23 birds, wasp nests, and insects at San Joaquin

A big rain is on its way they say. Wind, thunder, and I read somewhere they are expecting the biggest rainfall in 3 years! Very exciting news for a drought stricken land; more so for a person who has been waiting patiently for years to see vernal pools fill. I don't think my 2 year old has ever experienced a thunderstorm, imagine that. 

We set out to explore San Joaquin today. Last week there we counted 22 different birds. I counted 18, my daughter counted 21, I'm taking her word for it. Here's her list:

1. Black phoebe

2. American Avocet - (all of their heads were white last week except for one had a sand-colored head. Today, all had sand-colored heads except one which had a white head. Did they all turn in a week or are these different birds? What causes their feather colors to change? Temperature? Changes in sunlight?) 

3. Ruddy duck

4. House finch

5. Seagull

6. Common Crow

7. Green winged teal

8. Blue winged teal

9. American Coot

10. Ana's hummingbird

11. Tree swallow

12. Shoveler

13. Great blue heron

14. Long billed dowitcher

15. White crowned sparrow

16. Great egret

17. Snowy egret

18. White faced ibis

19. Osprey - they have at least one chick in the nest right now. Last week we saw one of them eating a very large fish on a perch right by the main road and parking lot. This week we saw it in the nest. 

20. Common Raven

21. California Towhee

Additionally, this week we saw:

22. Belted Kingfisher - our friend Ben spotted it with his binoculars all the way down at the end of the creek by two cement squares visible from the boardwalk. 

23. Downy Woodpecker - this sounds amazingly similar to our kingfisher, making it hard to know which we were hearing.

Belted Kingfishser discovered and drawn by Ben Clark

Here was a stunningly elegant giant egret that flew right by us and perched. 

We saw tree swallows for two weeks in a row. Watching them soar, especially in the little bit of wind we had today was glorious. 

Inside one of their nestboxes, which are empty, we found these:

Inside it, we found this:

A potter wasp. They apparently don't sting, which makes me wonder if they were placed there intentionally to control pests. More importantly, how does a wasp know how to craft such a tidy little dwelling, leaving a hole for it to stuff caterpillars in for its progeny?

This box had several wasp nests. Maybe pollen wasps?

We found these tiny, speedy bugs in one area of the creek. I thought they might be a shrimp of some sort, but they were so fast I couldn't see what they were until I got a picture of one to look at.

Here's a close up. Their legs are like oars and they are appropriately called water boatmen.

Can you guess what these are? They look like tiny little sophisticated cakes!

Here is what lays them, equally beautiful as her eggs don't you think? She is laying her eggs in this picture. I think they live their entire life on the bladderpod plant, which, along with encelia seems to be oblivious to the fact that we're in our 3rd year of drought.