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Daily Bucket - Migrants Still Hanging Out at Colusa National Wildlife Refuge [1]
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Date: 2025-04-01
A bright rain free day gave me a chance to see who was sticking around at the Colusa National Wildlife Refuge. Colusa is one of many National Wildlife Refuges forming a long string of wetlands that run the entire length of the Great Central Valley offering safe havens for millions of migrating waterfowl.
Usually the migrants are gone by the end of March. At Colusa, the huge flocks of wintering waterfowl were gone but there was still plenty of birds hanging around the ponds.
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I was surprised to see a raft of approximately 100 Snow Geese on a back pond. Normally, I don’t see any Snow Geese in March. Another bird I expected to have migrated is the White-Fronted Goose. I saw several small flocks throughout the NWR and in the air as well.
I noted that the Northern Pintails disappeared from the refuges and headed north by mid-February. The Bufflehead Ducks, Dark-Eyed Juncoes, White-Crowned and Golden-Crowned Sparrows were gone as well.
So here are the migratory birds I found still hanging around Colusa.
White-Fronted Geese take to the air.
Green-Winged Teals with Shovelor hen and Coot
Ring-Necked and Northern Shovelor Ducks with Snow and White-Fronted Geese.
White-Faced Ibis
Yellow-Rumped Warbler balancing on a reed.
Here are year round residents I was expecting to encounter. I was surprised at the number of egrets as they were often in small groups. Note the feathery breeding plumage.
Snowy and Great Egrets with White-Faced Ibis. I saw several of these groups.
Snowy Egret
Great Egret
Great Blue Heron
Red-Winged Blackbird
Tri-Colored Blackbird
American Coot
Ring-Billed Gull
Double Crested Cormorants with Northern Shovelors
Western Kingbird
Savannah Sparrow
Black Phoebe
House Finch
Pied-Billed Grebe
Black-Necked Stilts with Snowy Egret and White-Fronted Goose
Greater Yellowlegs
A pair of turkey vultures high in the sky circling the area for prey.
I should note that on the way up, I saw several Red-Tails and a Red-Shouldered Hawk but was not able to take a photo while driving 70 mph on Interstate 5. There were also several flocks of Brewer’s Blackbirds that populated the freeway shoulders. As I started on the Auto Route, I spooked a Ring-Necked Pheasant that popped out of the underbrush next to the road and then disappeared again in seconds. I didn’t get clear shots of Western Meadowlarks, Ruddy Ducks and Mallards.
We are looking at scattered rainstorms and wind this week with temps in the 50s and 60s until warming up to the 70s for the weekend. I still attended the Athletics Season Opener baseball game with a raincoat over my team jersey.
What’s up in your neck of the woods?
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