Archive for the ‘California’ Category

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Tulelake National Wildlife Refuge

Sunday, April 11th, 2010

Have been in Tulelake, California for a week to visit the Tulelake and Lower Klamath Falls National Wildlife Refuges. There are thousands of geese here, with large flocks in the water and the surrounding farmland.

You can usually see an eagle here, if you visit the refuge in the morning or late afternoon. On one visit I saw an adult bald eagle eating a goose with two juvenile eagles circling above. By the time I got close, the adult had left and one juvenile had taken it’s place. It tried to take off with the prey in it’s claws, but couldn’t manage it.

Breeding northern shoveler

Saw a few small groups of breeding white pelicans.

Grebe

First time I’ve seen a river otter here. There has also been a beaver near my rv coming from a nearby farming water channel.

The way here: Drove the I-5 through Northern California. Pleasantly surprised at all the rest areas. This is the first time I’ve taken the I-5 coming north, having taken the 395 or 101 in the past. Driving over Mount Shasta it started to snow. When I turned off to get to Tulelake, it was snowing heavily with low visibility, although there was no snow on the road.

At the rest stop at Weed saw several rv’s as shown below.

Posted in grebe, otter, snow geese, Tulelake, wildlife refuge | Comments Off

Carrizo Plain National Monument

Saturday, April 3rd, 2010

Have wanted to visit Carrizo Plain National Monument for a long time. One hundred miles north of Los Angeles, it encompasses an area 50 miles  north to south, bordered by the Temblor Mountains on the northeast and the Caliente Mountains on the southwest. It is managed jointly by the Bureau of Land Management, California Fish & Game, and The Nature Conservancy. The San Andreas Fault travels through it and the area is supposed to be one of the best places to study it.

Top picture, flowers seen driving over the Temblor Mountains to get to the Carrizo Plain.

Second Picture, dirt road looking back at the Temblor Range.

You don’t just happen upon the monument, you have to plan your visit. You are warned not to use a GPS. There is currently only one reliable road, Soda Lake Road. Eighteen miles of the road is paved, the remainder is dirt. The dirt road ranges from very good to areas of mild to moderate washboarding.

I stayed one night at their KLC Campground. A lot of people brought their horses and donkeys to ride. As usual, I managed to visit on a holiday weekend. It was not crowded, but I’m sure there were a lot more people than usual. Many were here to see the wildflowers in bloom.

You could hear meadowlarks all over. Saw one pronghorn elk, which are being reintroduced into the area.

The west entrance to the park (where I exited). The road on the left is Soda Lake Road. In the middle of the picture is Elkhorn Grade Road. The San Andreas Fault runs right next to Soda Lake Road here. The fault is supposed to be clearly visible near Wallace Creek, which I didn’t visit. Now that I know my way here, plan to return, hopefully in a less rainy year and not on a holiday weekend.

The way here: A blog I follow happened to mention a way to bypass a lot of Los Angeles Freeway traffic by taking the I-15 to the Cajon Pass, getting off on California 138 west to connect to the I-5 near Gorman. As it was the Friday before Easter, this was a good choice. As a bonus, it passed the poppy reserve in the Antelope Valley (picture below).

Posted in Airstream, Bureau of Land Management, meadowlark, Taft | Comments Off

Peacocks

Friday, April 2nd, 2010

I stayed at Prado Regional Park in Chino for three days to wait out some rain and wind alerts before heading north. Went to visit some peacocks that stay around their office area and one male put on a show. With feathers extended in full showgirl mode, he would try to envelop any of three females that walked by. At the same time, he’d do a shimmy of sorts. The females were just looking for food and seemed puzzled by his behaviour. To add insult to injury, sparrows were landing on his feathers.

When I was leaving the park, noticed a man taking pictures of a hawk that was very close to him. Think he was feeding it. First time I’ve seen anything like it.

Posted in Chino, County, hawk, peacock | No Comments »

Bolsa Chica Wetlands

Wednesday, March 31st, 2010

Had the opportunity to visit Bolsa Chica Wetlands in Huntington Beach again.

