Last Saturday, Paul and I found ourselves awake unusually early, and we went for a walk at the Arcata Marsh before breakfast. I was expecting to find an extraordinary amount of dawn-time activity, but the marsh was just as active as I usually see it (which is to say, very active). Even so, it was cool to see some creatures in their morning routine. A couple of male Buffleheads were rolling onto their backs in the water and preening their pristine white bellies. I've never seen ducks do this before, and this just won Buffleheads several more cuteness points in my mind (they were already pretty cute to begin with):
Saturday's early morning light wasn't great for picture-taking, but I was back at the marsh on Tuesday afternoon when there were just as many creatures to see (with better light to see them by). Song Sparrows were singing and setting up territories along almost every stretch of the path:
And of course Marsh Wrens were all over. Little wren, does your tail get any higher?
Hundreds of shorebirds were flocking in the mudflats, and one Marbled Godwit (with a strangely crooked beak) was foraging right next to the path:
A group of five Great Egrets looked particularly fancy surrounded by mud:
This Canada Goose seems to have found a great nesting place on top of an old (redwood?) trunk with great marsh views:
A White-tailed Kite was hovering over the meadow, watching for furry morsels below:
I'm super impressed by the hovering skills of these raptors:
Whew! It's been a ridiculously hectic and stressful several weeks (but I am elated to report that I have recently reached the end of the process that was causing so much stress, hence why I have the time to write this now). This past Saturday, I decided I needed a break, so I went out to visit the Arcata Bottoms, an area of low-lying pastures and fields bordering the bay near my house. I drove slowly along roads behind farms, and I wandered into the marshy fields in a neighboring wildlife area, and it was quiet, full of creatures, and just wonderful.
I drive by this area on the way to work every day, and I'm always astonished by the number of raptors I regularly see here -- perched on fence posts and power lines -- as I speed past. Driving slowly and walking in the fields on Saturday was much more fun, and there were birds of prey everywhere I looked. Northern Harriers coursed low over the fields and picked up furry morsels:
Northern Harriers have such interesting faces, and I'm always glad to meet these sleek hunters:
White-tailed Kites are still an amazingly exotic bird for me, but they're downright common in these fields right now. I saw at least four individuals during my visit, sometimes hovering or hunting but mostly perched on trees:
What an awesome bird:
Fence posts made for especially popular lookout points. White-tailed Kite:
Northern Harrier:
More White-tailed Kites:
Ah! Owl!!
I knew that Short-eared Owls hang out in these fields in the winter, and I was hoping to catch a glimpse of one, but having a Short-eared Owl fly out right in the middle of the afternoon and land ahead of my car -- then proceed to hunt in the field next to the road -- was basically astonishing. My first Short-eared Owl! Oh my goodness.
Owls are certainly amazing, and as far as I'm concerned, days with owls in them are some of the best days. I love this creature's rounded wings, fuzzy feet, and black-eyeliner eyes:
Oh, you wonderful creature:
So that was amazing. Other highlights from the visit include a dainty Savannah Sparrow, a bird I haven't seen since my time on the Connecticut shore:
And around 1500 Cackling Geese foraging in the pastures. Here's a portion of the expansive flock:
This was my first time seeing Cackling Geese fairly close up, and they really do strike me as shrunken Canada Geese. Don't your necks stretch any longer, birds?
The geese made for some striking patterns, especially in such big numbers:
And once again, Northern California continues to amaze me. Even the most normal-seeming places -- fields, pastures -- have awesome wildlife, including lots of creatures I've never seen before (and am not likely to see again any time soon once I leave). The stress-inducing process I mentioned at the beginning of this post was a job hunt, and the end of that process means that I will be relocating yet again over the summer, back to the other side of the country. The eventual (permanent? is that even possible?) location is a very exciting one (for me), but I'll leave those details for another time. For now, I plan to take advantage of my remaining months in Northern California to explore the area as much as possible. There's still so much to see, and I'm so happy to have my outdoors time back!
Every day on my way to work, I drive by a bunch of low-lying pastures and fields in an area that I now know is called Arcata Bottoms. (What a great descriptive name.) I didn't pay much attention to this area -- except to admire its views -- until early November when I began to occasionally glimpse a big white bird hovering over the fields as I drove past....
I really, really wanted to see one of these birds up close, so on Saturday, November 21, I brought my camera with me and drove down some side roads in the bottoms. It was a gray, overcast sort of day, but sure enough, I found the big white hunter. It's a White-tailed Kite!
White-tailed Kites (and kites in general, for that matter) are entirely new for me, and I'm super impressed by these birds. They're white raptors! And they hover! This bird ended up hovering very near my car as it looked for a furry meal in the grass below. I love those dark wing patches:
At times it was hovering almost directly above my head (boy would I not want to be a rodent with this creature lurking above):
After a few seconds of hovering, the kite would wheel and dive; gah, look at those talons:
I made a brief video of the hovering kite in action; I'm still so impressed by this gorgeous raptor's skills:
At least one of the kite's dives was successful, and it ended up perched on a fence post with a furry morsel in its grasp, giving me a new (if distant) view of this awesome creature:
Mmm, small mammal meal:
The White-tailed Kite drew me onto these back roads, but then once I started exploring the area, there turned out to be an amazing amount of wildlife here. Flocks of sparrows and blackbirds foraged in the shrubs and farmland, a tiny American Kestrel hunted from a power line, and the many small waterways were dotted with ducks and shorebirds. Two little Pied-billed Grebes were diving up and down in the water:
A large flock of Cackling Geese (like Canada Geese with strangely shrunken heads and necks) flew around calling before finding a suitable field in which to land:
And although I'm not normally a cow person (and they're hardly wildlife), I was charmed by several of these big creatures. Like this lady, who kept an eye on me the whole time I was nearby:
And this calf, who demonstrated both the definition of cuteness and the usefulness of prehensile tongues:
With all the rain we have been getting in recent weeks, waterways and pools are even more numerous in Arcata Bottoms now, and I know there are many, many birds out there. After some research on eBird, I also now know that this place has owls. I have a feeling I will be returning to Arcata Bottoms soon!
