15 May 2016 While walking around by the Santa Venetia Marsh, I saw an adult Clapper Rail. It was swimming across Miller Creek with a mud crab in its beak. It lit on the mud on the south side of the creek and quickly disappeared.
About a week later
I am intending to see if I can spot the Clapper Rail again. I am headed towards my secret viewing area, when I hear a man with a different accent to his voice talking to two others on the path. he asks about seeing any unusual birds. They say no....and go on with a list of what they have seen. He asks if they have seen the Clapper Rail, they say no, no not ever. I am about 30 feet away and I say to the man, if you want to see the Clapper Rail you should follow me, like I know, I just know the Clapper Rail is going to be there. We chat a bit during the walk, mostly about animals and birds of Australia, which is where is spends half of the year, spending the other half in Minnesota....a very very long flight.
We run into a tall guy with a bit of a german sounding accent. I don't like him. He has been rude to me in the past. He does not recognize me, probably because he does not care to. I called him an elitist, since he complained that I was talking on my cell phone, when he wanted to hear the birds. I told him to go elsewhere, the place is huge. When he kept on I asked "if you were here with someone would you talk to them, he said no" Not more than 15 minutes later, he ran into a couple of people and started talking with them. I almost said something but realized it would not matter. The Australian man asks this bird scope and tripod toting jerk is he knows where the Clapper Rail are. The German sounding man points in exactly the opposite direction of the way I am directing the man from Australia to. *heavy sigh.
We walk on and stand at the edge of the marsh, looking, waiting. It is low tide. I know they will be here. Sure enough we see one. An adult, which goes down out of the pickleweed into a small rivulet of water in a channel, the tide is low. the Clapper Rail is washing a mud crab off. Then it returns to the pickleweed. This happens one more time, only the rail is followed by a black colored bird, much smaller. At first I think it is a Virginia Rail, but quickly realize the tail feathers are not fully formed. It is a CHICK!!!! The birds keep going back into the pickleweed plants and then returning to the open. Within minutes another adult is present and all three do the same thing, up and down, in and out. making their way closer to where the man and I are standing. I am beside myself with excitement. He is reserved. I comment on his good fortune, since the Clapper Rail taunted me with their calls for 5 years before I figured out where to find them. Dusk and low tide are crucial.
The man left just as the sun went down. I stayed, and sure enough the birds came so close they were just across the creek from me. Within 25 feet. I was thrilled.
I went back to the same place within two more days. Both times, I saw the adult and the chick. The first day, the adult was bathing in the salt water and the next day I could hear the adult purring or cooing constantly to her chick. I saw her flash her white bottom feathers at her chick, who slowed down - an obvious warning.
Friday Dusk 27 May 2016. The air is clean and crisp, with a faint odor of sourness, depending on where one stands. It can be strong, but usually that is closer to the parking lot. Im on the other side of Pond number one. At least 100 yards from the parking lot and the sewage plant. I spied a Green backed heron, am being serenaded by the Marsh Wrens and the Swallows who are engaging in their arial displays fast, cutting and flawless, putting every pilot to shame. Im near a gate, a wooden structure which can be adjusted to let water flow into another pond or from another pond. I have never seen them "working". I don't even know if they work. What I do know is that some birds like to sit on the railings of the. Black Flycatchers, Herons, and Egrets and often Swallows or the Long Tailed Grackles. While looking for the Green Backed Heron (i was just there) I spied a river otter. VERY COOL. They have been hanging around here for a year or so, they are active, and their scat is everywhere. Apparently they defecate when they leave the water, marking their trails. I try to get off a shot of the otter, it is close. The second I raise my camera gone. Diving under water. So I try and track where it is going. I find its head just above the waterline, swimming over to some densely growing cattail reeds. I keep watching. The adult I saw go in is soon joined by another adult and 2 sub-adults. The pups are big, about 75 % the size of the adults but are smaller, you can tell. They all swim around the area where I am standing. I get off some good shots and then with little fanfare, they swim to the nearest island, out of range of my camera at dusk. Im satisfied though.
While waiting for Weasel - she is late again. Heavy sigh. I am standing in the parking lot, waiting to walk the Wildlife ponds at Las Gallinas Sewage Ponds when out of the corner of my eye, I see a beautifully colored small mammal running full out towards the flooded field just before the parking lot. I know instantly it is a weasel. (at least one showed up on time - ha) I went to find out where it went, hoping to get a shot of it, but it had disappeared completely.
LATER.......
I'm walking with Weasel AKA Louise Gilbert. I invited her out to walk with me, to see the Clapper Rail. She is late, she is always late. This time she got stuck behind traffic due to the start of the Farmers Market Downtown San Rafael. It is an understandable late. Im bummed out, since I know she will want to leave early. This is her M. O. As we are walking to see the Clapper Rails, she said I want to see a coyote. Within minutes, I spied a female (brown) Northerner Harrier AKA Marsh Hawk soaring just above the ground at Santa Venetia Marsh. She pulls up and dives, I catch movement below her lowest point before she pulls back up. It is a coyote. A beautiful one, running for its life, the Hawk diving for it again and again, the coyote ducking it head to avoid those sharp talons. This went on until the coyote found a water channel and was able to duck behind a Gum Plant. The Harrier kept at the coyote for a full couple of minutes before being satisfied the coyote was no longer a threat. We both enjoyed the display. Minutes late I point out the Agricultural Fields north of the ponds. I point out at the equipment shed to Weasel and say, that is where I see the coyotes most often. Though I have seen a coyote on the levee path by Santa Venetia Marsh on the other side of Miller Creek from the ponds. Anyway, we both look, Weasel questioning me, where are you talking about now. I say LOOK LOOK, there are 4 coyotes out there right now. Running back towards Saint Vincent's Property. I know the coyotes frequent this area. In fact they are there a lot. I have hiked the area, and come within about 50 feet of a coyote. I have shots of them running below the telephone lines out running the harvester which was out there baling hay.
It is always a thrill to see wildlife, for me, it does not matter if it is an insect, slime mold or whale or anything in between. I find nature to be miraculous and wondrous and always enhancing my life.
