January Big Day: Exploring Wild Places In My Own Home County

In the world of birding, "Big Days" are competitions to see how many species of birds a birder can find in a specified area in just one 24-hour period.  They range from formal to informal, and the competition may be shared with others or simply with oneself.  This month, Eric and I were excited to set aside a whole day for our own, unofficial, just-for-fun "Big Day," setting ourselves the challenge of finding 100 species (or more) in our own county.  

Here in North America, January is not the time of year when most Big Day birding events take place.  (In fact, Global Big Day, a birding event in which birders from around the world participate, takes place annually in May - a much more reasonable season to be out birding!)  At this cold and often dreary time of year, many birds across much of the U.S. have migrated south for the winter, and most habitats are just too iced over to yield a great deal of bird diversity.  

But here in the Central Valley of California, winter is perhaps the best time to get out and see an abundance of birdlife!  This is "south" for many species of migratory waterfowl and shorebirds, and the open water of wetlands, rivers and reservoirs that never freezes solid is enticing to a whole host of species. 

Dawn of our "Big Day" at the San Joaquin River NWR (The birding here around the parking lot at dawn can be surprisingly good.)

Since teams participating in local Christmas Bird Counts regularly tally up somewhere in the neighborhood of 120 species in one day, I figured my goal of finding 100+ species of birds in my home county was feasible. 

Aside from the fun of the game, I had a secondary motive for doing a Big Day in my own home county: to showcase the diversity of habitats that can still be found here, tucked away in wild corners of an otherwise highly developed part of the state.  

California is well-known for a host of natural beauty spots (like Yosemite National Park and the Big Sur coastline, to name just two), but Stanislaus County is not typically among them.  Situated in the heart of the San Joaquin Valley, close to the very center of the state of California, Stanislaus County has a population of nearly 565,000 people (and many more dairy cows and almond trees).  Most of its towns and cities bleed together along the highway 99 corridor, grading into agricultural land to the east and west.  

Accessible natural spaces are few and far between here, but they do exist! 

Bordered by the peaks of the Diablo Range (a subset of the larger Coast Range) to the west, and the foothills of the vast and towering Sierra Nevada mountain range to the east, Stanislaus County is bisected by the east-west running Tuolumne and Stanislaus Rivers, and the south-north running San Joaquin River.  Historically, between rolling foothills and wide rivers were grassland prairies pockmarked with vernal pools, savannahs dotted with Blue Oak, and miles and miles of wild, tangled, dense riparian woodlands.  The rivers drained snowmelt from the Sierra Nevada, flooding annually to fill floodplains and wetlands before slowly draining into the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta to the north.  

Stanislaus County (in red) in relation to the rest of California

Today, most of the wetlands, grasslands and riparian woodlands of yesteryear are gone forever, vanished beneath pavement and plow, but some patches of intact and restored habitat remain if one knows where to look.  And these are truly beautiful places, where wildlife - especially birdlife - still thrives.  It was a select handful of these places that we set out to explore on our Big Day of birding. 

A screen shot showing the hotspots and other locations where we birded on our Stanislaus County January "Big Day."  Notice that the vast majority of the county is developed urban and agricultural land.  (The brown at the edges is foothill grassland.)

The key to good birding habitat is water.  So, we planned our day around local water features, which included a wetland, an aqueduct, a water treatment facility, two city park-like areas with manmade ponds, a large vernal pool, a small reservoir and a river.  As we wrapped up the day out on the grasslands, our most productive birding took place along a meandering creek, emphasizing the importance of water in the habitat.  So here's a tip: When looking for good birding habitat near you, look for places near water!

San Joaquin River NWR, looking west toward the Diablo Range

We started our day in the wetlands and riparian floodplains of the San Joaquin River National Wildlife Refuge, where we racked up our longest list of species for the day: 67.  This is without a doubt my favorite nearby haunt for birding and nature exploration in general and was well worth the longest stop of the day.  In the winter and spring, birding lists from the four-mile nature trail can easily exceed 70 or even 80 species (so really, 67 was lower than I had expected).  

Check out these posts to see what you might find on a visit to the refuge in the fall, winter or spring!

