There were a couple of SHORT-EARED OWLS just south of Elk Grove, Sacramento County. These were spotted at dusk hunting over a portion of Stone Lakes NWR. Here are a couple of pictures of a distant SEOW hunting:
To bird this area, we parked at the dead-end of Nestling Circle and walked along the walking path alongside the grasslands. Here is a map of where the owls were flying around (feel free to use the "+" icon to zoom in and see where Nestling Circle is located):
View SEOW @ Elk Grove in a larger map
Other than that, it was nice week in the Central Valley after a weekend of solid rain. Doing some survey work at Staten Island is quite enjoyable when you can see snow-capped mountains in the distance!
But of course bird surveys are ALWAYS enjoyable when you can look at a field with thousands of GREATER WHITE-FRONTED and SNOW GEESE. Such was the case on Staten Island:
I was also near Modesto recently for work and again spotted a PHAINOPEPLA along the San Joaquin River. I first spotted a PHAINOPEPLA at this location back on 5 January (you can view that post on my blog here). I didn't spend much time working on getting good pictures, just enough to prove it:
The last picture is not of a bird, but a COYOTE instead. This particular one near Modesto wasn't afraid of me (which is rather disconcerting):
