What birds of prey will surprise us at Clover Creek Preserve? Merlin or American Kestrel? Red-tailed or Red-shouldered Hawk? Northern Harrier or White-tailed Kite? Sharp-shinned or Cooper’s Hawk? The theme for this month’s adventure in our city parks is “Redding’s Raptors.” This will be the fourth in a series of eight walks, one per month from October through May. Join Wintu Audubon Society at the preserve on Thursday, January 12th, at 9:00 am to find out which birds of prey are common in our area. Clover Creek Preserve is a 128-acre open space in east Redding that features grasslands, blue oaks, and a 6.7 acre lake. Meet at the preserve, 3705 Shasta View Drive, at the main parking lot. We will spend about two hours walking less than two miles on a paved trail. There is a port-a-potty located in the parking lot and a full restroom at the nearby Shasta Trinity Fly Fishers Club. Contact trip leader Tricia Ford at triciathebirdnerd@gmail.com for more information.
Tag Archives | waterfowl
Sacramento National Wildlife Refuge
On Saturday January 21st we will tour the Sacramento National Wildlife Refuge. Caravan leaves the parking lot at Kutras at 6:00 am or meet at the parking lot at the refuge at 7:30 am. We will have walkie talkies to hand out to each vehicle. Portable restrooms are located at the “closed for remodeling visitors center” and at the half-way point in the auto tour at the viewing platform. Bring snacks to eat during the tour and at our pause at the platform. There is an entrance fee, dependent on your age and situation, see the link below for information.
https://www.fws.gov/refuge/sacramento/sacramento-nwr-complex-passes-and-permits
Hog Lake Outing
On Saturday, January 7, we will kick off the new year with a visit to Hog Lake in Tehama County to check on waterfowl and upland wintering birds. Caravan leaves the Kutras parking lot at 6:45 am or meet at the parking lot at Hog Lake at 7:30 am (Approximate Sunrise). Hog Lake is located off of State Route 36 about 9.5 miles east of Red Bluff. Look for the BLM sign on the left side of the highway. Bring layered clothes and sturdy boots as the hiking is very rocky at points. There is no fee for use of this BLM property. Rain cancels the trip.
Cinnamon Teal – spice on the water
Seasonal colors, check! Pumpkin spices, check! Plentiful food and gathering with family? Check and check! Cinnamon teals are birds of the season! Turkeys notwithstanding.
Their color is brilliant autumn rust, a very red cinnamon.
The spice, of course, is in their name.
Feasting? That’s what the season is for: they dine and rest in preparation for raising young next spring.
And gathering with family? Cinnamon teals often feed together in tight groups, but they are not so numerous that they cover lakes the way some ducks and geese do. Fortunately, they seem to have an inclusive attitude, and readily paddle among other ducks on the ponds– adding spice to the mix, one might say.
Teals are small dabbling ducks. The dabblers are ducks who feed not by diving but by skimming aquatic plants and insects from the surface or tipping tail-up to stretch below water to gather snails from the bottom of their shallow ponds. Cinnamon teal, with relatively large bills perfect for filtering surface water, often skim the top of a pond near the cattails and tules that ring it.
Along those tules a male may establish a favored resting spot, perhaps in the morning sun. There his fiery eye and brilliant rust-colored head and lower body can shine. If he stretches a wing he shows a green patch at the hind end of his upper wing, the teal color that defines this group. Forward of that color patch, known as a speculum, he shows an even larger strip of powdery blue feathers. But he does not always shine so brightly.
Ducks are heavy birds, and their aerodynamics require them to fly fast or not at all. That requires all their feathers to be in good form. Most birds molt, or replace their feathers, piecemeal, but ducks doing so would be flight-compromised for a long time. Instead they lose all their large feathers at once, becoming completely flightless for a much shorter period. Male ducks typically enter this phase after their young have hatched. They lose their bright colors and their flight feathers. Brown camouflage feathers grow in, and they retire from public life for a couple months. By mid to late fall they will grow colorful new feathers, including flight feathers
The timing works well. The females have raised their ducklings, and the young have fledged and flown. She is ready to start looking for a mate for next year just as he is freshly dressed to impress. She will study the males as they preen and strut for her attention, and make her selection. The pair will bond over the winter.
The female runs nesting. She builds her nest in dead pond-side vegetation, often under overhanging reeds that require her to tunnel into the den. There she will incubate 4-16 eggs, sometimes including eggs donated by a female from another species. When the young hatch in about three weeks she will guide them for a couple months, until they take wing to spread their own spice.
Clear Creek Wastewater Treatment Plant
Join us at the City of Redding Clear Creek Wastewater Treatment Plant on Metz Road off of Hwy 273 for a sunrise stroll around the ponds and Sacramento River. We will be looking for wintering waterfowl/waders as well as riparian and oak woodland passerines. Dress for chilly and windy weather on a 2-hour flat terrain hike, bring water and snacks. Rain cancels the trip.