Delta Wildlife

I have fished a few times this month but it has not been great. A bunch of small ones and nothing really worth taking a picture of. The wildlife viewing on the other hand has been pretty good. I have found some owls on daytime perches. It is fun to search for them but they dont always want their picture taken. I found some birds feeding on mud flats at low tide. I sat still in my kayak and they got comfortable with me and came pretty close which gave me some good photo ops. I got a raccoon feeding on a crawfish. He was mopping up fish and crawfish at low tide. I followed some otters around and got a head shot I am pretty happy with. I got a gray squirrel with a huge bushy tail. I found some vultutres on a carcass. They are so much about death that it is a little disturbing when seen up close. They are kind of like a living grim reaper. I have some sympathy for them - they are ugly and spend their lives fighting with other nasty birds over fly infested carcasseses.

A lot of animals out there.

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Looks like you were at the Zoo?


Great photos......

I guess we would see more of that wildlife if we were not concentrating on our fly fishing.

I would say they were taken at the Delta zoo although some of them were taken walking along Putah Creek which I think of as the upper Delta. I find when I stop fishing and sit still I start see a lot of things happening around me.

That egret has a good sized sculpin in his beak. Was that on the Delta or Putah?

The egrets are at Liberty. Lots of birds around there. They were catching fish regularly at low tide. I saw that raccoon catch three fish and two crawdads. He only ate the tails on the crawdads. It was kind of a feeding frenzy.

Great photos. Thanks for taking us along.

Thank you John, I really enjoy and appreciate your posts!
Tim R

The last pic of that Great Horned Owl shows what a tremendous camo they have. They're such an amazing creature.
John keep on doing what you're doing! Thanks.
Cheers, Ken

The horned owl camouflage is impressive. When I walk through the trees looking for one I am trying to spot a shape. I am looking for a vertical branch about 8” wide. If I see that I zoom in and check it out. With the barn owl you can see a little piece of color that looks odd so you look for that. I have walked up on a couple of them that were asleep. They were surprised to see me when the woke up.