It was on the cool side and the sky had a thin layer of high clouds…it was also hazy. Suellen and I stopped in Williams and Maxwell before moving on to drive the loop at the Sacramento National Wildlife Refuge. All three destinations turned out to provide jackpot encounters.

A rare white-phase red-tailed hawk was reported online and an eBird report had the precise GPS info and a nice Google Map. On Highway 20, about 1.8 miles west of the I5, Suellen spotted the animal atop a barren tree several hundred yards from the road. It was a large bird, very white, with black spots. It had a subdued sort of belly band, and when it took flight (which it did often as it was very skittish) the tail had some faint red-brown panels. It flew from the top of that one distant tree to another to the west, then back again. Although all our photographs were taken during the late morning (just after 11am), we made another stop on our way back home (near 330pm). The hawk was in the same area but initially perched on a telephone pole. Within seconds it took off and flew back to the trees to the north where it was during the morning sighting.

The second destination of the day was, at Suellen’s suggestion, a visit to the Maxwell Cemetery to see if the vermillion flycatcher was still on the premises. It was. It mostly perched on top of headstones from which it could easily pick of flying bugs near the ground. It also used tree limbs once or twice. The bold little bird came quite close to us on two occasions. It is such a magnificently colored animal! Several other birders arrived after us.

Most of the day was spent driving the loop at Sac NWR. Suellen and I both forgot that the Trump-imposed government shutdown would affect the NWR, but it did. Although the loop was open, there was no staff anywhere to be seen and the bathrooms had closure signs taped to their doors. As a side note, perhaps related to the shutdown (or not) we saw quite a few people getting out of the cars to photograph birds. During our many previous visits we had never seen rule-violators like this before.

Sightings on the loop were very good. Some of our target birds (mostly raptors) were out and easily photographed, as were the thousands of geese, hundreds of coots, and two mammal species. Here are some of the highlights:

We saw 3 or 4 eagles, perhaps all bald. The first was a juvenile found sitting in a barren tree along the first ¼ mile stretch of road, and not far from the Old Hwy 99 road and I5 to the west. It was back-lit. Others were adult bald eagles and two of them were clear of limbs and branches for decent photos. One eagle was photographed looking directly up at it through the moon roof of our truck.

Red-tailed hawks were everywhere, but most were partially obscured by tree branches. Two great horned owls were seen behind layers of branches and with back lighting. They were in two closely adjacent trees along the northbound segment and exactly where we had seen one of them on a previous trip.

Snow geese flocks passed by overhead all day, and thousands of them floated in the ponds. Once or twice they all took flight and created a spectacular scene. A few overhead groups were photographed from directly below using the moon roof of our truck. In a couple of locations the geese were out on the roadway foraging.

On the viewing platform a black phoebe was photographed as it darted from branch to bug to branch. Not far north of the platform a mule deer stag was photographed along the edge of the North Fork of Logan Creek. This segment of the loop was where most of the red-tailed hawks were seen. A large peregrine falcon was spotted and extensively photographed on a tree branch. It looked like it was wet and pre-occupied with grooming (drying off) its feathers. This was close to the loop road with good lighting…a very nice peregrine encounter.

After the loop turned west we found a large striped skunk foraging right next to the road. I opened the truck window for a very fast couple of photos, then closed it again quickly…our imagination was running ahead full steam. The eagles were seen on this segment.


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