Stormy Weather

North Yuba River - 11/24/18

It started raining on Wednesday afternoon this week and it POURED for 1.5 days straight! According to the statistics at https://www.cnrfc.noaa.gov/ we received 3.43" of rain during this storm! More rain is forecasted for this coming week, with snow possible next Saturday! The "water year" just began on October 1, 2018, and will end on September 30, 2019. I really hope this water year is a wet one! 

The rain has gotten rid of all the local smoke and has hopefully put out the "Camp" fire in Butte County. What a miracle it is to get this desperately needed rain! We are SO grateful! The river has risen and is murky brown in color. The flow rate has gone up from the extremely slow 130 cubic feet per second (cfs) to slightly better at 358 cfs. In comparison, the river flow last April was over 10,000 cfs!!! You can check the daily flow records (past and present) of the North Yuba River at https://waterdata.usgs.gov/ca/nwis/uv?site_no=11413000.  I'll keep you posted on future North Yuba River flow rates.  Hopefully, the cubic-feet-per-second numbers will continue to rise!

I wandered for hours in my neighborhood photographing the rain-filled beauty!  I skirted lots of puddles, watched thousands of ripples form, saw rivulets running in previously dry creek beds, and got drenched!  It was fabulous!  I also looked up-close at hanging water drops.  The liquid drops act as miniature spherical lenses, and show an inverted image of the background!  How beautiful!

Lingering fall leaves were saturated by the rain and luminous in color!  Although the locusts and alders have shed most of their leaves, the willows, cherries, walnuts and California Black Oaks still have quite a few!   

North Yuba River - 11/23/18

The rain and mist made the fall colors in the river canyon glow!  

The wet seed pods of the Black Locusts were a lovely, deep-orange hue!

Northern Flicker - Common Raven

Colaptes auratus - Corvus corax

On Saturday morning the rain abated and the sun came out for a while.  I happened to see these two birds in the same tree that morning!  The Flicker was just resting, but the Raven was fluffing out its feathers to dry in the sun!  Such beauty! 

Anna's Hummingbird (male) - Calypte anna

Project FeederWatch Update

I watched this little hummer several days in a row down by our bird feeders.  The pouring rain didn't seem to bother him at all!  He sat out in the open while it poured!  Every once in a while he would shake himself off.  Apparently birds do okay in the rain.  Their feathers are good at shedding water.  If it's not too cold, they can keep themselves warm by puffing up their feathers with pockets of air.  They are, after all, the original makers of down coats!  Problems arise if temperatures are near freezing and heavy rain is falling.  Then if a bird gets too damp while foraging for food, it may have difficulty staying warm.  To avoid heat loss, most birds will perch motionless in protected areas during stormy weather.  Luckily our temperatures were a bit higher this week, and we didn't have any frosts.  

Spotted Towhee - Fox Sparrow
Pipilo maculatus - Passerella iliaca

A new addition to our bird feeding area is a birdbath!  It's taken a while for the birds to use it, but in the last two weeks I've seen several birds drinking from it!  In fact, just yesterday I watched a Fox Sparrow bathe in it!  Wow!  Birds love to drink from moving water, so I also bought a little solar powered water fountain (inset above)!  It's about the size of a small plate and is so fun to watch!  I wrapped wire around the center piece and anchored it to the sides of the birdbath.  This keeps it from wandering to the edge of the birdbath and spraying water out of the basin. Surprisingly this water fountain tolerated the water surface freezing last week!  

Columbian Black-tailed Deer - Mule Deer 

Odocoileus hemionus columbianus - Odocoileus hemionus californicus

Mammal Update!

Just before the rains started I spotted these deer up near the cemetery!  There were two bucks and two does!  Only one of the bucks had a big set of antlers.  Their camouflage wasn't apparent when they were in the dry grasses, but they were really hard to see against the shrubs that bordered the area.  I haven't seen any deer in a while, so I watched these four for quite some time.  The males and females didn't mingle, although this is breeding time.  All of them were busily eating grass and constantly checking for intruders. I've been back every day since, but haven't seen them again!

