DAY 5 OF MY VACATION.  I got up around 7:30 am this morning, and headed out to the Cosumnes River Preserve.  It was only 47° outside when I started out, and it got up to about 68° by the afternoon.  But it was sunny and a little breezy all day.  I LOVE this kind of weather.

CLICK HERE to see the album of photos from today.

I wasn’t expecting to see a lot at the preserve yet.  They haven’t filled much of their wetland area yet, and it’s still early in the migration season.  But I was still able to get a few good shots and saw a small variety of species while I was there like, Black Necked Stilts, Long Billed Dowitchers, Northern Pintails, Greater Yellowlegs, Red-Winged Blackbirds, Canada Geese, Northern Shovelers, a few Green-Winged Teals and Cinnamon Teals.  There were also a few small flocks of Sandhill Cranes flying overhead looking for a day roost to land in….

The most interesting thing on my excursion was seeing, in two different places on the farm-side county roads, small groups of Turkey Vultures trying to clean up roadkill.  One of the groups was all adults, but the other group had a youngster in it, and that youngster wasn’t about to give up his meal no matter how many cars approached him or sped by him.

I walked around for about 2 hours and headed back to the house.

As an aside: In the mail, I got my autographed copy of “Owl” by Paul Bannick. It has gorgeous photos of all of the species of owl found in North America.