CALIFORNIA WATERFOWL IN FALL

     In the middle of October, 2021, I saw many thousands of attractive northern pintail ducks on human-made impoundments in the Sacramento National Wildlife Refuge in California's Central Valley.  I saw the refuge and the pintails by a live camera and our home computer screen.  I've never seen so many pintails in one place at one time.  And, perhaps as an added bonus, by mid-November, I saw thousands of elegant snow geese in that same refuge.  Together, the pintails and snows, by sheer numbers, dominated the refuge's built ponds.  They keep the refuge alive with their comings and goings between ponds and feeding fields and marshes.

     During October until mid-December, via our computer screen, I was thrilled to watch great flocks of handsome geese and puddle ducks of several kinds in their natural, wintering habitat at Sacramento Refuge.  In early October, I commonly and happily saw mixed flocks of stately white-fronted geese and cute, little cackling geese on the built, shallow impoundments in the refuge.  They are post-breeding birds down from the Arctic tundra.  The cacklers look like miniature Canada geese.  And I was thrilled to see the white-fronts and cacklers in such numbers because we don't see those goose species in such numbers here in the eastern United States.   

      By mid-October, post-breeding pintail ducks from North America's prairies were far more numerous on the refuge's impoundments than were the white-fronted geese and cackling geese together.  Now, too, I saw little groups of lovely mallard ducks, cinnamon teal, American wigeons and shoveler ducks, and interesting American coots on the ponds, but not nearly in the numbers of the pintails.  The teal soon flew farther south for the winter, but the other duck species remained at the refuge to at least mid-December.  Mallards and wigeons joined pintails in fields and marshes to eat grain and seeds.  The shovelers and coots consumed aquatic vegetation from the shallow ponds. 

     Flocks of strikingly-beautiful red-winged blackbirds flew about the refuge and landed on tall grasses through autumn.  Some of them might stay in the marshes through winter, where they will roost overnight on the grasses and feed on seeds during the day.      

     By the middle of October, too, great, white hordes of constantly honking snow geese, down from the Arctic tundra, entered a more distant part of this refuge.  But by mid-November, masses of snows mingled among hordes of pintails, causing great gatherings of waterfowl on the impoundments.  The combined tens of thousands of pintails and snow geese on the water, on the shores and in the air were thrilling to see, even if on a computer screen.  

     Many times, either the masses of pintails, or snows, or both kinds at once, took flight amid the thunder of beating wings and the excited calling of snow geese.  Both species whirled in large blizzards of birds over the impoundments a few times, but finally came down like feathered snowfalls, quickly making those ponds white with great snow goose numbers.  All the waterfowl dropped into the wind, for flight control.  And all rested, bathed, preened and socialized on the water.

     Majestic bald eagles in flight, or some other fright, pushes pintails and snows into the air for a few minutes.  The great gatherings of snow geese take flight like a sheet being lifted.  One end rises first, followed by each part of the sheet, in its turn, to the other end.  Meanwhile, the feathered sheet's background disappears.  The stately eagles check for crippled or dead geese still on the water.       

     I saw several little gatherings of pintails, three to five drakes around one hen, on the water.  Each drake was trying to win her to be his mate.  Each hen took fast flight, with the males speeding in flight behind her.  The drake who stayed with her flight best becomes her mate the next spring.   

     Visiting The Sacramento National Wildlife Refuge is exciting and inspiring, even by computer screen.  The birds and marsh scenery there are beautiful, intriguing, and enjoyable to see.

     

      

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