Author: Jim Gain
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The Great South Texas Birding Adventure Begins
On a very early Monday morning on April 26, 2021, 3 intrepid birders from California’s Central Valley set out to travel to the Lower Rio Grande Valley in search of BIRDS. By the time we returned 9 days later, a total of 206 life Texas birds would be checked off…
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The Undiscovered Country
2021 Merced County Species-to-Date (as of last checklist)Life List = 186Year List = 140 Whereas this title may bring to mind either Shakespeare’s Hamlet or Gene Roddenberry’s Start Trek VI, it is merely a reference to the Eastern Merced County grasslands that I had never ventured into before. I again…
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Birding Between the Storms
2021 Merced County Species-to-Date (as of last checklist)Life List = 183Year List = 122 Seeing a break between storms, I reached out to Rich Brown and Dale Swanberg to see if they wanted to explore the San Luis Reservoir State Recreation areas. I was hoping that something unusual would show…
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BIRDING THE MERCED RIVER
2021 Merced County Species-to-Date (as of last checklist)Life List = 179Year List = 99 HENDERSON PARK Nestled next to the Merced River, surrounded by riparian trees and home to a myriad of ornamental evergreen and deciduous trees in an open setting, Henderson Park was our target for the morning. COLLEGE…
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COVID-19 Birding – A Therapeutic Walk in Nature
Contact with nature benefits our mood, our psychological well-being, our mental health, and our cognitive functioning. For centuries outdoor enthusiasts have given testimony to the joy one can derive from a simple walk in nature. “One touch of nature makes the whole world kin.” ― William Shakespeare “Look deep into nature, and then…
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I Tried to Catch the Fog, but I Mist
Merced County 2021 Checklists 3, 4 and 5 2021 Merced County Species-to-Date (as of last checklist)Life List = 178Year List = 89 San Luis NWR–West Bear Creek Unit As Benji and I approached the West Bear Creek Unit of the San Luis NWR, I knew it was going to be…
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Merced County 2021 eBird Checklist #2 – Merced NWR
2021 Merced County Species-to-DateLife List = 178Year List = 76 After a delightful tour around the San Luis NWR – Waterfowl Tour Route, my next destination would be the Merced NWR. Infamous for its auto tour route that takes visitors on a loop through time with thousands of Snow Geese,…
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The Quest Begins – 1/4/2021
THE FOCUS IS SETPart way through last year’s San Joaquin County Birding Push, I began to consider what I would focus on for 2021. The answer was simple, focus on the southern adjacent county to Stanislaus, MERCED COUNTY. A quick check in eBird showed that I had a lot of…
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When One Least Leads to Another
The Discovery It was 6:30 am and I found myself, once again, at the southern part of the San Joaquin River National Wildlife Refuge, west of Modesto. The previous morning I had started a run of point counts as a part of the Least Bell’s Vireo monitoring program with the…
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The Annual Christmas Bird Count (CBC)
WHAT IS A CHRISTMAS BIRD COUNT? The Christmas Bird Count (CBC) is a census of birds in the Western Hemisphere, performed annually in the early Northern-hemisphere winter by volunteer birdwatchers and administered by the National Audubon Society. The purpose is to provide population data for use in science, especially conservation…
Reflections of the Natural World 