  

Chickaree/Douglas Squirrel - Western Gray Squirrel

Tamiasciurus douglasii - Sciurus griseus

These two furry guys are eating a bunch of the bird seed I put out for the birds!  I've only seen one gray squirrel, but I think there are two Chickarees living in our wood pile.  The birds don't seem to mind them at all!  At night we've seen skunks and foxes eating the bird seed as well!  

Yellow-billed Magpie - Pica nutalli

Magpie Update!

Our neighborhood magpie is gone!  I haven't seen it for 3 weeks or more!  It left when the temperatures got down to the 40's and 30's.  I hope it flew down to find more of its kind in the Central Valley.  Maybe it will come back next Spring!  Wouldn't that be wonderful?!!

Why are there so many Common Ravens in this one spot?

What kind of bird is this?

Where are those Foxes?

Did the Lakes Basin get any snow?

Check back next week for the answers to these questions and more!

If suddenly you stop getting my blog in your email, you need to sign up again.  This is a glitch with blogspot.com, and I can't figure out how to fix it.  Thanks!

Your questions and comments are greatly appreciated!  

Please email me at northyubanaturalist@gmail.com

Bare Branches

Bullock's Oriole Nest

It's been windy off and on this week, and most of the leaves have been blown off the trees.  To my delight, the lack of leaves has exposed many empty bird nests!  Bullock's Orioles love to nest in our neighborhood.  Usually only the females will build the nests, but males have been known to assist.  They weave pouch-like, hanging nests out of grasses, string, twine, horse hair, fishing line, shreds of leaves, strips of bark, plastic tarp strips, carpet wool, and basically whatever is available.  They line the inside of the nest with cottonwood or willow cotton and feathers!  They will not re-occupy an old nest, but will re-use the old materials to build a new one.  It can take up to 15 days for the nest to be completed!  So far I've seen 9 of their nests in my neighborhood!  

Bullock's Oriole and Brewer's Blackbird Nests

The tree on the left has 3 Bullock's Oriole nests!  The bottom one was made and occupied two springs ago.  The middle one was made and abandoned this spring, probably because the fishing line was brittle and broke off.  The top one was made and occupied this past spring.  I'm almost positive that the same female Bullock's Oriole built all these nests, because they are in the same tree!  To me it is absolutely amazing that a bird can fly approximately 3,000+ miles from Costa Rica, to nest in the exact same spot in our neighborhood, 2 years in a row. WOW!!!

I've also seen 3 Brewer's Blackbird nests in the bare lilac bushes down by our garden.  The nests are made by the females with no help from the males.  The outer cup is a bulky structure of twigs and weed stems.  The inner cup material is usually rootlets and grass cemented by mud. The cup is then lined with grasses and sometimes feathers and horse hair! 

Oriole nests sometimes hang around for years!  I'm not sure if the Blackbird nests will last through the winter.  I'll just have to wait and see! 

Red-breasted Nuthatch - Ruby-crowned Kinglet

Sitta canadensis - Regulus calendula

In the leafless branches of the bushes I've been seeing lots of little birds!  Most of them have been Ruby-crowned Kinglets (above right).  These tiny birds (4.25" long) breed and nest up to 9,000' in elevation!  They come down to our neighborhood during the colder months and forage for tiny insects.  Being so small they can glean insects from the tips of branches.  They have a fluffy thick plumage that keeps them warm, but they will migrate down to the foothills for the winter. 

Not as commonly seen, but frequently heard are the tiny (4.25" long) Red-breasted Nuthatches.  They spend most of their life in the higher elevations, but can be found at almost any elevation after the breeding season.  I've seen them foraging for insects and seeds, face-first down the trunks of conifers, as well as on the ground.  They will also cache seeds and insects for the cold winter months!  I love their nasal, beeping calls!

