junco "Oregon" Pink-sided

Mountain Chickadee in flight

Steller's Jay

Downy? Woodpecker

Normally, I only post my best photos here to showcase the beauty of birds out in the wild. But this time I just had to share my photography fails because there were so many of them, one right after the other. I think it's hilarious that the birds we encountered did everything they could to not appear on camera. Sometimes you just have one of those days, right?

Now I can appreciate how easy the wildlife refuges make it to photograph birds. Rarely have I ever had a Great Egret refuse to pose for the camera!

Today's birding lesson is: Even if you don't walk away with photographic proof, at least you still had a marvelous time out in nature.

Lassen Volcanic National Park Bird Sightings

These are the last of the photos from our hike to Terrace Lake and Shadow Lake in Lassen Volcanic National Park! We will definitely be walking this scenic trail again!

Terrace Lake

A little ways down the path is Shadow Lake, a completely different looking lake with its own stunning beauty.

There's this cute little path around part of the lake where we spotted our bird of the day...

A Red Crossbill! We didn't even know that's what kind of bird it was until later when we got home and went through our photos. (That seems to happen a lot!) The trees they landed in were waaay up there and it wasn't possible to identify them with the naked eye.

Here are a couple more Clark's Nutcrackers from the day...

The only downside to the forest is the trees are so tall that my camera can only zoom in so far! (Hey, Canon, how 'bout sending me one of those fancy shmancy cameras I see out in the field all the time!)

 Maybe this Nutcracker is a juvenile? It looks awfully fluffy to be an adult...