Cosumnes River Preserve

Saturday Field Trip: Went out to Cosumnes River Preserve (in the small town of Galt, near Lodi) and got a tour from SOS Cranes. It was a gloomy, cloudy day, about 50 degrees. One of the guides explained that such a day is called a "duck day" among hunters, because low clouds force the ducks to fly low, making it easy to shoot them.


The area mostly consists of organic rice fields, which were referred to as "rice checks." I think it refers to the dirt barriers that check the water from running out, but of course I was imagining the birds standing on a bowl of cereal. Anyway, there are raised roads running in between the flooded areas, which you can drive on, but you have to stay in the car: a car looks like an unthreatening shiny lump to a bird, whereas a walking person looks like a potential murdering devil. Birds are biased that way.

They look like specks, but these dots are actually thousands of white-fronted geese that we scared, despite our shiny-unthreatening-lump disguise:

And here they are overhead in their flying V that's made of flying geese. Check out how dark the sky is! This was at like 2:30, too!

Also along the Cereal Bowl we spotted many red-tailed hawks: (Can you see it? The dark blob in the center right).
Lots of hovering kestrels about, too. I shot this one through someone's spotting scope: look what a difference from my crappy binocular shots:

Great Blue Heron:


We also saw a few tundra swans--a first for me!

After the tour we headed to nearby Staten Island (unlike its NY counterpart, this Staten Island contained a single farmhouse, a slowly rusting barn, and a lot of flooded cornfields.) This is where Sandhill cranes rest at night, surrounded by a safety cushion of shallow, corny water. We hung out a while, waiting for them to arrive at sunset.

We learned that they tend to stay in family groups and pairs, so they're seldom seen alone.

We also learned that a major difference between cranes and herons (since they look quite similar) is that unlike herons, cranes lack a "thumb" claw, so they can't perch or nest in trees. They have to nest on the ground, on protected wetland islands.

Anyway, my crane pictures don't do them justice. Check out flickr for some pro-level juicy crane goodness. They also make a really cool sound.

It was a good day.