Today we have the second set of bird photos taken by Joe Dickinson on a recent visit to the Merced National Wildlife Refuge in in the California Central Valley near Los Banos (the first set is here). Joe’s captions are indented.
This great blue heron (Ardea herodias) looks to me like it has some blood on its beak. Probably scored a gopher or mouse recently.
This is a yellowlegs, probably lesser (Tringa flavipes).
A congregation of coots (Fulica americana). I just decided that that is the appropriate collective term for coots.
This and two following, more sandhill cranes (Antigone canadensis).
This gives an idea of the number of geese (Anser caerulescens and Chen rossii). To make a decent photo, I had to crop this to about 1/3 of the line.
And more geese all the way down.