Date: 7/2/25 5:38 pm From: Glennah Trochet via groups.io <trochetj...> Subject: [centralvalleybirds] Cosumnes birds the last several days
Dear Birders,
Last Friday I helped Chris Conard on his bird survey at Orr Ranch, a closed parcel of the Cosumnes River Preserve east of the Tall Forest that features grassland expanses now growing up with tarweed, a beautiful, mature grove of valley oak-dominated riparian forest along the Cosumnes River and some cottonwood-willow gallery woodland along Moyer Slough. It also has a large area of "failed" managed wetlands in the southwest. I say failed because somewhere there is a sand lens in those wetlands that prevents them from retaining water pumped into them. Little by little Goodding's willows and cottonwoods are taking over there. The birds of Orr Ranch and around the Tall Forest almost completely overlap, though Orr lacks the rice fields around it that attract more waterfowl and shorebirds to the area behind the Farm Center gate. The level of human visitation at Orr is even less than at the Tall Forest. On Friday we had a few things of interest. Foremost was a singing orange-crowned warbler at a spot on Moyer Slough that has hosted breeders of that species in the past. Chris noted that the bird was carrying food. So there's at least one breeding pair of orange-crowned warblers at Cosumnes this year. A bald eagle was also tallied, a rare species on this survey. Otherwise it was a seasonably slow morning of birding.
On Saturday the 28th, I visited behind the Farm Center gate once again. At the Accidental Forest a few male yellow warblers continued to countersing. A western flycatcher uttered a few songs near where it sang a week earlier during the Tall Forest bird survey (probably breeding by a breeding bird atlassing criterion). I nearly missed the summer tanager at the Tall Forest. He sang only briefly near the south end of Warbler Woods. Near the equipment pad, the flooded fallow rice fields had several shorebirds: black-necked stilt- 9, killdeer- 20, greater yellowlegs- 16, Wilson's phalarope- 14 (eight adult females, two adult males and four juveniles; did they breed locally this year?).
On Monday, I started at Lost Slough East, hoping for American bitterns before dawn in the north side tules. No luck with that. So far as I know the preserve no longer has summering bitterns, thanks to the waterfowl focus of a previous preserve manager. Nor were there any northern rough-winged swallows along Lost Slough East itself, the slough being mostly overgrown with water hyacinth. There were a few greater yellowlegs and an early (?) Wilson's snipe (I don't get those before the 4th of July, and uncommonly that early). I then went to the Accidental Forest. No western flycatcher today, though two male yellow warblers continued to sing. I spent most of my time recovering the trail from the parking area north to the Triangle Pond. I should do the same for the track on the north and west side of that woodland block. I then went to the Tall Forest. The continuing highlight is the male summer tanager. He was singing almost continuously for 50 minutes from the north end of Warbler Woods, from Oak Island and from cottonwoods northeast and west of Oak Island. He sang a bit from the north part of the Bottoms and then fell silent. I never saw him except once when he flew between perches. I last checked the flooded fallow rice fields northwest of the pad. There were a few shorebirds, some killdeer (I neglected to count those), 14 stilts, 19 greater yellowlegs and eight Wilson's phalaropes.
This morning I started at the Love Shack, which was very quiet. I then checked a small Westervelt mitigation early successional forest plot from its perimeter, hoping for blue grosbeaks. These have been in short supply this year, and I didn't encounter any today. An early walk along Wood Duck Slough and out the west side road failed to turn up the summer tanager, though from Oak Island a few hours later I heard it sing from the north end of Warbler Woods for about four minutes before ceasing to sing or flying out of earshot. At the Accidental Forest I missed the western flycatcher. Four yellow warblers continue to sing out there. Another species harder to come by than usual this year is Hutton's vireo. One sang this morning along the east side edge. I made three passes at the shorebird fields, the first before sunrise nearly a bust but the other two were worthwhile. Minimum numbers were the following: killdeer- 28 black-necked stilt- 22 American avocet- 5 (FOS) long-billed curlew- 1 least sandpiper- 31 (FOS) western sandpiper- 5 (FOS) greater yellowlegs- 29 Wilson's phalarope- 1 One of the rice fields adjacent to Johnson's pastures had 14 more long-billed curlews, the largest number I've seen at Cosumnes in years. The mammal highlight today was a mink at the twin pumps. I rarely see these outside of spring.
I understand that preserve staff will be preparing publicly viewable fields for shorebirds soon. Right now there isn't much except behind the Farm Center gate.
