I spent some time in the Clearlake region this weekend. Yet another amazing place in California that I had never seen before (I've never seen the redwoods, either, so sue me). We cruised the whole lake on sunday, including the towns of Lucerne and Nice. We saw snow around Loch Lomond. We saw waterfowl aplenty (HC, I thought of you) including a mysterious large white bird that was cruising to far away for us to suss it out. I was pretending it was a pelican. I don't think it was an egret, but we saw those, too. Hey, wait a minute, now that I'm checking I see that the American white pelican winters in central Cali. Maybe I was right! We also saw blue herons, wood ducks, coots, quail, turkey vultures, mallards, and a brightly, black and white striped waterfowl that I can't seem to identify. Anyone?
It was cloudy and beautiful, not much rain.
Late season persimons, too mushy.
Dese nuts (stuffed in the tree). What's up with this, it looks like woodpeckers drilled the wholes and squirrels stuffed them in. It's not downtown, so I know tweakers didn't do it, but who did?
Gorgeous!
It was cloudy and beautiful, not much rain.
Late season persimons, too mushy.
Dese nuts (stuffed in the tree). What's up with this, it looks like woodpeckers drilled the wholes and squirrels stuffed them in. It's not downtown, so I know tweakers didn't do it, but who did?
Gorgeous!
It might have been a Bufflehead or a Goldeneye. They're all over the Central Valley this time of year.
ReplyDeletecharvey
I wouldn't rule out tweakers. I used to pass through the Clear Lake region several times a year on my way to or from HSU. Nice became the running joke, especially the many places in town named after the town: "Nice Hotel," "Nice Restaurant," "Nice Liquor Store" etcetera.
ReplyDeleteNext time keep going and go see the goddamn redwoods. They're worth the trip.
Amen. The redwoods are unarguably awesome and there are some great places to eat along the North coast.
ReplyDeleteCormorants are usually more of a pale grey than white, but maybe you saw one like this (I've seen many of them around Clearlake at this time of year):
http://www.naturalsciences.org/education/treks/birds%20of%20winter/pages/Cormorant%20on%20ice.html
Tweakers, like waterfowl, are known to winter in Clearlake. But actually some woodpeckers do that with acorns so it was probably just birds.
ReplyDeleteI can spot a cormorant. I swore that I saw a large, yellowish bill like a pelican has.
ReplyDeleteI'm going to go with bufflehead for the black and white striped birds, because I think the head was white.
The intense acorn hoarding thing was weird because there were so many acorns around on the ground that it didn't seem worth it to perforate every tree with hundreds of holes to store acorns. I guess the woodpeckers have nothing better to do.
Let's face it, woodpeckers are kind of nature's tweakers...
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