After work today I grabbed the kids and headed down to the Sacramento River for some hiking and critter watching. We had a blast with birds, butterflies and reptiles today. At the river we saw Red tailed Hawks, Vultures, Great Blue Heron, Great Egrets, Acorn and Nuttalls Woodpeckers, Lesser Goldfinches, Yellow Rumped Warblers, Spotted Towhees(great spotting by my son), Red Breasted Nuthatches, black Phoebes, White Crowned Sparrows, House Finches, and a new sightings and Northern Rough Winged Swallow. We also saw some cool Southern Alligator Lizards and Western Pond Turtles.
We then headed to Llano Seco to see the shorebirds and hawks. We saw Black Necked Stilts, Greater Yellow Legs, Killdeer, Dunlin, a couple hundred Greater White Fronted Geese, Mallards, Pintails and Shovelers, 100 + Red Winged Black birds, Brewers Black Birds, Brown Headed Cowbirds, a dozen Great blue Herons, a few Great Egrets, a dozen or so Red Tails, a few Northern Harriers, Tree Swallows, Violet Green Swallows, and a Swainson's Hawk (yeah!!!) The kids were stoked and as a bonus on the way back to Chico, we got a good look at a Barn Owl. What makes me happy is as it turns out a Barn Owl was 100 on Ebird. I have seen Barn Owls plenty of times but when I started birding and using Ebird I started from Jan 16. So no Pileated Woodpeckers, Golden Eagles, etc that I had previously seen. What a great day in the Golden State!!! I will post pictures later this week.
