So I got up really early on July 12th to get out and go to Yolo Bypass to go for a hike before it got too hot. The weather prediction was for it to get to above 110 °F so I really wanted to get out early. And I was really looking forward to see what creatures were out early in the AM
I left my house jsut before 6 and the sun had already risen but was quite orange still.
And then when I got there, alas, the gate was closed, even though it is supposed to be opened at sunrise.
There was also a woman there in her car waiting to get in. We chatted a bit. She was an artist, from Canada, and was hoping to get in early because the lighting would be nice. She told me about her dogs (that were not with her) and her family. We say a few interesting critters from the levee road outside the gate including a mink. I did not get a picture of the mink alas. But I did get a pic of a hawk.
We saw some pickup trucks driving by that we hoped would be someone to open the gate but after 20 or so minutes I decided I wanted to go SOMEWHERE to go for a hike and was not going to wait for the key person. So I headed off to the Davis Wetlands. Not as much shade there and not really where I wanted to go. But I felt like it was the next best option.
On the drive in to the Wetlands I saw an otter family cross the road (no pics of them). But it seemed to be a good omen. I parked, got my stuff together and headed out for a walk. It was not about 7 AM. And it was already getting pretty warm. And lo and behold, just five minutes into the walk I got a nice sighting of a muskrat, swimming towards me.
And got a little video
And then continued on my walk and got to see some nice birds and got a few good pics of some including these:
My apple watch kept getting annoyed when I stopped to look at birds.
I took a few selfies too …
And on the way back I stopped by the spot where I had seen the muskrat and before I could get my camera ready I startled a beaver (no pics alas). And a few minutes later the muskrat came out.
And then I was off to my car to head home. But on the way out of the wetlands I also saw some deer.
Overall I would say that this was a pretty nice outing. More mammals than I was used to seeing in a day. Mink, otter, muskrat, beaver, and deer. Cool.
And then I headed home. But this was not the end of the story. Because just around sunset my wife said our daugther was a bit bored and had not gotten out all day and I asked if I might be able to take her out to do a quick shopping run. I said sure, espeically since I knew that my daughter was likely willing to do a little drive to look for wildlife afterwards. So we headed out, made a stop to do some quick shopping, and then I asked my daughter if she wanted to drive by the entrance of Yolo Bypass to see if we could catch the bats coming up form under the causeway. See a post I wrote about these bats from 2014 here: https://phylogenomics.me/2014/07/26/bat-tour-at-yolo-basin-wetlands/.
So we headed over to Yolo Bypass, with some trpidation because of the earlier locked gate. But now the gate was not locked although it was likely to be locked shortly since they close up at sunset. And it was just getting to be sunset. So we parked on the little levee road where I had parked in the morning, got out, and lo and behold got to see the bats flying out from the causeway. I made a short video and then my phone battery died so alas I did not make others. Here is that video. My phone makes it look lighter than it was out — it was actually quite dark.
And then when we had enough of the bats we decided to do a little drive around rural areas to see if we could see any wildlife. We do this often, although never before had we done this after sunset. And we did what we always do on drives. We guess what mammal species we might see. I chose opoosum. She chose coyote. And then changed her mind thinking that was too unlikely so she chose skunk. We drove around slowly on some rural roads and saw a lot of bunnies but no other mammals (we see so many bunnies and their relatives around here that we no longer allow them as one of the guesses).
And then on a rural road between Davis and Woodland we hit the jackpot. Juveniles coyotes. OMG. OMG. OMG.. They were so cutre. Got some videos and a few pics (with my cell phone – my real camera does not do well in low light). Actually fumbled quite a bit and missed a lot of the scene but at least caputred some of it. Here are some pics and videos.
We were SO excited about this. Just amazing to see these juvenile coyotes. And even though my daughter had originally picked coyote but then changed her pick to skunk, we both agreed she deserved credit for the original pick. And though we wanted to stay and see if the coyotes came back, we decided to head back home. And then a few minutes later we struck gold.
A mother and juvenile fox. I have never seen a fox around here. And these two were not exceptionally shy so we got good looks.
Made a few movies – the juvenile headed into the brush.
After the juvenile headed into the shrubs the adult stayed around and just sat there. So amazing.
What a day. It went from a possible disaster with Yolo Bypass being closed to a day where I saw a slew of mammals – a mink, two otters, a muskrat, a beaver, two deer, many bats, two juvenile coyotes and a juvenile and adult fox. Just amazing. And my daughter was beyond thrillled.
