Now my wife and I are not what you would term "serious" birders, although we do like to watch birds, and just lately our holidays have been centred around birding and other wildlife interests. These web pages are just a peek into where we went, what we did, what we saw, what we didn't see but would have liked to have - with some photos, maps and links thrown in, just in case anybody is thinking of visiting the area for an avian pursuit.

Black-winged Stilt , Brewer's Blackbird, California Gull, Common Loon , Double-crested Cormorant, Great Blue Heron, Heerman's Gull, Long-billed Curlew , Mallard, Marbled Godwit, Raven (Common) , Rock Dove (Feral Pigeon), Sanderling, Savannah Sparrow, Starling (Eurasian) , Turkey Vulture

Red-winged Blackbird   

American Goldfinch

White-crowned Sparrow

Western Scrub-Jay

Our first visit to Shasta Lake was to Packer's Bay, which is on the south side of Shasta Lake, to see the Ospreys and the comedic Acorn woodpeckers. Shasta Lake itself is massive, having over 360 mile of shoreline (a bit bigger than Carsington). It's a very beautiful place, where the american's holiday on massive houseboats.

The dam at Shasta is the second biggest dam in the USA behind the Grand Coolee dam in Washington State. The views from the dam area are tremendous, particularly if you can see Mount Shasta to the north.

Anyway, back to the birds......

The Ospreys nest at Shasta Lake in very high numbers. There are over 60 pairs nesting at various locations on the lake.

There are also 18 pairs of Bald Eagles nesting on the Lake shore, although we were not lucky enough to see them here.

This Osprey was digiscoped from about 60-80 yards and was flying around generally protecting the nest.

Their call is a bit like "wakka wakka wakka". They also have their own acorn stores, made by drilling holes in tree trunks and methodically pushing the acorns in there as a winter food store.

Despite this we managed to spot this Stellar's Jay at a local tourist spot called Burney Falls.

A stop along the way found this Ring-Billed Gull in a recreation area car park.

See the map for details

Over 3 million of birds frequent this massive area over Autumn and Winter - mainly ducks and geese. We managed to get a good view of these Snow Geese. We estimated that there were between 8-10,000 Snow Geese here.

The camera lens was at it's widest setting here and there were hordes of Snow Geese to the left and right of this shot, as well as thousands behind us. We could have stitched some photos together for a panoramic shot (hindsight eh?).

Our next excursion was to Crater Lake National Park. Whilst we didn't see too many birds, the scenery was spectacular and there's more to holidays than birds, right? Despite the snow having fell by the foot in the previous week, unlike Lassen, the National Park Service keep a road open to the Lodge at the Crater Rim, all year round. The air up there was so clean and fesh, you could feel it doing you good and the silence was deafening!

Heading west towards Brookings, Oregon, we pass through some stunning countryside, where we catch sight of a Williamson's Sapsucker and lots of American Robin's, one of which was shy.

Heading off from Klamath Falls, we did catch site of a pair of Bald Eagles nesting, but too inaccesible for a photo - even a digiscoped one. I do have one regret though - I passed up the chance of seeing some Barrow's Goldeneye on a lake near Upper Klamath NFR - big mistake !

I think I could easily spend a week or a fortnight, just visiting the Klamath Basin Refuges, preferably in Autumn/Winter - maybe that's another trip.

The drive today was a long one, winding through the Klamath National Forest, via Medford, through Grant's Pass and over the Klamath Coast Ranges down into Brookings, Oregon.  We only stayed for an hour which gave us a bit of time for some birding before moving onto Crescent City, California, which was our overnight stop.

It was a really windy day, and I mean really windy, so I was only able to bird watch, not photograph aswell - at least that's what I thought. A stroll down to the harbour at Brookings (how do you stroll in a gale force wind) and what do I find ? Two Common Loons in the harbour on one side, miles away and on the other side about 20 feet away, a male Surf Scoter - what luck !

Using Crescent City as a base, we visited Lake Earl State Park, a small reserve close by. While here I was lucky enough to spot a Anna's Hummingbird. These are relatively common on the California coast, having seen the last one a couple of years previously at Elk Horn Slough reserve on Monterey Bay, CA. In fact in Klamath Marsh one had landed on the end of my telescope, but unfortunately it was just inside the minimum focusing distance required for a photo !

Moving south now, we headed down the west coast, then inland to stay a place called Ukiah, at the Hampton Inn . I can recommend this hotel.

The area around Ukiah lies at the heart of one of the oldest centres of wine making in California, Mendocino. The countryside is fabulous and there are many interesting places to visit, both for the birder and non-birder alike. We had in fact taken a break from birdwatching and were just chilling out for a day or so before we moved south towards San Francisco and the Marin Headlands. Mendocino is a fabulous little town.

What, no birding for 2 days ?

It couldn't last !

A visit to Point Cabrillo Lighthouse provided spectacular views of Pelagic Cormorants and a chance to get close to some Turkey Vultures.

It is also a good place to watch Grey Whales migrating up and down the Pacific coast.

A bird to note here was the California Quail, which we found on the Abbott's Lagoon State Park.

California Quail

Well it was time to leave, crossing the Golden Gate Bridge for the short drive to the airport and the flight home. We had seen many birds on the trip, some we could identify, some we could not, some we've probably got wrong, but I guess that's part of the fun of it.

I have tried to show you what I can of the trip, places to stay and visit, and also some of the wide variety of bird life that exists on the west coast of the USA. We shall certainly go back again sometime.

If anyone wants any more information on anything shown in the web pages, please contact me through my website at: http://www.wildaperture.org and I will try my best.

If you would like to see a list of all those species we saw (or thought we saw), click here to view or download the Adobe PDF file.

Richard and Frances Pittam - September 2006