After our visit to Locke, we drove to Staten Island (yup, no kiddin' - same name as in NYC) in the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta. Denise used to be a docent for tours there so she led us into areas where they feed and roost. It was a beautiful day to be out there even if we’d seen no birds
But we saw lots of birds too. Sandhill Cranes definitely (though it’s very hard to get close to them and even Linda’s camera couldn’t get a tight shot).
But also flocks of swans, Aleutian, White Fronted, and Snow Geese,egrets, ducks of several kinds and many other more solitary birds.
Denise and Caleb brought a spotting scope so we could see their beauty closeup
One of the more striking sights was the flock of snow geese (I think that’s right) which would change colors as they turned around, going from dark to white. This video doesn’t do it justice, but maybe you can get the idea if you watch it on a larger screen.
We did not see the massive fly-in (that requires figuring out just where on the island they'll choose to settle for the night which varies, but we did see and hear large numbers coming in as the sun sank lower and set
Denise explaied that they spread out during the day to feed, but then gather together at night for safety. They roost in shallow water so they can hear predators coming. Not too deep because they also need to get traction for take off if they need to fly away.
When the sun was very low, the sound of the honking geese and trumpeting cranes was impressive