Sacramento National Wildlife Refuge

My wife Hali, our friend Barbara and I spent most of Saturday and Sunday visiting the Sacramento National Wildlife Refuge for birding and photography. We managed to reach the Colusa Wildlife Refuge and the Gray Lodge Refuge on Saturday (the latter just at sunset) and the larger Sacramento Refuge on Sunday morning.

Both birding and photography proved productive. Barbara was our group bird expert; she was able to identify several by sight, and was able to add some new species to her own list. One highlight occurred when she spotted a bald eagle in a tree and was able to follow it as it flew off in search of prey, dived, and snared a smaller bird! Later we saw the eagle and a companion as they ate breakfast. I drove while she and Hali worked as a team looking for pheasants, egrets, herons and a wide variety of geese—as well as the elusive "rail."

The photography was of a more generalized nature. The lens on my Olympus E-510 has a zoom range of 28-84 and, although I consider it an excellent lens, it didn’t have nearly enough range to reach even fairly close birds. So I had to concentrate on overall landscape shots: sunrise, bare winter branches seen through a chill early morning Sunday mist and a few over-the-top sunset shots. To be honest, I was OK with this limitation, as I’ve never had any real ambition to be a wildlife photographer. The one shot I got of the "fly-off" is flawed because I had been using the camera on the tripod, set at F22, aperture-priority, and so the geese flying over were shot at 1/50th second at F22. The picture is underexposed, and so has severe noise issues. I’m amazed that it’s as sharp as it is!

One other pleasant note: we ate very well! We had some nice sandwiches Saturday at the Pure Grain Bakery in downtown Vacaville, better than expected fajitas at Casa Ramos, the Mexican restaurant next to our motel in Willows, and an excellent lunch at the Putah Creek Café in Winters.

Photo: Flyoff—Sacramento National Wildlife Refuge, 2008