First fall trip to Ridgefield National Wildlife Refuge
I made my first fall trip down to Ridgefield National Wildlife Refuge, hoping to find the early Sandhill Cranes and see what else is happening there. This is a long day trip, about 350 miles (2.5 hours driving time each way) round trip, so I don’t do this as a day trip too often, but I do enjoy getting down there to explore. It’s about the same distance as Sacramento NWR was from my Silicon Valley house, so this kind of trip I’ve done for many years (my favorite refuge, Merced NWR, was only 90 minutes from home, so relatively speaking an easy day visit back before we moved).
Much of the refuge isn’t flooded yet, but the various pond areas have been prepped and in a couple the flooding has started. This is normal and overall the refuge seems in good shape. The largest population there were the cackling geese, with somewhere around 400-500 birds on hand. I did see a few Sandhill Cranes, around a dozen on the refuge, and it’s too early for the Tundra Swans to arrive, it seems.
I drove the refuge twice. The lighting was a challenge for photographer, bright and harsh and mostly backlit, but I still seem to have gotten some decent results. First time through I found 33 species, a really nice number for me. I ran the auto tour a second time to see what I might have missed and added four more species for a day total of 37 species. Highlights were the Cranes, of course, a couple of flying Great Egrets, an American Kestrel, and heaving the shrill scream of a Peregrine Falcon somewhere nearby (but never seen).
Current plans is for Laurie and I to head down for another day trip around Thanksgiving, and I’ll hopefully make a couple of trips (mid-december and sometime in january) of 2-3 days. Maybe a third trip in February or March as the winter season starts to taper.
Overall a great (if long) day, with some nice birds, even if I didn’t run into anything exceptional. A good start to the winter birding season for me. I was able to add 9 birds to my year list, putting me at 130 for the year. Last year I had 134 species total and 115 at this time of year, so I’ve done pretty well birding this year. Only one of those (Wilson’s Snipe) was a new bird in Washington, giving me 166 species for the state.
