AUTUMN HIGHLIGHTS AT SACRAMENTO WILDLIFE REFUGE

     Sacramento National Wildlife Refuge in the Central Valley of California is particularly intriguing in autumn when several kinds of handsome waterfowl gather on its shallow impoundments to rest between feeding forays.  And I saw several other interesting species of birds and mammals in this refuge in the fall of 2022.  All that I enjoyed through a live camera and our home computer screen. 

     Hordes of beautiful northern pintail ducks daily rested on the refuge's impoundments from mid-October into winter.  The slender, striking drakes have chocolate, white and pale-gray patterned feathering, and long, thin tails, which are unique to puddle ducks.  Female pintails are also slim, and have camouflaged brown and speckled plumages.

     But pintails' courtship flights in fall, winter and early spring are their most interesting and entertaining characteristic that sets them apart from their relatives.  Four or five male pintails gather around a female on water to court her.  And when she takes flight, all those drakes quickly fly up with her.  The hen pintail and her amorous escort of drakes speed through the air, deftly twisting and turning over shallows and marshes, for a minute or more.  And, it seems, the male who keeps up with her best, gets to be her mate for the next spring's fathering of ducklings.  It is exciting to see at least a few of these pintail courtship flights happening at once all day, every day.     

     Pintails feed on aquatic plants, and seeds and roots in the marshes.  But they have also adapted to consuming grain in harvested corn fields, along with other kinds of puddle ducks, including mallards. 

     Flocks of white-fronted geese, cackling geese and snow geese, all of which raise goslings in specific areas of the Arctic tundra, spend some time each autumn at Sacramento Wildlife Refuge, arriving there during October.  Adult white-fronts are mostly brown with white feathers above their beaks.  Cackling geese are small, cute editions of Canada geese, with whom they are closely related.  And most adult snow geese here are white all over, except for black wing tips.  All these goose species feed in much the same way pintails do during fall and winter.   

     As is their way everywhere when not rearing goslings, snow geese arrive in the refuge in vast, noisy, overwhelming flocks that dominate life everywhere they settle; on large shallows, and in marshes and harvested corn fields to feed on vegetation.  

     Those great snow goose gatherings are very exciting to experience.  They are like noisy, vast blizzards, whipping in and swirling down to a feeding spot, making land, or water, white with their innumerable bodies.    

     There are other kinds of birds that help make this refuge interesting in autumn.  Flocks of red-winged and Brewer's blackbirds feed on seeds on the tall grasses in the marshes.  Bald eagles patrol the water to catch fish, coots or ducks, or to scavenge a dead creature.  And northern harriers, a kind of hawk, sweep low and back and forth as they watch and listen for mice to pounce on and ingest.

     I've also spotted a few kinds of western mammals at this refuge, through our computer screen.  I saw a kind of long-eared jackrabbit eating grass on a dike between impoundments.  And I saw a few each of a type of mule deer and river otters on the same dike, but at different times.  The deer, of course, were eating grass.

     All these national wildlife refuges are great places to enjoy wildlife.  And this one is no exception.        

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