We went to the Sacramento National Wildlife Refuge, and what a day it was. Iād never been there before, and I had no idea what I was missing out on. When we got there, we did about a 1.5-mile, give or take, walking trail, mostly around the marshlands, but some of it was also through a wooded area.
There, the Red-Winged Blackbirds were abundant, and Yellow-Rumped Warblers were present as well. I saw a bird zip up into a tree that had the shape of a swallow, but it was lost to sight really quick, and I could not identify it. While walking around the ponds, we saw a Black Phoebe, nearly two dozen Turkey Vultures soaring a few hundred feet from the ground in the winds. In the water we saw Snowy Egrets and Great Egrets, only a pair of Mallard Ducks, a single Snow Goose all by itself, Killdeer, and a pair of Black Necked Stilts.
The massive counts came when we took the 7-mile auto tour after the walk. There were thousands of Snow Geese on the waters in the ponds, and we counted hundreds of American Coots along with a large variety of other waterfowl. While taking the auto-tour, what really stood out to us were a pair of Northern Harriers flying independently of each other in separate places along the auto route. They were life-birds for me, so I was really excited identify them.
It was a fantastic day, and I want to go back. There were many birds that live or migrate there that we did not see, and I want to see them too. SNWR was really a wonderful place to bird.