Big and Green

Our goal last Sunday was to find and record as many Butte County bird species as we could in 24 hours using only human power; a completely non-motorized ’Green’ Big Day. In the end there were still more birds to see, but there was a shortage of energy left to find them! We began just after midnight about 2 miles above Jonesville, playing owl tapes to deaf ears. After 4 hours of sleep we roused at 4:55 to try for owls again but the sky was already quite light and flocks of evening grosbeaks were vocalizing loudly. Flycatchers, warblers and woodpeckers joined the dawn chorus and by 6:30 a.m. we had already tallied over 35 species.

From Jonesville we mounted up and rode the 12 mostly downhill miles to Highway 32, finding an additional dozen montane species along the way. At the intersection of Hwy 32 and the road to Butte Meadows we stopped briefly to shed some clothing (which we hid in the crotch of a tree to be retrieved later) and snack. Suddenly Liam called out “Dad! Do you hear that WINTER WREN”? I cocked my head and could barely make out a long, tittering song. “Maybe” I replied. A hundred yards away, across the highway, over an embankment and down into an overgrown creek we found the singer, stubby tail cocked, ‘teed-up’ in the blackberry brambles and singing his heart out. Not an easy bird to find in Butte County - we were thrilled to add him to our growing list, and high-fived each other briefly before resuming our trek.

The next 35 downslope miles to Chico, including a stop in Forest Ranch, took approximately two hours and added almost 40 additional species. Once on the valley floor we turned south and immediately found our target Rock Wren and Horned Lark but failed to locate the single remaining Lewis’ woodpecker that had been along Potter Road just a week earlier. We then headed up Butte Creek Canyon to the Preserve to add some riparian birds to our list.

At the Butte Creek Ecological Preserve, while standing on a narrow point of land with the creek on one side and a 4 foot drop into a blackberry tangle on the right I spied a Spotted Sandpiper downstream and, turning to shout the news to Liam slid off the point and into the berries, relying on my teammate to pull me out…this being my second fall of the day!

Our next destination was the Chico Oxidation Ponds perhaps 7 miles away. We stopped into a couple of convenience stores along the way to supplement our meager supplies as energy levels began to fall, but a sighting of a leucistic Blue Grosbeak across the street from 3620 River Road buoyed us, as did Eurasian collared-dove, Yellow-billed Magpie and a number of new finds at the ponds.

From the Oxidation ponds our next goal was the Llano Seco Unit of the Sacramento National Wildlife Refuge. The winding trip down River Road and Seven Mile Lane was a grind but the diagnostic "fitz-bew" of a Willow flycatcher in the willows just north of the refuge provided a short jolt of energy, as did breeding plumaged Wilson’s Phalarope and a tardy Snow Goose mixed with a flock of honkers.
At Llano Seco the standing water of just a week ago had evaporated from one of the south ponds at the unit and so had the black-bellied plovers and black terns of just seven days ago.

At 6 p.m., with the final stop on our hoped for itinerary 10 miles away and strong headwind blowing, we decided to call it a day. Adding up our list from a bench with a view of mountains and valley we were thrilled with the final totals: 13.5 hours of birding, 3 miles by foot, 72 miles on bikes, 125 species.