How a bunch of teen birders spotted 100 species in a single day with Kenn Kaufman at the Point Reyes Birding Festival
It was April 27th at six in the morning. We had woken up an hour earlier and packed what gear we needed into our backpacks. After that, my dad and I quickly ate breakfast and drove southwest from Sacramento toward the coast of California. The sun was just coming up and as it became lighter, […]
Tips for Nature Journaling
I began journaling birds in January 2018. The previous November, I had taken a sketching class with Kieth Hansen and that was when I started drawing birds in the field. For Christmas, to encourage me to draw and observe birds more, my parents bought me The Laws Guide to Nature Drawing and Journaling, a book […]
A Christmas Lifer
Winter had just begun and so had the rare birds in Sacramento. A late Western Tanager had been observed eating fruit, its winter diet, in a backyard and a Band-tailed Pigeon had gotten lost on the American River. But the most unusual bird listed today was a White-winged Scoter who felt at home on the […]
Fall birding at Colusa
On the 26th of November, our family took a trip to Colusa National Wildlife Refuge. This nature area is in northeastern Colusa County, California and has over one million ducks and geese in winter. From where I live in Sacramento, the drive takes about 1.5 hours. On finding the correct exit and getting off, we […]
How We Spotted the First Ever Saw-whet Owl at the ABA’s Camp Colorado
Having eluded scientists for a century, the Northern Saw-whet Owl is more common than you might think. In fact, if you spot one, it is likely that there are dozens more nearby that you won’t see. This is because they are so camouflaged against most trees and so still when approached by a possible predator. […]
Discovering an Abundance of a Rare Species
As a young birder, I received a scholarship to go to an ABA birding camp in Colorado this summer. This was the second scholarship I was awarded from the Central Valley Bird Club of California. The first one was in 2016 for a camp where I birded for a week in the Sierra Nevadas with […]
Chasing a Rare Bird in California – The Worm-eating Warbler
One evening the news came. Andrew Lee, a prominent eBirder, spotted a Worm-eating Warbler in Sacramento County at a park only minutes from our house. This species had not been seen in Northern California for almost 50 years. January had just begun, so it probably got lost in the recent storms during migration. No one […]