Persimmon - Cedar Waxwing - Orchard Apples

Bombycilla cedrorum

Fruit Eaters!

There have been LOTS of American Robins in our neighborhood lately.  They have been busily eating the dried-up blackberries. During the fall and winter Robins mainly eat fruit, as most invertebrates are scarce!  They might stay here year-round if they can find enough to eat, but will probably migrate down to lower elevations for the winter.  While I was watching the Robins eat the blackberries one late afternoon, a small flock of Cedar Waxwings landed in a nearby Black Locust tree!  I was so surprised to see them again!  They too are fruit eaters!  I have since found two possible Cedar Waxwing feeding sites.  A persimmon tree and an apple tree up by the cemetery have definite signs of being eaten by birds!  I went back several times this week to see if any birds were feeding on the fruits.  I didn't have any luck, but I'll keep looking!

American Robin on Blackberry vines - Turdus migratorius

Sugar Maple and Grizzly Peak

The Nature of Leaves

Here is one of my favorite quotes about trees and leaves, 
organisms that we often take for granted!

“Concerning trees and leaves... there's a real power here. It is amazing that trees can turn gravel and bitter salts into these soft-lipped lobes, as if I were to bite down on a granite slab and start to swell, bud and flower. Every year a given tree creates absolutely from scratch ninety-nine percent of its living parts. Water lifting up tree trunks can climb one hundred and fifty feet an hour; in full summer a tree can, and does, heave a ton of water every day. A big elm in a single season might make as many as six million leaves, wholly intricate, without budging an inch; I couldn't make one."
                                                       from Pilgrim at Tinker Creek by Annie Dillard

Leaves are amazing!  They are the food factories of plants!  During the process of photosynthesis light is absorbed by the chlorophyll pigments and carbon dioxide is absorbed through the stomatal pores. This sunlight, plus carbon dioxide, plus water, combine to form carbohydrates/food for the tree.  In most leaves, the top surface is where photosynthesis occurs, and the underside is where transpiration occurs.  Quaking Aspens, however, can photosynthesize on both sides of their leaves!  In order to absorb the most amount of sunlight for photosynthesis some leaves, and even entire plants, change their orientation to the sun during the course of a day!  This process is called phototropism.  What actually happens is that the plant cells furthest from the sun elongate.  This causes the plant to "curve" or move towards the sun! 
Green plants are the only living organisms on the planet that can manufacture their own food! 

A by-product of photosynthesis is oxygen, which is released into the environment. Through photosynthesis, green plants contribute to the oxygen we breathe. 70% of the oxygen on the earth is produced by phytoplankton (microscopic plants) in the ocean, 28% is produced by rain forest plants, and 2% by other trees. The maintaining of healthy oceans and forests is critical for our survival.  If you can, support organizations that actively campaign for the preservation of our wild places!  It's critical!

As the hours of daylight decrease and temperatures drop, the chlorophyll in leaves breaks down, photosynthesis stops, and the anthocyanins and carotenoids that have been masked by the chlorophylls become visible.  This is what causes the beautiful fall colors in our trees!  These seasonal changes also cause the leaves to eventually fall off the trees.  If the leaves of our local deciduous trees stayed on through the winter, the water in their cells would freeze and destroy the plant tissues.  Evergreen trees, like conifers and live oaks, can keep their leaves during winter because they concentrate chemicals in their cell fluids that work like anti-freeze! 

Five-finger Fern - Mountain Dogwood

Adiantum aleuticum - Cornus nuttalli

 North Yuba River - 11/11/18 and 11/15/18

Smoky and Cold!

