To Napa

February 11, 2023

We seem to be mastering this weather-windowing trick. We’ve really been on a roll ever since we bolted for home almost two weeks ago. After a few last days of cool but otherwise fine conditions in Tucson, it clouded over and brought showers on the day we left for Boulder City. Then after three glorious days there with crystal clear views of the Charleston Mountains, those peaks were totally buried in the clouds when we headed west for San Luis Obispo and drove through intermittent strong winds, sandstorms and heavy rain.

And finally, after five picture-perfect, warm sunny days there and in nearby Morro Bay, the temperature has dropped fifteen degrees today and it’s showering when we start the drive north for Napa. If we’d custom-ordered a weather program for these two weeks we couldn’t have done any better than this.

We’re out from under the rains soon enough though, and for the next hour we enjoy an unbroken panorama of the glorious eroded green hills and mesmerizing vineyard matrices that line the upper Salinas Valley. Once we near the Bay Area though conditions change and we just grimace and bear it through the next few hours of stop and go traffic jams.

We arrive at our motel for the night just before two. We’re staying in American Canyon, a small commercialized suburb about five miles south of Napa, because rooms here are about half the price of the cheapest ones available in high-priced Napa. Not the most interesting place to base yourself for the evening, but it works out well for me because it is only a mile from a large wetlands alongside the Napa River. While Rachael further abuses her poor, brutalized body on an elliptical trainer I drive over to the wetlands for a few mile walk along the mudflats.

The mudflats are an astonishing bird wonderland, bordered by miles of trails that continue on to the river if I’d had the time and ankle-health for a longer walk. The two or three miles I did have time for were wonderful enough though. At first I saw a few stray birds as I walked toward the edge of the mudflats, and after that I witnessed a huge number of drifters, waders and skimmers: dozens of shovelers, canvasbacks, curlews and godwits; rather more teals, yellowlegs and willets. The real stars though were the avocets that blanketed the bay in huge numbers, maybe as many as a thousand.

Up until now I’ve only seen a few avocets here and there, isolated or in small numbers, usually far enough away to get only a distant look. Today was different though - often close up, they’re on their favored feeding grounds, scooping up mud grub with their bills in their unique scything motion that I vaguely remember reading about but have never seen before. It’s mesmerizing really, seeing an expanse of these birds rhythmically swaying back and forth. You can recognize them as being avocets from a great distance because of this motion.

Another Anna’s hummingbird. If I zoom in on enough hummingbirds eventually I’m bound to see a different species, but not yet.

The cleanest look I’ve ever gotten of a gadwall.

An avocet and green-winged teal. It’s interesting that the teal’s green eyepatch shows as a vivid purple in the right light, something I haven’t noticed before.

An avocet and a Marbled godwit, with its tell-tale bicolored bill.

Looking across the pond, with a scattering of large white objects drifting across it.

All of which is great, but does nothing for the Great 2023 Bird Quest. I do see a single junco, causing me to secretly resent that Rachael got to this one first, beating me by just two days; and finally the second robin of the year. But nothing new until the last minute, when finally two newcomers show up.

So the birds and elliptical trainer are great of course, but that’s not the reason we’re staying near Napa. It’s Date Night! At 5:30 we hop in the car and drive north to Napa for a dinner date with another four CycleBlazers. For the next two plus hours we get acquainted, struggling to hear each other over the intense din in fully packed Allegria. It was great to finally have a chance to meet up with Amber and Rich and Jenny and Jim, but hopefully next time we pass through Napa we can get the bikes into the picture too and shoot some video.

New outfit! Rachael breaks the budget with a new pair of jeans ($23, from H&M) and blouse ($6, from a charity thrift shop in San Luis Obispo).

CycleBlaze Meetup #5. Right to left: Rocky, Jim, Genny, Amber, Rich, and some other guy.

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2023 Bird List

97. Mute swan

98. Red-winged blackbird

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Steve Miller/GrampiesMud Grubs - yumm!

Really nice bird shots today!
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1 year ago