This morning I birded River Walk Park along the West Sacramento side of the Sacramento River. This was my first visit to River Walk Park, so I was not sure what I would find. I decided to start at the Yolo County Park near 4th and B St. and head south as far as the Tower Bridge. I parked at 6:15am and started off. The first thing that struck me was how many feral cats were hanging around. There must have been at least 15 cats just around the boat launch area! Not good news for the birds.
But, cats not withstanding, I did have a very nice morning with a bunch of great birds (see below for a complete list)! Some of the highlights were my first Townsend’s and Black-throated Gray Warblers of the fall. The Black-throated Gray was a really pretty adult female that gave me a really good look as she foraged in the top of a sycamore tree. Another fun bird was hatch-year Black-headed Grosbeak that was flying among the little tree right in front of the Ziggurat Building. Another particularly fun moment for me was as I stood under a small group of oak trees. I was trying to see a small bird that was flitting around in the foliage high above me. I finally got a good look at it and found that it was a Wilson’s Warbler. While not rare, these bright droplets of sun-gold feathers are always nice to see. As i watched it flew into a different group of oaks, and then another golden droplet followed, and then another, and another. In total, the group was comprised of six Wilson’s Warblers, probably a family group. I don’t get to see that many of these birds together like that very often, so this was a real treat.
The area that I walked through began in a very unkempt riparian habitat that obviously had a lot of human use which includes people spending the night in the thickets and probably a lot of other not-quite-legal activities. It is very obvious that this stretch of land gets little or no care. Overall, this part of my walk was more wild with rocky and uneven dirt paths, lots of undergrowth, and lots of trash as well. The more southern part of my walk today took me into a part of the park that is the exact opposite. Perfectly manicured green lawns, with nice paved walkways with landscaped plants, and no trash at all. The boarder between these two areas was the I street Bridge which is where a set of train tracks crosses the Sacramento River. If you stand below the tracks and look one way and then the other you see these two very different worlds, just look at the two photos below.
It seems like some effort should go into cleaning up the northern part of this area. It would make the place much more inviting. When I see areas like this one, it makes me want to organize a clean up day. Even if I don’t organize a clean up day for others, I will start bringing trash home on my own when I visit in the future. The birding was definitely worth returning in the near future!
Here is the species list, with numbers of individuals in parentheses ().
Brandt’s Cormorant (1)
Great Blue Heron (1)
Mallard (12)
Spotted Sandpiper (1)
Western Gull (5)
Rock Pigeon (20)
Anna’s Hummingbird (4)
Nuttall’s Woodpecker (1)
Black Phoebe (3)
Western Scrub Jay (12)
Yellow-billed Magpie (7)
American Crow (25)
Barn Swallow (16)
Oak Titmouse (6)
Bushtit (35)
House Wren (2)
Northern Mockingbird (1)
European Starling (9)
Black-throated Gray Warbler (1)
Townsend’s Warbler (1)
Wilson’s Warbler (9)
Spotted Towhee (2)
California Towhee (1)
Black-headed Grosbeak (1)
Brewer’s Blackbird (1)
Lesser Goldfinch (1)