With Talons Locked

Snow Geese can be found in abundance throughout much of the country, but they still make for good pictures.

Welcome to another glorious and life-changing edition of Bourbon, Bastards and Birds. Today we bring you some scenes from Sacramento National Wildlife Refuge, a Shangri-La for waterfowl, raptors and other marsh denizens.

After going to see the Falcated Duck a few weeks ago, the next logical step was doing a loop around the Sacramento refuge. The usual tens of thousands of birds were out doing their thing...mulling, milling, wallowing...letting it all hang out. The definite highlight was the Bald Eagle airshow (see below), but there were plenty of other birds to gawk at.

Massive congregations of diminutive Ross' Geese winter at the refuge. Or perhaps they are diminutive masses?

 The refuge is thick with Northern Harriers.

A lot of Bald Eagles were out, striking fear into the hearts of ducks, geese, terrorists, communists, etc.

And then they decided to do pull a National Geographic stunt...

Cool right?! At this point I broke into tears and wept openly as other birders passed by and pointed and laughed . 

Brittany is modeling a Zeiss scope, Bogen tripod, Leica binoculars and Nikon DSLR with Nikkor lens. Wicked.

Cinnamon Teal are one of the many waterfowl species that exist that are more interesting looking than Mottled Ducks. The downside is that everyone misidentifies females as Blue-winged Teal. Pretty much every birder has done this at some point, with the obvious exception of myself (Number 7 here, hello).

Turkey Vulture. What can we say about Turkey Vultures? They lack voice boxes and their chicks look like this. Adorbz.