Sights of December 2015
Lot's of good birding to round out the year and a good butterfly count too! Highlights captured in pictures:
Local stuff: All birds. I like trying to catch birds in flight and got some shots. Some birds, such as finches, posed and asked me to take their photos. Some birds are camera shy, such as the Sora and Ridgeway's Rail so I had to take a shot when I could even if they didn't pose. I also shot a Greater white-fronted Goose and a Greylag Goose. Seeing them side by side really helps to see the difference of these sometimes confused geese.
Audubon Christmas Bird Count on the LA River, Dominguez Gap, and Deforest Park. The highlights of this trip for me were
- hundreds and hundreds of birds on the LA River. Beautiful flight formations and reflections in the river.
- a Merlin, which is a small raptor not often seen
- a herring gull, yes one individual bird in flocks of a hundred or more Western and Ring-billed Gulls.
Trip to Cibola, NWR: Cibola National Wildlife Reserve is in Arizona just over the border. We stayed in Blythe and went to Cibola and to the Palo Verde Ecological Reserve on the CA side of the Colorado River. highlights:
- Thousands of birds!!!! Huge numbers of Snow Geese, Sandhill Cranes, Mallards, Northern Pintail, and others.
- Sandhill Cranes, Wilson's Snipe, Yellowheaded Blackbirds. All new to my life list.
- Coyote, Deer, Owls, Autumn colors
IRC Monthly Butterfly Count: Not too many shots, but we did see lots of butterflies. There were some spring flowers blooming, which seemed unusual.
Rancho Los Cerritos Monthly Bird Count: Not much on the count, but I went back at the end of the month when the toyon berries were ripe and I saw Purple Finch, Cedar Waxwing, and American Robin chowing down.
On to January and the reset of birding year list.
For those that are on Facebook, I have set up a public page where I post updates during the month. You can LIKE it here: https://www.facebook.com/KimMooreNaturalist. I also send out a monthly email with a link to this blog. Contact me if you would like to added.
Watch the slideshows or click on the links to look through at your own pace.
Enjoy the show!
Local stuff: http://kimssight.zenfolio.com/new_dec_2015
Christmas Bird Count: http://kimssight.zenfolio.com/cbc_2015
Irvine Ranch Conservancy monthly butterfly count: http://kimssight.zenfolio.com/irc_dec_2015
Cibola NWR Audubon Trip: http://kimssight.zenfolio.com/cibola_2015
Rancho Los Cerritos: http://kimssight.zenfolio.com/rancho_los_cerritos_12-2015
