Birds of Gray Lodge

My dad gave me a deck of Bay Area Backroads cards while I was home for Christmas. Looking through them the other week I made piles of cards for places I've been, places that are too far for one day, places better in the summer, and most importantly places I could visit in the next few weeks. One of those cards in the last pile is Gray Lodge Wildlife Area. After reading about Gray Lodge's millions of waterfowl including hundreds of thousands of snow geese I was entranced by the idea of visiting the place. It's over a two hour drive to get there, so I was very thankful that a friend agreed to go on a rainy day and what's more he offered to drive!

So last Sunday my friend and I packed the telescope, binoculars, bird books and lunch into his car and started off shortly before eight o'clock for Gray Lodge which is located not too far from Yuba City. After a stop in Yuba City to get a tire fixed we arrived at Gray Lodge a bit after eleven o'clock. On the way to the wildlife area we saw many raptors along the road and tundra swans in the flooded fields. The recent week's deluge made for an interesting drive crossing flooded rivers.

At the check in kiosk we paid our $2.50 per person entry fee and were given a map and bird list to check off. It was raining slightly and steadily but an auto tour route winds through the marshy wildlife area so we could see a lot right from the car. There are also a couple of beautiful bird blinds at Gray Lodge. These are large concrete structures with benches inside and viewing windows that open out onto the marsh. We set up the telescope in one a blind while heating up some soup for lunch.

There were a lot of waterfowl in the marsh, maybe not a million birds but a lot. And all day we only saw one snow goose but it was an interesting day nevertheless. The American Widgeons and Eurasion Widgeons were side by side as were the Coot an Moorhen. It's valuable to see these similar looking birds side by side to observe the differences between them. Among the thirty three identified species of birds we saw were an American Bittern, and White Faced Ibis both uncommon sightings and neither of which I had seen in California. Many many raptors perched on branches or flew overhead as we drove through the marsh but they are often hard to identify especially in the rain and poor light. In the afternoon we walked the nearly two mile flyway loop, which was a nice break from being in the car even in the wet. The rain didn't really let up all day so unfortunately I was unable to bring out my camera but overall not a bad place to be in the rain. The following is a list of birds I checked off as definitely identified:

Waterfowl: Bufflehead, Ring-necked Duck, Ruddy Duck, Gadwall, Greater White Fronted Goose, Snow Goose, Mallard, Northern Pintail, Northern Shoveler, Tundra Swan, American Wigeon, Eurasion Wigeon
Other Water Birds: American Bittern, Great Blue Heron, Great Egret, Snowy Egret, White Faced Ibis, Double Crested Cormorant
Raptors: Northern Harrier Hawk, Red Tailed Hawk, Turkey Vulture
Gallinaceous Birds: Ring-Necked Pheasant, California Quail
Rails: American Coot, Common Moorhen
Other Birds: Belted Kingfisher, Northern Flicker, Black Phoebe, American Crow, Western Scrub Jay, Yellow Billed Magpie, House Finch, Red-Winged Blackbird, Golden Crowned Sparrow

Oh and we also saw a black tailed jackrabbit, brush rabbit and black tailed deer!