2020 05-18 Colusa County
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The purpose of today’s outing was to capture the sky as various squalls and thunderstorm cells rolled across the Central Valley. The idea was to frame these meteorological phenomena with the wide expanse of the ag fields, rice ponds, hills, mountains and rivers.
If time, we were to re-visit the Swainson’s hawk nesting area we found on Poundstone Road in Colusa County.
In summary, the sky was fantastic, and the aforementioned ground types did, indeed, provide a wonderful frame for photography. Additionally, we found the Swainson’s nest with a little bit of bino-searching, as a bonus the surrounding area was home to at least a dozen more Swainson’s hawks and a half dozen red-tailed hawks. They soared and seemed to float in the moderately strong winds, they interacted in the air, and the Swainson’s continually vocalized.
By taking back roads, many of them unpaved, en route to the Poundstone site from the southwest, we discovered a few nice birding and future photo sites. One location is White Road, a several mile drive that features a wonderful bridge across a “river” known as the Colusa Basin Drainage Canal. There is a hook in the dirt road, leading downhill to a vast ponds. There were panoramic views from the coastal mountain range, the Sutter Buttes, and then far to the southeast. From the bridge you could see up and down this Canal (a manmade river) about a mile north and south.
It was a spectacular day
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Read MoreThe purpose of today’s outing was to capture the sky as various squalls and thunderstorm cells rolled across the Central Valley. The idea was to frame these meteorological phenomena with the wide expanse of the ag fields, rice ponds, hills, mountains and rivers.
If time, we were to re-visit the Swainson’s hawk nesting area we found on Poundstone Road in Colusa County.
In summary, the sky was fantastic, and the aforementioned ground types did, indeed, provide a wonderful frame for photography. Additionally, we found the Swainson’s nest with a little bit of bino-searching, as a bonus the surrounding area was home to at least a dozen more Swainson’s hawks and a half dozen red-tailed hawks. They soared and seemed to float in the moderately strong winds, they interacted in the air, and the Swainson’s continually vocalized.
By taking back roads, many of them unpaved, en route to the Poundstone site from the southwest, we discovered a few nice birding and future photo sites. One location is White Road, a several mile drive that features a wonderful bridge across a “river” known as the Colusa Basin Drainage Canal. There is a hook in the dirt road, leading downhill to a vast ponds. There were panoramic views from the coastal mountain range, the Sutter Buttes, and then far to the southeast. From the bridge you could see up and down this Canal (a manmade river) about a mile north and south.
It was a spectacular day
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Cliff swallows enjoy a moment in the sun between rain storms as they emerge from the nesting colony under a bridge.
clouds storm Petrochelidon pyrrhonota cliff swallows Colusa Basin Drainage Canal 2020 05-18 Colusa Cnty-b-169
cloudsstormPetrochelidonpyrrhonotacliffswallowsColusaBasinDrainageCanal2020Cnty169
