Sacramento National Wildlife Refuge

For our morning bird walk today we choose Sacramento National Wildlife Refuge.  Conveniently located next to I-5 on our route south, and a place we have stopped several times in years past.  In fact if you have any interest in watching birds, and in particular observing an astonishing number migrating waterfowl then you should plan a stop her at the visitors center.

Today we choose to take the Wetland Walk Trail, which makes an easily managed loop of just over a mile and a half, and purposely skipped the large ponds with the thousand upon thousands of migrating ducks and geese, which can drive you crazy trying to count.

We had a great time, enjoyed the sun and the challenge of identifying a number of birds.  You can see our check list here.

A Dry Day

Red Bluff Recreation Area

For our second day of travel we had a dry day.  An entire day with out any rain. Which played well with our plans of climbing over the Siskyous and into Northern California with out the threat of moistuer leading to snow.  We left our overnight parking spot at Henderson's Alignment at 6:00 AM, stopped for breakfast at Shari's, and in Central Point for diesel and propane.  Lunch was at Lake Shasta and then on to Red Bluff to Red Bluff Recreation Area and  the Sycamore Grove Campground our intended camp site. Here is where we had our first disappointment of the day.  We discovered that Reservations are now required.  We have been coming to this campground for a decade now, and the campground has never been full, always lots of sites to choose from.  Checking with the camp host he verified the signage, and added that it was ten dollars for a registration fee plus the camping fee. Additional registration fees do not set well with us, and apparently not with others as the campground was empty.   Welcome to Walmart folks --- our parking site for tonight.

We did spend the rest of the afternoon at the Red Bluff Recreation Area for a two hour bird walk, enjoying the warm temps and dry weather.  Click here to see our checklist.

Winter Migration

I-5

This morning we took off on our annual winter migration to sunny California and Arizona.  Mother nature gave us a royal send off with a day where the tempature stayed at 43 degrees and the rain continued all day long.

If you know anything about us, you know that our travels are as much or about birding as it chasing good weather.  Our first stop of the day for birding was at Cottage Grove at the Row River Nature Park.  We really were not without rain, just a short period with less rain.

Row River Nature Park

For our complete observation list for Row River Nature Park click here.

Black Phoebe

After lunch at Burger King in Cottage Grove we traveled on south via I-5 to Grants Pass.  We spent the afternoon and early evening parked at Tussing Park on the Rouge River where we birded, rested, and had dinner. So nice to have a RV to stay warm and dry out of the elements. Click here for our bird list.

We plan to park for the night at Herderson's Alignment, only a few blocks away. Tomorrow is supposed to be dryer, which we will take advange of to climb over the Siskyous with a overnight stay at Sycamore Grove in Red Bluff.