From south-bay-birds-bounces+south-bay-birds-archive=[[email protected]] Tue Feb 3 07:36:04 2004 Received: from www.plaidworks.com (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by plaidworks.com (8.12.9/8.12.9) with ESMTP id i13FXGG4011074 for <[[email protected]]>; Tue, 3 Feb 2004 07:33:17 -0800 (PST) Received: from smtp3.Stanford.EDU (smtp3.stanford.edu [171.67.16.117]) by plaidworks.com (8.12.9/8.12.9) with ESMTP id i13FVmCp010958 for <[[email protected]]>; Tue, 3 Feb 2004 07:31:48 -0800 (PST) Received: from lawmail1.stanford.edu (lawmail1.Stanford.EDU [171.64.212.80]) by smtp3.Stanford.EDU (8.12.10/8.12.10) with ESMTP id i13FVlAq026121 for <[[email protected]]>; Tue, 3 Feb 2004 07:31:47 -0800 To: [[email protected]] X-Mailer: Lotus Notes Release 6.0 September 26, 2002 Message-ID: <[[email protected]]> From: "Tom Grey" <[[email protected]]> Date: Tue, 3 Feb 2004 07:34:12 -0800 X-MIMETrack: Serialize by Router on lawmail1/stanford(Release 5.0.12 |February 13, 2003) at 02/03/2004 07:34:13 AM MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Subject: [SBB] San Luis and Merced NWR X-BeenThere: [[email protected]] X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5a1 Precedence: list List-Id: South Bay Birding List-Unsubscribe: , List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , Sender: south-bay-birds-bounces+south-bay-birds-archive=[[email protected]] Errors-To: south-bay-birds-bounces+south-bay-birds-archive=[[email protected]] Great fun on a visit to the Valley last weekend. I was trying out a new lens and will post pix when I have time to process them -- Friday afternoon, a cloudy late afternoon tour of San Luis NWR turned up a good view of an AMERICAN BITTERN doing its vertical freeze out in the open (pix), lots of raptors, no big numbers of waterfowl. Saturday was the amazing day, unexpected bright sun and blue skies (though windy and quite cold) for a morning tour of Merced NWR starting 8 a.m. I'd never been here in the Jan/Feb peak season, and was overwhelmed by the sight of the thousands of SNOW GEESE, going up all at once several times during the morning. All morning constant skeins weaving across the blue sky, each with several hundred flying waterfowl, including GREATER WHITE-FRONTED GEESE (pix), interspersed with occasional WHITE PELICANS, IBISES and SANDHILL CRANES. Top up-close sight was at the view spot where a thousand or so Snow Geese were nearby on the water, and were sent up by the overhead passage of the local pair of BALD EAGLES doing courting display flight (pix). At the end, a hundred or so Cranes landed in the pasture across Sandy Mush Rd, and another 50 or so were in the plowed field in the Refuge (pix). That evening, a rerun of the San Luis loop at sunset produced more constant raptor sightings, magnificent sunset views, and right at dusk, only sighting of TUNDRA SWANS -- 2 with a group of White Pelicans. Ran into John Meyer that night in Los Banos, who said they (Les Chibana's group?) were overnighting there after a day at Panoche and planning to hit the Valley spots on Sunday. _______________________________________________ Do not post admin requests to the list. They will be ignored. south-bay-birds mailing list ([[email protected]]) Help/Unsubscribe/Update your Subscription: http://www.plaidworks.com/mailman/options/south-bay-birds/south-bay-birds-archive%40plaidworks.com This email sent to [[email protected]]