Reflections of the Natural World

Travel with me as I explore the wild things and wild places of our planet. – Jim Gain

  • When One Least Leads to Another

    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 US Fish & Wildlife Service. Read more

  • The Annual Christmas Bird Count (CBC)

    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 biology, though many people participate Read more

  • Are you a Birder or Bird Photographer?

    Are you a Birder or Bird Photographer?

    I had the opportunity to sit and chat last week for an hour with a couple of bird photographers in southeast Arizona. We were seated next to a photography blind at Mary Jo’s Ash Canyon B&B outside Hereford, AZ. All three of us had cameras with really long lenses and were sitting next to the Read more

  • California’s Super Bloom 2019

    California’s Super Bloom 2019

    Upon their return from a conference in Palm Springs, some of my colleagues shared how amazing the current wild flower bloom was. It so happened that we had a family trip planned to the Riverside area during Spring Break, so I thought, why not check it out? WHAT CONDITIONS CAUSE A SUPER BLOOM? A super Read more

  • Cassin’s Kingbirds, Lawrence’s Goldfinch and Avian Eponyms

    Cassin’s Kingbirds, Lawrence’s Goldfinch and Avian Eponyms

    HUNTING FOR PHOTOGRAPHIC DOCUMENTATION The chase began, as they usually do, with a rare bird email report from ebird on 3/14 by Emilie Strauss about a sighting of a pair of Cassin’s Kingbirds. Cassin’s Kingbirds are rare to uncommon in the county with a pretty limited distribution, mostly along the creeks that feed down from Read more

  • A Visit from the Gray-mantled Gull of Kamchatka

    A Visit from the Gray-mantled Gull of Kamchatka

    In French, it is known as the Gray-mantled Gull, Goéland à manteau ardoisé. In Spanish, it is the Kamchatka Gull, Gaviota de Kamchatka. In English, we call it the Slaty-backed Gull. For those of us living in California’s San Joaquin Valley, we call it the “Extremely Rare Gull”. So rare in fact, that it has only Read more