Sacramento National Wild Bird Refuge

Yesterday was another beautiful day here in northern California. The sun was shining and temperatures were in the mid-50s. Finally some warmth! Being the intrepid, adventuresome family that we are, we loaded up in Big Red-aka "The Truck"-and headed out into the world for some new experiences. I was over-ridden and we headed south, away from snow country, and to the Sacramento National Wild Bird Refuge. Which turned out to be a pretty cool place. Since Vanessa and I are bonded at the hip anyway, we supposed we could chalk up our new experiences together. It was pretty crazy, but we realized that whenever we are walking with Mom and Dad, we all walk in the same order that we ride in a vehicle. Dad and Mom in front, Vanessa and I in back-and in that left to right order. And heaven help us, especially Vanessa and I, if we get out of line or something cause then we're tripping over everyone else and just plain can't walk. That is why I had such issues on this log. Not because I am, you know, challenged or something, but because we messed up the Order!

Our new experiences finally did begin though. See, Mom and Dad both saw birds!
"Look at the thousands of ducks and geese just across that creek!" We could hear them too. Talk about noisy. I don't think their mothers ever taught them that they should only speak when spoken to and always, no never, speak with their mouths full. If their mothers had done them justice they wouldn't have to shout all the time and I coulda heard myself think! After our little walk, we decided it was probably safer and that we might actually see more birds if we just took the auto tour.
Some of us were fascinated and trying very hard to get pictures of the fowl (note Vanessa in the left side of the pic) while others of us were craning out of the truck trying to identify airplanes. Which we determined was an extremely rare four prop, silverbellied American Airliner. Very shy planes, fly at high altitudes and are hard to get photographs of. You have to sneak up on them while they're sitting on the tarmac.
If you've read Vanessa's blog lately, The Paths Taken you would understand just how much she actually doesn't love nature. So she quickly lost what little fascination she'd had with the birds and just sort of slumped in the bed of the truck. And then she fell asleep.Being the intrepid documentor of adventures that I am, stayed awake to snap these great shots.American Coots. Do coots have cooties? It seems impossible cause their such cuties! Hahahaha! jk.An American Bittern. Bitterns are such bitter birds. :PMountains and waterfowl.A cute little squirrel. And for the piece de resistance.....Swans! I think they were tundra swans and they were very beautiful. I was so excited because I never thought that I would actually see wild swans in my lifetime. It was pretty cool. And that is the tale of our great Tuesday Adventure. Oh, we did drive around Sutter's Buttes too, the smallest mountain range in the world. They seemed rather baren but are actually quite a pretty little range. Tuesday was a great day!