The area is agricultural, which provides good foraging for geese and cranes.
As you near the ponds, one notices large flocks of Snow Geese, Greater White-fronted Geese, and Sandhill Cranes out in the fields.
A Sandhill Crane.
Sandhill Cranes are very obvious in flight with their long legs trailing behind, and their very loud sounds which can be heard from a couple miles away. They make their sounds with a 5 foot long trachea!
A Great Horned Owl, one of two in this spot.
In the evening, the cranes return in large numbers to the three ponds where they will spend the night standing in water or on small islands to avoid coyotes. This crane is doing its courtship dance, jumping in the air and flapping its wings.
I love how they come in for a landing, wheels down!
It was a beautiful evening. Most of these cranes will be gone by the end of the month when they head north.
Below are four crane silhouettes:
Cranes near a pond Wednesday morning.
A Snowy Egret waiting for food.
A Great Egret fishing along a roadside canal.
There were large flocks of Greater White-fronted Geese. They will be flying to The Arctic soon.
This Red-tailed Hawk getting a "charge" out of its perch.
Of course there were many ducks - Northern Pintails and Northern Shovelers are in this picture, as well as others.
Well, it was off to Santa Rosa to spend the evening with Jim and Mary Ann. We went to hear Slaid Cleaves perform at The Grange in Sebastopol. We love Slaid, but unfortunately he was suffering with a hellacious cold. He was a real trooper to hang in there! Thursday, I headed down to Napa where I would stay with Nick and Cassidy until Monday.
2 comments:
Love those cranes! Amazing picture of the 3 flying with their wings down at the same time -- and that hawk photo is pretty good, too. Is that Kramer there waiting for a handout?!
p.s. Those cranes have a trachea as long as I am tall!!!
You remember Kramer! If that was Kramer, he would be picking my pockets.
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