The smoke from the tragic "Camp" Fire reached us this week.  A few days were REALLY smoky.  I am just so relieved that we don't have any fires in our area.  It has also been really cold, 30's at night 60's during the day.  However, as of this morning the weather watchers are forecasting rain on this coming Wed.-Thurs.-Fri.-Sat!!!!  Yahoo!!!  I'm keeping my fingers crossed!  Hopefully it will put the "Camp" fire out, and drench our forest!  Wouldn't that be fabulous?!!!

Is that Magpie still hanging around?

Where are the foxes and deer?

Will it rain a lot?  Is it going to snow?

  If all of a sudden you stop getting my blog in your email, you need to sign up for it again.  This is a recurring problem with blogspot.com and I can't seem to fix it.  I apologize for this technical glitch!

Your questions and comments are greatly appreciated!  

Please email me at northyubanaturalist@gmail.com.  Thanks!

The River!

North Yuba River - 11/04/18

Due to the lack of rain, the North Yuba River is really low right now. Many places in the river channel that would normally be underwater are now exposed. The Ospreys have left, along with the Spotted Sandpipers and most of the waterfowl. The temperatures have dropped, insects have diminished in number, and the aquatic snakes and frogs have left the river. What is more visible now are our year-round residents. Although they are not as numerous as our seasonal residents, they are easily seen if you take the time!

Coastal Rainbow Trout - Oncorhynchus mykiss irideus

I have been looking and looking for trout in the river, but have only seen a few.  This particular trout (above) has been hanging around in the same area of the river for weeks now!  It is large, about 16" in length!  Because it is so camouflaged, I usually see its shadow on the rocks before I see the actual fish.  It is in a deep, fairly swift, part of the river.  I am always surprised to see it every time I look for it!

Right now the river is a chilly 42 degrees!  Being coldblooded, trout become less active when the the water temperature drops below 40 degrees.  Their metabolism and respiratory rates slow down.  Adult trout usually stay in deep pools during fall and winter.  To keep from being eaten, young trout stay away from adult trout!  They tend to spend the winter in shallower pools near the shore, where overhanging branches provide cover. 

Belted Kingfisher (female) - Megaceryle alcyon

One of the main predators of young trout are Belted Kingfishers.  They live on rivers, creeks, lakes, and estuaries where the water is clear enough to detect prey.  They dive into shallow waters to catch small fish, crayfish, tadpoles, and frogs.  They dive with their eyes closed, and grab prey with their bill!  WOW!!!  They rarely submerge.  After the prey is caught, it is carried to a perch and pounded against it.  This stuns the prey, which allows the kingfisher to turn it and swallow it head first!  You can figure out what a kingfisher has been eating, if you examine one of their regurgitated pellets.  I have never found any of their pellets, but apparently they usually contain undigested fish bones and scales.

I've seen the above kingfisher in our neighborhood, many times this year.  My neighbor has seen it perching above her pond.  I have also heard it flying up and down our creek!  This one is a female.  Females have a rusty-red band across their chest, and males don't.  We are excited to have a kingfisher in our neighborhood again!  It has been a few years since one has lived here!  We hope she stays!

Great Blue Heron - Ardea herodias

There are two Great Blue Herons living on the river in our neighborhood.  Most of the time I only see one of them.  Herons are usually solitary, except during breeding season.  Their main food is fish.  They will also eat frogs, newts, aquatic insects, and crayfish.  Sometimes in winter they will hunt small mammals on dry land.  They cast pellets, like kingfishers, but they only contain mammal hair.  Apparently they can digest fish bones and scales!  Lately, in the morning, I've been seeing them perched in trees instead of in the river.

Cold air tends to sink to the lowest areas overnight.  In our neighborhood, the lowest area is the river corridor.  We had several hard frosts this week, with the lowest temperature being 27°!  Staying warm might be tough if you're a tall bird standing still in the cold river, with an air temperature below freezing!  Perhaps that's why the herons have been perching rather than wading in the morning!  

