Wednesday, January 07, 2015

Sonny Bono's Legacy


We went to the Sonny Bono Salton Sea National Wildlife Refuge today Jan 5, 2015 and it was a great experience. "The Sonny Bono Salton Sea National Wildlife Refuge is located 40 miles north of the Mexican border at the southern end of the Salton Sea in California’s Imperial Valley."

Our first encounter with birds at the center were Quails and Dove...

... followed by a Roadrunner.

Then came thousands of snow geese ....


  
 ... that landed in a field below the observation platform...


... observing them more closely I realized they did not all have the exact same coloring.

We drove to another part of the national wildlife refuge and along the way spotted this Black Phoebe on a wire ...

... as well as a Meadowlark...


... looking all around for food...

... there was a lot of food but I don't think Meadowlarks eat the Kale being harvested in the field.

A little farther we caught sight of a Loggerhead Shrike...

...and in a distant field some Sand-hill Cranes.

At another Refuge observation point we found Snowy Egrets, some waiting on the bank of a irrigation canal...


... and others playing catch me if you can...

... near a few Long Billed Dowitcher's  feeding through...

... their straw-like bills/

 Across the pond were several Northern Shovels snaking as they floated along the reeds.

 
Just when we thought our birding day was done Sharyn spotted this Vermilion Flycatcher next to the entrance of the RV park where we are staying - It was a very good day for bird watching.

Quote of the Day~ “I claim that this bookless library is a dream, a hallucination of on-line addicts; network neophytes, and library-automation insiders...Instead, I suspect computers will deviously chew away at libraries from the inside. They'll eat up book budgets and require librarians that are more comfortable with computers than with children and scholars. Libraries will become adept at supplying the public with fast, low-quality information.

The result won't be a library without books--it'll be a library without value.” ~ Clifford Stoll (Arthor of one of my favorite books "The Cockoo's Egg" - Well worth reading

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©Paul Viel