A Walk in the Bypass

I went birding at the Yolo Bypass Wildlife Refuge, yesterday morning.  It was lovely to watch the refuge wake up in the morning to a beautiful sunrise over the Sierra.  Got lost of close and excellent looks a bunch of Ciconiiforms: Green Heron, Great Blue Heron, Great Egret, Snowy Egret, White-faced Ibis, Black-crowned Night-Heron, American Bittern.  Also watched a Barn Owl hunting over the marsh just went I arrived.  It was soon replaced by Northern Harriers and White-tailed Kites quartering above the cattails and tules and rice paddies.  It has often been observed that no two species can occupy the same ecological niche in the same place at the same time.  The Harrier, Kite and Owl all are hunting for the same basic prey, but they are active at different times.  This is an example of temporal partitioning.  The water level at the refuge is still being kept pretty low, but in areas that did have standing water I found Mallards, Gadwalls, Black-necked Stilts, Marsh Wrens, Pied-billed Grebe, and Double-crested Cormorant.  Lots of Black Phoebes and Savannah Sparrows, and a few Red-tailed Hawks, were also present.  An early migrant that was exciting to find was a group of about a dozen Northern Pintail!  Northern Pintail are one of the earliest migrating species of waterfowl, so this is just the start of the massive migration of ducks and geese that will be arriving in central California in the next few months.  Two species that I found that I do not get to see often were a couple of small groups of Horned Larks foraging on the roads and three Yellow-headed Blackbirds (two males, one female) mixed in a group of Red-winged Blackbirds.  Both beautiful species.  All in all, it was a really wonderful, relaxing and refreshing morning.

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