Subject: RE: BS: Birdwatching 2010
From:
Joe Offer
Date: 08 Apr 10 - 02:47 PM
Oh, I missed this thread, and I gotta boast. My wife Christina and I went to the Debra Cowan concert in Lodi, California, on the last day of February. Lodi is in the Central Valley of California, just south of the Cosummes River Preserve and in an area where a lot of rivers come together and eventually feed into San Francisco Bay. A couple of weeks earlier, we had been to the Preserve to watch Sandhill Cranes, and it was a delightful afternoon, but not completely spectacular. I had also seen a couple of Sandhill cranes up close in December, near my brother's house in Sarasota, Florida (but I didn't have my camera).
So, on the day of Deb's concert, we went to the Isenberg Sandhill Crane Reserve. This is on Woodbridge Road at Interstate 5, just northwest of Lodi.
Here's an excerpt from the Nov 2005 issue of Via, published by the California State Automobile Association:Lodi, Calif., 36 miles south of Sacramento, sits astride a major freeway. But every autumn thousands of its visitors arrive by air. They wing in at sunset, their masses dark smudges in the distance that swell in size, like storm clouds gathered in an orange sky. As they swoop into Lodi, their forms take shape: stretch-necked birds with ash gray bodies and bright red crowns.
An estimated 7,000 sandhill cranes make their seasonal home in the area, gliding down a migratory path known as the great Pacific Flyway from Alaska to the alfalfa fields of the Isenberg Crane Reserve, a 15-minute drive out of town. Cranes are both dramatic and prehistoric-looking. Their light-footed mating dance, with wings spread wide, is ancient avian ballet, and their calls are like the trill of a distant French horn.
We found a parking area where a number of people were gathered, and settled down to watch. About half an hour before sunset, the cranes started arriving. Most of them settled in a pond that was about half a mile from us, but we could hear and see them as they flew overhead - and boy, did they make a lot of noise! About sunset, some of them landed in the pond fifty yards from us, and we got a perfect view of them in binoculars. Then the birds stopped coming, and most people figured the show was over and left - it was a very satisfying experience. I got some pictures, but none of them were particularly good. Wikipedia will give you far better photos than I got.
There were only four of us left at the parking area about fifteen minutes after sunset. All of a sudden, the darkening sky was completely filled with huge, honking cranes. I think it was the most spectacular birdwatching experience I've ever had, but the sky was filled for only five or ten precious minutes.
And then we had a wonderful Debra Cowan concert, and it was an absolutely perfect day.
-Joe-
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sj
