Home safe and sound from a sterling adventure with the Last Honest Pizza slated for delivery in an hour. Visited Cosumnes Preserve where we saw: Coots and killdeer. Pintails and northern shovelers. Tundra geese and Canada. Scores of sandhill cranes and a Coopers hawk or three. The best identification was also the first: Ruby-crowned kinglet, dozens of which have been decorating the trees in our back yard the last few weeks. Mike Moran, naturalist with the East Bay Regional Park District was our guide as we tagged along with docents in training. Mike was entertaining, engaging and provided information about coloration, habits of flight and feeding, as well as doing convincing imitations of birdsong. I was staggered by his wealth of knowledge, his willingness to meet everyone, most especially the children, right where they were, neither condescending nor shooting over anyones head. He was there with staff from Black Diamond Mines and they made available binoculars and monocular scopes on tripods, not to mention hot chocolate, tea and coffee as the sun set. The best part: Diana was able to see through the monocular scope with her glasses (yes, her eyeglass prescription goes a long way toward explaining what she sees, rather what she does not see in me.) Better yet, she was able to use the field glasses wed brought along without her specs and I thought for a while we were going to be spending the night along a flooded field between Walnut Grove and Galt. Many thanks to EBRPD and Brentwood Yoga Center for organizing this get together. Now to sort through 550+ photos (dont panic, Im a ruthless editor.) Hope I captured something good with my little point and shoot. There were folks there with lenses larger than my... errr... my bank account. Then to catch up on Facecrack.
Posted on: Sun, 04 Jan 2015 03:31:55 +0000
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