First sighting and pictures I’ve gotten of trumpeter swans. Thought they were pelicans from a distance.
There is a very large colony of breeding Franklin’s gulls. I’m not seeing as many blackbirds as I have been. Wonder if the gulls are taking over spots that would otherwise have had blackbirds.
Western tanager. First one I’ve sighted and gotten pictures of.
Common snipe. First one I’ve seen and gotten pictures of.
American kestral. Have seen quite a few, but they are quick to fly off when you approach.
Tree swallow. There are bird houses for them on a lot of fence posts.
Think this is a Swainson’s hawk. There are lots of red-tailed and Swainson’s hawks here. Hard to tell them apart.
Came upon some horses walking down the middle of the refuge road. A rancher in a pickup soon drove past me, turned the horses around, and herded them back by me into a corral. There were only 4 horses in his pasture the next day. The others were probably sold.
The day after the horse event, further down the road, I slowly passed a few cows in the road. In looking in my rearview mirror, saw lots of cows joining the few that had been in the road and they were following me! I had to speed up to get them to stop.
Talk about butting heads! These two were affectionately pushing against east other to see who was the strongest.
Red, yellow, and blue wildflowers in foreground. The beige near the top are bulrushes in Grays Lake marsh. This was the one and only cloudless sky I had (for part of the day).