  

Common Merganser - American Dipper

Mergus merganser - Cinclus mexicanus

I haven't seen any Common Mergansers on the river since the beginning of October.  To my surprise, two of them came back this week!  If fish are available in winter they will stay year-round.  If fish aren't plentiful they will migrate down to clear-water rivers, lakes, or reservoirs at lower elevations.   Mergansers will also eat aquatic insects, molluscs, crustaceans, worms, frogs, small mammals, and plants.

American Dippers live here year-round.  They hunt for aquatic insects and their larvae, small fish, and snails, in fast moving rivers and streams.  A dense layer of downy feathers keeps them warm in the cold water.  They also waterproof their outer feathers with oil.  Using their tails as rudders, they swim with their wings!  They do not have webbed feet, but have long, sharp toes for gripping slippery rocks!  At night Dippers sleep in trees with dense foliage, with their bills tucked under their wings.

Western Gray Squirrel eating Indian Rhubarb
 Sciurus griseus - Darmera peltalta

I've been watching for River Otters in the river but I haven't seen any for weeks.  Instead, I watched this Western Gray Squirrel scurry along the edge of the river, grab a leaf off an Indian Rhubarb plant, and start to eat it! Wow! I've never seen that before! My neighbor said she had heard that the plants were poisonous, but they're not. According to Wildflowers of Nevada and Placer Counties, "Native Americans ate the young shoots raw. The fleshy leaf stalks were also peeled and eaten raw, the flavor being similar to celery. Pulverized roots were mixed with acorn meal to whiten the meal."  This plant can be found all along the North Yuba River corridor. I've never eaten any of it, but I will next Spring!

Steller's Jays - Cyanocitta stelleri

Project FeederWatch!

This will be the second year that I have participated in Project FeederWatch.  It began yesterday, Saturday, November 10, and is sponsored by the Cornell Lab of Ornithology.  By recording the type and number of the birds that come to our feeders, I will help with the study of bird populations in winter, across North America.   I'll be a Citizen Scientist!  New this year, we have 3 hummingbird feeders and a birdbath!  It will be fun to see who uses them!   We have the feeders down by the garden, away from any windows.  The garden will also provide food for birds, and will be included in my bird counts.  I really enjoyed participating in Project FeederWatch last year.  I saw lots more birds than ever before and learned a lot!   If you are interested in joining this project, check it out at their website: feederwatch.org.  Below are photos of the birds I saw on my first day of observation!

Lesser Goldfinch (male - left, female - right)  -  Carduelis psaltria

Anna's Hummingbirds - Calypte anna

Fox Sparrow - Dark-eyed Sparrows (Oregon subspecies) - Spotted Towhee (male) 

 Passerella iliaca - Junco hyemalis - Pipilo maculatus

 American Robin - Golden-crowned Sparrow 

Turdus migratorius - Zonotrichia atricapilla

  Skippers sp.  (Skippers are difficult to identify!)

Skippers are in the same scientific order as butterflies and moths, Lepidoptera, but they have their own family, Hesperiidae.  The main obvious difference is their hooked antennae.  They feed on nectar, and have a life cycle just like moths and butterflies. This week my garden got frozen and almost all of the flowers have been damaged.  There's not much nectar available anymore.  I hope these adult Skippers have already laid eggs that will overwinter. 

What's happening with the deer?

Where are those lovely foxes?

How long will the Fall colors last?

Check back next week for the answers to these questions and more!

If all of a sudden you haven't been getting email notices of my blog being published, just sign up again on my blog. I don't know why you got "unsubscribed". It's some kind of problem with Blogspot.com and/or FeedBurner.com. I apologize for this glitch!

Your questions and comments are greatly appreciated!

Please email me at northyubanaturalist@gmail.com

Black Oaks

California Black Oaks - Quercus kellogii

California Black Oaks are one of the many native, deciduous trees in our forests. Even though it has been an extremely dry year, the local oaks still changed color this Fall. Right now they are incredibly beautiful in their golden-yellow autumn foliage!   