Winter sun rising over a trail through frosty cattails, with riparian woodlands beyond

After leaving the wildlife refuge, we stopped along an aqueduct (adjacent to a composting facility) where gulls like to hang out and added three gull species to our list.  A scan of the ponds at a water treatment facility yielded a few more duck and gull species, along with some shorebirds.  Canals and sewage ponds may seem like unlikely birding destinations, but the open water and abundant food sources available at dumps, composting facilities and water treatment plants make them surprisingly attractive to a number of interesting species.  

A secretive Virginia Rail popped out into the morning sunshine at San Joaquin River NWR

From there, we made a stop in our hometown at a couple of our favorite neighborhood spots where, amusingly, we picked up our only American White Pelicans, Black-crowned Night-herons, Cackling Geese and Belted Kingfisher of the day!  By the time we stopped at home for a quick lunch break, we had tallied up an encouraging 90 species!  A backyard Lesser Goldfinch and a few American Robins at a park down the street (the only robins of the whole day) bumped us up to 92.  

One of three Black-crowned Night-herons roosting in a redwood tree in a city park. 
Aside: While native to California, Coast Redwoods have absolutely no business growing in the arid Central Valley.  But alas, they thrive in heavily irrigated landscapes (growing in lawns) where native oaks would quickly succumb to root rot in the artificially-damp soil.  At least the birds appreciate them.

So, we probably didn't really need to head out into the eastern part of the county to find an additional eight species, but we wanted to explore this area anyway.  We made a brief stop at a large vernal pool full of shorebirds, which thus far has mercifully been spared from conversion to almond orchards, unlike so much of the surrounding landscape.  

A large vernal pool, once a common feature of the San Joaquin Valley, with the snow-capped Sierra Nevada to the east.  (Oh, and the ubiquitous almond orchard, encroaching on the grassland.)

A stop in a patch of riparian habitat along the Tuolumne River near an old bridge is the best place in the county I know of to find Phainopeplas, and we weren't disappointed!  These cool birds feed on mistletoe berries that grow thickly in this stand of oak and cottonwood.  With a tangled understory of brambles (albeit the introduced rather than our native species) and willows lining the edge of the water, this patch of riparian forest is just a small reminder of the complex, multi-storied habitat that once graced Central Valley river corridors.  

An adult Bald Eagle also made a fly-by appearance here, and we left historic Basso Bridge with a list of 99 species for the day.  Surprisingly, House Wrens and White-breasted Nuthatches evaded us at this spot (and the whole day).

A patch of riparian woodland along the Tuolumne River at historic Basso Bridge

A quick peek at a nearby stock reservoir yielded our 100th, 101st and 102nd species: Bufflehead, Hooded Merganser and Ring-necked Duck.  

Distant views of four specks species.  Left to right: two Bufflehead, one female Ring-necked Duck, one female Common Merganser, one male Hooded Merganser.

With about an hour-and-a-half of daylight left, we headed out onto the remote grasslands along the eastern edge of the county.  This is a sparsely-populated, rugged and hilly landscape of prairie and oak savannah, dotted with neat geologic features, like tombstone rocks and eroded bluffs of rhyolitic ash that harken back to a time when the Central Valley was truly a wilderness.  Now, the land here is all privately owned, so birding is done from the roadside, but along the wide, unpaved and largely untraveled Cooperstown Road, traffic is not a problem!  Here, we spotted Savannah Sparrows, a Rock Wren and a Lewis's Woodpecker, which were all new for the day, along with lots of Western Meadowlarks, Western Bluebirds and Mourning Doves.

Oak savannah - grading into more proper oak woodland toward the east - along the eastern fringes of Stanislaus County.

A clutch Merlin as we were driving back toward the main road in the fading light brought our total of the day to 106 species!    

Sunset over the grasslands, looking east toward the Sierra Nevada mountains

Overall, we thoroughly enjoyed our beautiful winter day exploring some of our nearest and dearest local beauty spots.  Yosemite it is not; but just look at that sunset over the wide open grasslands, with the Sierra Nevada in the hazy purple distance.  Sublime. 

Click here to view our full trip report on eBird and see the whole list of 100+ species.