Above, a clam has “clamped” down on one of the coot’s toes. The coot is looking around for some assistance from a fellow coot. There were areas where there were a lot of these clams in this protected preserve. The next day I looked for, but did not see a coot with a clam on one foot.

Saw three or four varieties of grebes.

Saw another heron’s nest here. The heron above is taking it’s one twig to it’s mate in the nest.

Think this is a snipe. A snipe is the only short, squat, sea bird that I know of. Corrected by reader: this is a green heron. First picture of a green heron I’ve gotten.

A common yellow-throat

A round stingray

Posted in coot, grebe, heron, Huntington Beach | 1 Comment »

Still in SoCal

Sunday, March 21st, 2010

I’m still in Southern California taking care of routine maintenance and  taxes. Spring has finally arrived with temps in the 70′s and 80′s. Have not seen any rain for several weeks.

Above pictures are of sculptures on Galleta Meadows Estate in Borrego Springs. Dennis Avery, of Avery Labels, has a winter home in Borrego Springs, California and owns a lot of land. He had artist Ricardo Breceda create  and place sculptures of creatures and people from Borrego Springs’ past all around the area. I tend to be drawn to the nearby Salton Sea when I’m in this area, because of the birds, but know I’ll be back to stay in Anza-Borrega State Park and Borrego Springs.

The herons are still adding twigs to the two nests at Rancho Jurupa Park. They have been through some strong winds and rain. Glad to see they are still there.

Below, panda mom, Bai Yun, takes a mini nap while laying on her back eating bamboo.

Posted in Borrego Springs, heron, panda, Riverside | No Comments »

San Diego Wild Animal Park II

Tuesday, March 9th, 2010

After the first day at the San Diego Wild Animal Park, stayed at Dos Picos County Park in Romona. It’s a nice park that I’ve stayed at before.

In the African lion exhibit, the male lion jumped onto a platform right next to a floor-to-ceiling glass window. He had the same look that the male African lion had at the San Diego Zoo when he growled at a keeper walking by, calm on the surface but you don’t know what’s going on inside. A female lion had been sniffing the ground and then started making faces.

A gorilla enjoying a cob of corn. There is no glass around the gorilla enclosure. With all the busloads of kids that go through the exhibit, think glass would be a good idea both to lessen the noise the gorillas have to endure and to prevent kids from throwing things into the exhibit.

The lorikeet exhibit

Andean-cock-of-the-rock taking a bath.

Posted in County, elephants, Escondido, gorilla, lion | No Comments »

San Diego Wild Animal Park

Monday, March 8th, 2010

Moved north to Escondido to visit the San Diego Wild Animal Park, mainly to see the baby elephant born on Valentine’s Day (above). Parked my rv in their parking lot the first day ($11 parking fee). It was nice to be able to return to the rv mid-day and then go back to the park rested. When I arrived they told me that they are offering rv hookup sites for the night on a trial basis for $75. That would be incredible, but $75 a night is too much for me.

Often female elephants form a protective circle around the calf. Especially if he wants to lay down to rest or they want to shield him from the sun on hot days.

Sometimes you see the mother and calf by themselves, but more often Khosi, a 4-year-old female, “the babysitter”, is with them (above right). She is practicing her mothering skills for the future and is also a friend more on eye level with the calf.

Above, a protective circle of females around the calf. It looks like he is nursing from a female that’s not his mom (an auntie). His mom is on the left. Must be hard to tell the difference from below.

While the young females practice being mothers, the young males practice fighting. Three-year-old Impunga, “the instigator”, has been challenging Moose, a 6-year-old male, since he was very young.  The two chased each other all over the holding area while I was there, at times slipping in the mud. In the video above, you can hear Moose trumpeting off camera. When he lays down to rest, a young elephant runs over to playfully try to climb on top of him.

While mothering skills are no doubt important for the young females to learn, wonder how useful the fighting skills will be for the males. The zoo recently got a new adult bull African elephant, but he has not been introduced to the herd yet. They want to diversify the gene pool, but introducing a new elephant into a herd can be tricky. Just ask the keepers at the Elephant Odyssey at the San Diego Zoo. They are trying to merge several different groups of Asian elephants and it is a slow process. When I was there one female elephant had been bitten by another one and had to be started on antibiotics.