Acorn crops vary greatly from year to year.  This year there is a bumper crop of acorns.  There are 1,000's of them on the ground!  Some scientists have actually estimated that in a high yield year, there can be as many as 250,000 acorns per acre!!!!  Bumper crops apparently occur, on average, 2 out of every 10 years.  Since so many critters eat acorns, scientist think that oaks may vary their acorn production levels to control critter populations.  If they had bumper crops of acorns every year the critters that eat them would also increase in population.  This population increase could potentially decrease the amount of new trees sprouting from uneaten acorns.

California Black Oak acorns - Quercus kellogii

When I cracked some acorns open, I was surprised to find that the shell was leathery and pliable, not dry and brittle!  The size of the nutmeat inside was impressive!  About a third of the acorns I opened were damaged.  It turns out that a variety of insects eat and live in acorns!  

While an acorn is still attached to a tree branch, an Acorn Weevil will drill a hole into it (center photo, below) and then lay an egg!  In about 2 weeks, the larva hatches from the egg and feasts on the nutmeat, until the acorn falls from the tree. Once the acorn lands on the forest floor, the larva emerges from the acorn and digs down about 12" into the ground.  The larva then lives underground for up to 5 years, before it pupates and emerges as an adult!

An Acorn Moth lays an egg near the hole an Acorn Weevil has made, but only after the weevil larva has left.  In a few days the Acorn Moth larva hatches and crawls into the acorn, via the hole the Acorn Weevil made!  The larva then builds a web across the hole to keep others out!  It remains in the acorn, eating the nutmeat, until the following spring when it pupates and emerges as an adult.

Lots of insects will live in emptied acorn shells, including ants, snails, wasp larva, and slugs.  These in turn can be eaten by predators, such a centipedes!  WOW!  What a complex little ecosystem an acorn can be!  

   

Canyon Live Oak acorns (uncut - left, cut open - right) - Quercus chrysolepsis

Center photos:

 acorn with weevil hole - interior filled with frass & partially eaten nutmeat

Band-tailed Pigeons - Mule Deer 
Columba fasciata - Odocoileus hemionus

Acorns are also eaten by a variety of birds and mammals. Mammals grind them up with their teeth, but birds use their gizzards! A gizzard is a muscular organ found in the lower stomach of many birds and reptiles, that grinds food, usually with the aid of ingested gravel or grit.  Mountain Quail, Steller's Jays, Band-tailed Pigeons, and some woodpeckers eat acorns.  Raccoons, Flying Squirrels, Black Bears, Deer, Gray Squirrels, and rodents also consume acorns.  Oak trees also provide housing and a place to forage for many more species. 

To quote Wikipedia:  "The California black oak is a critical species for wildlife. Oaks may be the single most important genus used by wildlife for food and cover in California forests.  Cavities in the trees provide den or nest sites for owls, various woodpeckers, tree squirrels, and American black bears.  It is a preferred foraging substrate for many birds.  The parasitic plant which commonly grows on this oak, Pacific mistletoe, produces berries which attract birds as well."  

 Mountain Quail - Western Gray Squirrel 

Oreortyx pictus - Sciurus griseus

Bedrock Mortars - Halls Ranch Trailhead - Tahoe NF

Acorns are also an important part of the past and present-day life of the Nisenan, the local Native Americans.  The Nisenan lived in this area for thousands of years. They hunted, fished, and gathered many plants and seeds.  Acorns were one of their main winter staples, which they pounded into flour using pestles and bedrock mortars.  The resulting acorn flour was made into cakes, breads, soups, and mush.  A typical Nisenan family would gather 500+ lbs of acorns, to get them through a winter!  You can see some of their mortar holes (photo above) at the Halls Ranch Trailhead on Hwy. 49.  The oak trees were also used for construction materials, dyes, and medicines.

