Birds Birds Birds 2024!
BIRDS BIRDS BIRDS
A bit of a backstory about this trip. In the early 1980s I was at a winter solstice gathering at Green Gulch Zen center. Gary Snyder, the beat poet was there. It was such an honor to meet him. He had just returned from the Northern Sacramento Valley and was waxing poetically (of course) about his journey. I was mesmerized by the avian spectacle he described.
I left the very next day to see this for myself. I beheld tens of thousands of ducks, geese and swans that filled the sky. The cacophony was amazing and the specter was riveting. I was hooked! And every single December and January since then I spend days at this bird Mecca.
MIGRATION OF BIRDS
It started just now with a hummingbird
Hovering over the porch two yards away
then gone,
It stopped me studying.
I saw the redwood post
Leaning in clod ground
Tangled in a bush of yellow flowers
Higher than my head, through which we push
Every time we come inside--
The shadow network of the sunshine
Through its vines. White-crowned sparrows
Make tremendous singings in the trees
The rooster down the valley crows and crows.
Jack Kerouac outside, behind my back
Reads the _Diamond Sutra_ in the sun.
Yesterday I read _Migration_of_Birds;
The Golden Plover and the Arctic Tern.
Today that big abstraction's at our door
For juncos and the robins all have left,
Broody scrabblers pick up bits of sting
And in this hazy day
Of April summer heat
Across the hill the seabirds
Chase Spring north along the coast:
Nesting in Alaska
In six weeks.
-Gary Snyder c. 1956
The return of the waterfowl to California's Great Central Valley has been described as one of the greatest wildlife spectacles on earth, and it happens every winter. We'll visit the famous Gray Lodge Refuge to see thousands of Snow Geese joining Canada and White-fronted Geese. Around the defunct volcanic Sutter Buttes, we'll see aerial displays of the sandhill cranes and tundra swans. The following day we’ll cruise around the Colusa Wildlife Refuge and then to the Sacramento Refuge for more avian delights — ruddy ducks, pintails, shovelers, bitterns, night herons, mallards, harriers, rough-legged hawks, gallinules et al. Not only will we learn how to identify these birds, but also, we'll learn about their evolution, behavior and physiology. Discover why so many people make this an annual trip. It's fun! It goes rain or shine. You'll need to arrange your own lodging after you receive confirmation, details and a list of the area's accommodations. This trip can be a much needed break from the frenzies of the holidays and helps put “things" in a new perspective.
There are three offerings - December 10-11 (Tuesday - Wednesday), December 12-13 (Thursday-Friday) and December 14-15 (Saturday - Sunday).
Cost: $375 per person.
To reserve send a check to Footloose Forays, 1275 4th St #311, Santa Rosa CA 95404. 707 570-2187. mjellis@footlooseforays.com.
I am NOT a hard-core birder but I have been watching them since I was a kid. And I really enjoying sharing my love, enthusiasm and a bit of knowledge with others. Many of you have heard me on KQED NPR; here are three of those Perspectives on our feathered friends. Yes, I am a birding nerd and proud of it.
Turkey Vultures are cathartic.
Back a while ago I did a number of nature videos for Bay Nature Magazine. This piece is essentially about this BIRDS BIRDS BIRDS outing.
Peter Steinhart; “There is over our heads a river of birds. It is huge and continuous. Each autumn it movers like a falling veil over the north, as if some god had turned out a basketful of creatures to watch them tumble over the horizon. Each spring, birds move in wedges and ribbons, pairs and clusters, from lake to lake, skulking over the upland forests, leapfrogging along our coasts. They are as much a part of the sky above us as the clouds and stars."
And of course to finish with Alma. She was pretending to be me.