I’m here in Tulelake, California, with hunters and coyotes, at the Tule Lake Wildlife Refuge, where migrating birds are arriving.
Seeing a few sandhill cranes.
An eared grebe with a small fish.
Northern shoveler
Canvasback
Next to the refuge, there is a ranch house with a fenced garden with pumpkins and other squash. Don’t know if the owners wanted the mule deer inside their garden!
A parent western grebe giving its’ young one a small fish. The young one swallows it whole.
The owl was there again. Because it’s small and on the ground to the side of a road, bet most people do not see it.
The coyotes at the wildlife refuges look way to healthy.
American Kestrel
A vermilion flycatcher. The picture was taken near the RV park I have stayed at for the past week.
Burrowing owl that nests and roosts in underground burrows.
Cattle egrets and yellow-headed blackbirds on farm near refuge.
This looks like a shrike, which is listed as uncommon and declining in my bird book.
I am in the vacation mecca of Blythe, California to check out Cibola National Wildlife Refuge.
It is amazing how many white trucks similar to mine are both in the park I’m staying at and in Blythe itself. Seems like 95% of the trucks are white. I got a white truck because I was in a hurry to get a tow vehicle and just got a truck that was on display at the dealers.
Sticker shock with diesel gas prices in California. One mile across the river in Arizona at Flying J the price was $3.27; here in Blythe it was $3.79. There was a traffic jam at the Flying J station. Reminded me of gas rationing in the ’70s.
More sandhill cranes! Cibola is doing a lot of the same things Bosque del Apache Wildlife Refuge is doing…planting crops for the birds and flooding fields. There is also an auto tour route at Cibola.
Another prairie falcon (or American kestral).
Stayed several days at Elephant Butte State Park in New Mexico. I’m guessing that the rock a little left of center is where the name came from. Boating, fishing, and cycling are the main activities. Also, walking of course. It is right next to the town of Truth or Consequences (T or C), which is a nice town, supposed to be a good town to retire to.
I moved 20 miles south, to Percha Dam State Park. Caballo Lake State Park is right next to it. I chose Percha Dam because it is supposed to be a good birding site, but, so far, I have not had much luck. The water level at the dam is low, just as it was at Elephant Butte, basically just a creek.
Thousands of sandhill cranes have been passing overhead, heading NORTH, towards Bosque del Apache Wildlife Refuge (around 60 miles from here).
Did get a picture of this guy on a telephone pole next to a farm field. Think it is a prairie falcon.
With the increasing price of gasoline, I really need to slow down on my traveling. Which is really a good thing. I went down the coast of Washington and Oregon in four days, which is ridiculous. Had to back track up the coast to see more of it. Probably living in Southern California for 30 years has something to do with it, a freeway state of mind.
I have moved on to Elephant Butte State Park. Miss the volume of birds and the sound of sandhill cranes in the distance at Bosque del Apache Wildlife Refuge. The movies are from the refuge. The first one is just of some cranes coming in for the night. The second one shows a family of American grebes. You can tell the “baby” by the way it paddles its’ feet above the water at times, looking like it’s wagging a tail.
YouTube has some great grebe movies. On one you can see underwater when they dive. They are really strong swimmers
Moved a little south, to Bosque del Apache National Wildlife Refuge.
Cormorants and turtle.
Black birds swarming, probably to get some type of grain on the ground.
Mule deer.
Just got the tail end of this wet coyote. It looks a lot healthier than the coyotes I used to see in Southern California.
I am in Socorro County, off I-25, between New Mexico’s Ladd S Gordon Waterbird Complex and the Sevilleta National Wildlife Refuge. I have been amazed at the number of sandhill cranes I have seen. Wave after wave are flying into the area at dusk. An official count in the year 2000 gave their numbers at anywhere from 2,500 to 10,000.
Water from the Rio Grande River goes into canals, ponds and marshes in the area. The State and national governments are trying to replace marshes that have disappeared elsewhere to give migrating birds a place to stop and rest. They even farm areas and leave the crops for the birds. In a few weeks one field will be flooded for three months to entice more species of shorebirds and waterfowl to the area.
The Sevilleta National Wildlife Refuge was originally left to the Nature Conservancy. They later gave it to the National Wildlife Refuge. It is great to see public, state, and federal agencies work together like this.
Could not resist taking a picture of this pair on one of the farms. The people of New Mexico really love horses.
From Coarsegold, my first stop was in Tehachapi, at Mountain Valley RV Park. It is connected to an airport where they give gliding lessons. Would like to come back and see some flights sometime.
On the way to Tehachapi, through the desert, there were wind warnings for “high profile vehicles”. I kept on going, as it did not seem too bad. The following day, found out two people were killed in a dust storm accident on the same route I took. Hard to know when to stop in a situation like that.
From Tehachapi, it was back to Needles, to Moabi Regional Park. Old Route 66 goes by the park and by the Havasu National Wildlife Refuge. The men fishing above are at Catfish Paradise, part of the wildlife refuge. It was so peaceful, just the sounds of some frogs and ducks. Nice to be back in summer-like weather too.
The pictures above of the sandhill crane and American coots, were taken at the Fivemile Landing Marina at the refuge.
The railroad goes along the top of the mini-badlands next to Moabi Park.
Bison were the main animal sighting in Yellowstone. Only saw one bear off in the distance running away.
Saw this guy twice near the west entrance. He was the only one I saw.
King of the road. The trees on the right show how new tree growth is replacing areas damaged by fire.
Entered Yellowstone through the East entrance and went out the West entrance on #20 to Idaho. Stayed at an rv park just below Henry Lake, about 20 miles from Yellowstone.
The park was 5 miles in from the highway and one mile above Henry Lake.
Sandhill cranes seen across from the rv park. The wildflowers I saw in the Northwest amaze me. They are some of the same flowers I grew from seed in Southern California and had to pamper. Also, this was late June and the wildflowers were still going strong.
Horses at a dude ranch next to the rv park (Henry Lake in background).
