Had a marvelous day of birding with Napa birding buddies Denise and David
Hamilton (whom I had never met except by e-mail over the years; I'm sure
many of you can relate)! They took me on the grand tour of
Lake Berryessa,
Lake Hennessey, and then finally a quick stop at the
Napa River Ecological
Preserve before it started dripping. (And I'm sitting here typing this
and looking at the mess the poor rush hour commuters are having to drive
through...)
The back end of Lake Berryessa is one of those places they said they get
to about once a year, so this was a special trip for them as well. The
water was still pretty muddy from the flooding, and indeed you could see
where there had been numerous landslides that had undoubtedly blocked the
road at some point. The first stop was productive, however: picked up
both Western and Clark's Grebes for the trip, and at several stops picked
up the usual songbird suspects. A herd of Turkeys making their way up a
hill was fun, as was a pair of Golden Eagles on one distant tree.
Birding buddies David and Denise Hamilton hunt for goodies along an arm
of Lake Berryessa
Say's Phoebe
Canada Geese
Turkey Vultures
We followed Knoxville Road up the west side of the lake, and then
continued on and turned on a little dirt road described in the Napa County
birding guide. This was very productive, as it had several birds which
are usually seen nowhere else in the county, such as Yellow-billed Magpies
and Lewis' Woodpecker (both of which we got). A little Burrowing Owl on
the fence surprised us all, and a nice adult Bald Eagle lumbered by and
perched on a distant tree. Picked up several ducks for the trip, and the
local Bicolored Blackbirds made a racket, sounding almost as funny as the
Tricolored! There was a huge flock of White Pelicans out in the lake, and
Canada Geese were all over the place... A Lark Sparrow posed nicely on
the fence, and there were a gazillion Lesser Goldfinches feeding in the
thistle! (I think we found one American in with them...)
Famous dirt road off Knoxville Road
"Wow, that's a weird bird!"
Checking the wetlands for ducks
"Bicolored" Blackbird, a local
race of the Red-winged
Yellow-billed Magpies call from the hills behind Denise; this is the only
place in Napa Co. you'll find them!
Oak Titmice
Lewis' Woodpecker on a picturesque tree
Digiscoped Nuttall's Woodpecker
More scenes...
Western Meadowlark
Lark Sparrow
Because I wasn't driving, I'll probably be guilty of letting all this
merge together in my mind, but other highlights included finally finding a
White-throated Sparrow in amongst the Goldies and Whiteys, watching a
Pied-billed Grebe gag down a big fish, two gorgeous male Common
Mergansers, a knockout Ferruginous Hawk that flew right in front of us, an
excellent look at a male Greater Scaup, and another scaup pair (this time
at Lake Hennessey) that made me lean towards Greater because of the
general jizz, but there were times he seemed to show a slight peak to the
back of the head; I'll post pictures and hopefully get some feedback! A
Red-breasted (I'm assuming) Sapsucker also called there where the scaups
were.
Pope Canyon Road (I think...)
All the water from the storms caused the ground to
sag!
Female Western Bluebird
Golden-crowned Sparrow
Probable Greater Scaups; the two birds at left were
on Lake Berryessa, and the rest were on Lake Hennessey.
At Lake Hennessey we
did go down Conn Valley Road as Murray had
suggested, but we didn't see the albino grebe. Like Berryessa, the
water was still high and muddy, so there really wasn't much around, but
the last stop hit pay dirt with three Hooded Mergansers close to the
road (until we pulled out our cameras, naturally)!
Lake Hennessey
Cove where the scaup were
Dave & Denise
Ruddy Duck
Clark's Grebe
Pied-billed Grebe
Acorn Woodpecker
Denise shooting near a "storage tree" riddled with
acorns stored by the woodpeckers!
Normally this is two separate ponds, but the
flooding has made it one big one!
Cove where we found Hooded Mergansers (below)
David wanted to show me the preserve, so we made a quick stop there,
adding a flock of Chestnut-backed Chickadees to the list. Denise
spotted a female Purple Finch, so I could feel better about counting
it (I had heard several "piks" earlier, but I wasn't absolutely
positive they were the Purple Finches...)! You couldn't really cross
the river, so any hiking would have to be limited to the dike, but it
looked very promising, so I'm looking forward to coming back!
Napa River Preserve
Napa River
They dropped me off after that, making plans to get
together again on Friday, and I'll be wandering around the county in the
meantime! (And going from zero to 83 for Napa County ain't bad,
either!)
