[SBB] Panoche Valley/ Merced Nat.Wildlife Refuge

[Janna Pauser <[[email protected]]>]

Kim Blythe and I had an exciting day of birding yesterday at Panoche Valley 
and later at Merced NWR. Our first stop was a flock of  Lawrence's 
Goldfinches in the orchard across from the Chevron station on SR25 at the 
south edge of Hollister. A life bird for Kim.

One Bald Eagle spotted at the Paicines Reservoir with scope views, thanks 
to Tom Olson and his party. We followed Bill Bousmans latest report and 
found one Great Horned Owl in a rock crevice on Panoche Road. Shortly up 
the road Tom Olson's group was viewing two Greater Road Runners. Suddenly 
the male on the far side of the road threw himself off the cliff, glided to 
the opposite bank and quickly approached the female on our side of the 
road. The male was boldly marked and larger than the female. Their 
courtship behavior was fascinating with the male swaying his tail from side 
to side, bowing and cooing. A third Road Runner, of undetermined sex, also 
glided across the cliff seeking the pair before we left.

At m.p. 13.86 we easily found at least 6 Phainopepla in the mistletoe laden 
oak trees. Quite a few W. Bluebirds were seen along this road, most of them 
near farms. At the Panoche Inn we found two Cassin's Kingbirds and saw a 
Prairie Falcon soaring. About a mile further we found another Prairie 
Falcon. We stopped on the BLM road for another look at the Northern Shrike 
I saw three weeks ago. Kim and I noted one of the three at this location 
did indeed have a long obvious hooked bill. The black eye line extended a 
little further than the Loggerhead Shrike but did cover the eye. This bird 
had a white line over its beak that did not extend over the eye. It's 
breast had a buffy or yellowish wash but we didn't see any scaling. We saw 
11 shrike in all and only two Say's Phoebe's.

The next oddity was when a No. Bobwhite ran across the road before the 
Little Panoche detention dam. We followed it up the embankment and peered 
over the fence, where we found the male and three female Bobwhites, much to 
our amazement. They were obviously released for gaming, but a fun find and 
a life bird for both of us.

An hour later nearing Merced NWR, Kim spotted a perched Burrowing Owl 
beside the road. Kim approached the owl cautiously and got some great 
photos. We did the 5 mile auto tour at Merced finding an amazing number of 
water fowl in breeding plumage, including some beautiful White faced Ibis. 
Another life bird for Kim. Hundreds of Sandhill cranes were in the field, 
but the Snow, Ross's and Greater White fronted Geese had gathered in a 
field to the north. We could see thousand of white geese as they stirred. 
Hundreds of Ross's Geese and two dozen Greater White Fronted Geese flew by 
for a nice look as we watched this spectacle unfold.

I should mention a juvenile Red tailed Hawk near the viewing platform. It 
was a solid chocolate brown overall with a typical juv. Red tailed breast. 
We noticed it had a spot of white feathers on the top of its head. We can't 
find anything similar in our field guide.

Janna Pauser


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