 It is estimated that in the past the Nisenan tribe had a population of approximately 7,000 individuals.  In the 1800's, the settlers and government of California decimated this Native American population through rampant genocide and disease.  Today there are only 147 Nisenan in existance, but they have been actively bringing their culture back to life.  An excellent article on their past and recent history, accompanied with beautiful photographs, can be found at https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/vbyxnx/the-california-tribe-the-government-tried-to-erase-in-the-60s-456.

Northern Flicker (male - left, female - right) - Colaptes auratus  
Inset: possible hybrid

Woodpeckers!

Two weeks ago, I posted photos of two unidentified woodpeckers. I also posted the photos on inaturalist.org, hoping that someone would identify them. So far inaturalist.org commentors have identified the genera they are in, but not the species. 

The bird in the insert above is a type of Northern Flicker. The odd thing about it is that it has a red band on the back of its head, and red malars (facial stripes). Usually only the Yellow-shafted subspecies has a red band on the back of their head, but they have black malars. The Red-shafted subspecies, which is commonly seen in my neighborhood, has red malars but no red stripe on the back of their head. Although these two subspecies have been known to interbreed, one commentor on inaturalist.org thought that my neighborhood is too far south for Yellow-shafted Flickers! So it's still a mystery bird, but I'll keep you posted on further developments!

  Red-breasted Sapsucker - unknown Sapsucker

Syraphicus ruber - Syraphicus sp.(?)

The Red-breasted Sapsucker (above left) is the most common Sapsucker in my neighborhood.  The other Sapsucker on the right is harder to identify, because I wasn't able to get a full view of its head.  The initial obvious difference between them, is the lack of red on the head of the unknown species.  There are 4 possible Sapsuckers it could be, but two of them are extremely rare in my area.  Commentors on inaturalist.org have only identified it as in the Sapsucker genus, but not the species.  Hopefully, I'll see it again soon, and get a better photo. 

Black-necked Stilt - Northern Pintail - Greater White-fronted Geese  
Himantopus mexicanus - Anas acuta - Anser albifrons

California Wetlands!

I stopped by the Colusa NWR in my travels last week. I had never visited one of these refuges this early in the season, and was thrilled to see thousands of birds in the wetlands all squawking at once! White-fronted Geese were the dominant species. These geese migrate down to California's wetlands, from their arctic breeding-grounds, to spend the winter! These refuges are great places to see all kinds of migratory birds in winter. If you haven't visited one, I highly recommend that you do! Check out their website at https://www.fws.gov/refuge/Sacramento/. 

Here's some information from the Colusa NWR website: "Colusa NWR is just one of the 5 National Wildlife Refuges/3 Wildlife Management Areas that make up the Sacramento National Wildlife Refuge Complex. Colusa NWR was established in 1945 as a refuge and breeding ground for migratory birds and other wildlife and to reduce damage of agricultural crops caused by waterfowl. 

Flocks of shorebirds begin arriving in August and September as the water begins to flow back into the wetlands. Northern Pintails are the first ducks to arrive and signal the beginning of fall migration. White-fronted geese will follow. White geese begin to appear in October. Colusa NWR typically supports wintering populations of more than 200,000 ducks and over 75,000 geese. Many birds including nesting wood ducks and mammals can be seen year-round."

 White-faced Ibis - Plegadis chihi

 Shorebirds & Waterfowl - Colusa National Wildlife Refuge

  Cattle Egret - Great Egret

  Bubulcus ibis - Ardea alba

 What kind of "skipper" is this?

What kind of fungi is this?

Where are those lovely foxes?

Next week I'll talk about where the trout go when the river gets low and cold.

Check back next week for the answers to these questions and more!

If all of a sudden you haven't been getting email notices of my blog being published, just sign up again on my blog. I don't know why you got "unsubscribed". It's some kind of problem with Blogspot.com and/or FeedBurner.com. I apologize for this glitch!

Your questions and comments are greatly appreciated!

Please email me at northyubanaturalist@gmail.com