Vacation Day Three: Sacramento National Wildlife Refuge

Day Three of my Vacation.  I got up at 6:30 this morning and headed out with the dog to visit the Sacramento National Wildlife Refuge.  It was about 53° when I left, but got up to 79° by the time I got back home around 2:00 pm.

At the refuge I saw a lot of White-Faced Ibises, along with Killdeer, Snowy Egrets, Great Egrets, Redwing Blackbirds, Brewer’s Blackbirds, Meadowlarks, Ring-Necked Pheasants, sparrows, Widgeons, Northern Shovelers, Green Teals, Cinnamon Teals, hawks, White-Fronted Geese, Greater Yellow Legs, and other birds.  There were also quite a few jackrabbits and cottontail rabbits, Blue Belly lizards, and Painted Lady butterflies.  I also saw a lot of dragonflies along the auto tour, so I was looking forward to maybe getting a lot of photos of them on the “wetlands walk” foot trails… but the wet areas along the trail are all dried up already, so… no dragonflies there.

One of the Great Egrets I photographed had just come out of the water so all his mating plumes (aigrettes) were matted together, but he still has his neon-green mating face going on…  And I’d stopped the car at one point to get a photo of a thistle outside the window that was in bloom.  Just as I took the photo, a Painted Lady butterfly landed right on top of it!  Hah!  Kewl shot!

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It was a nice day over all, and as I mentioned I was home again by 2 o’clock so that was great.  I crashed for the rest of the day with the dogs…