Nesting cormorants

Below, greeters at the Wild Animal Park entrance: Samson, the dancing hyacinth macaw and a pair of green-winged macaws.

Posted in cormorants, elephants, Escondido, macaw | No Comments »

More from the zoo

Saturday, March 6th, 2010

After going to the San Diego Zoo five days in a row and visiting the panda exhibit multiple times each of those days, finally saw some activity from Yun Zi.

A zoo keeper shows Bai Yun an empty treat container to let her know there are none left. She then goes and searches for them in her exhibit. Think this is a daily routine.

A Sulawesi Tarictic Hornbill found in Sulawesi, Indonesia.

Mandarin ducks

A victorian crowned pigeon found in North New Guinea looking into the fish tank.

Breeding hooded merganser

Below, Janey, the orangutan, looking through the glass at a woman whom she knows.

Posted in hornbill, mandarin, orangutan, panda, pigeon, San Diego | 1 Comment »

San Diego Zoo

Thursday, March 4th, 2010

Have been in San Diego to visit  Bai Yun and her young cub, Yun Zi at the zoo. He sleeps a lot so there are not a lot of photo ops, unless your lucky enough to be there when he is active. So far I haven’t.

Su Lin, the 4-year-old sister on Yun Zi. She is supposed to go to China sometime in the near future.

Mandarin ducks. They are related to wood ducks and have to be one of the most beautiful duck there is. These two bent over in unison to get a drink of water. There are some birds and ducks that fly into the zoo grounds, this isn’t one of them. They are definitely specimen ducks.

Male and female wood ducks.

I have really enjoyed visiting the zoo’s walk-in bird aviaries this visit. In the late afternoon, birds are flying all around you as they prepare to roost for the evening, eating and taking baths in the waterfalls.

Above is a White-bellied-Imperial-pigeon that has an incredible bass two note song. He bows each time he says “who who”.  He does this for a long time, then has to stop to get his breath. Everyone that came in asked “Is he making that sound?” I recorded a short video and will try to upload it later.

Update: Got the video of the white-bellied-imperial-pigeon, but the stream with it’s waterfalls that runs through the aviary drowns out the low bass sound the pigeon makes.

Nicobar pigeon

Grand eclectus parrot

White breasted kingfisher. There is an fish tank in the aviary. Guess the kingfishers can catch their own dinner.

Below, an African lion let out a loud growl when an animal keeper walked in front of him after giving a talk about the lions.

Posted in kingfisher, lion, mandarin, panda, parrot, pigeon, San Diego, wood | No Comments »

Rancho Jurupa Regional Park

Saturday, February 27th, 2010

Have been at one of my frequent stopping points, Rancho Jurupa Park in Riverside, California for the past week. Had gone without hookups for more than a week, so really appreciated having electricity again. The weather fronts with rain keep coming through California on a regular basis. Today heavy rain and thunder have been present most of the day.

Two pairs of herons are reusing two nests from last year. Saw one heron bring one twig to the heron in a nest and the waiting heron spent some time arranging that one twig. A red-tailed hawk landed between the two nests one day. The herons in the nests flew away and one came back so it was facing the hawk and started hissing at it till the hawk flew away. Heron’s can hurt hawks with their beaks if they are facing them and are not taken by surprise.

Have seen both herons and egrets hunting gophers in the field by me. The gopher exterminator that was here in the fall must have left some.

Saw an adult and then a juvenile night heron resting in the same tree on two different mornings.

Northern flicker

Cormorants. Have read where some places are killing them because they eat fish meant for fishermen.

Say’s phoebe. Probably the same one I saw in the fall, at least it was hunting and perching in the same spot.

Mallard. Have also seen a small group of ruddy ducks.

Feel like I’m seeing old friends when I see the geese mascots that have been here as long as I’ve been coming here. Glad to see they have made it through another season of kids, dogs, and fishermen.

Posted in cormorants, County, geese, heron, northern flicker, phoebe, Riverside | Comments Off

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