Cosumnes River Preserve Photowalk
(37 photos)
I joined the Sacramento Area Digital Photography Meetup Group for a photowalk trip to the Cosumnes River Preserve. The preserve is located about 20 miles south of town and this was my first time being there. If you get there at the right time, apparently you can see lots of cranes, but we didn’t see any today. We had a guide for our large group and he shared lots of knowledge about the Preserve and his photography tips for the area. It was a fun day, with nice people.
Pardee Lake - Eagle Tour
(Click photo for all 69 photos)
Last year, I found this little blurb on the internet about East Bay Municipal District (EBMUD) offering a boat tour on Pardee Lake to tour eagles and I thought how cool and made reservations for my friend Lisa and I. However, a huge storm hit our area and they cancelled the tour because it wouldn’t be safe to be in an open boat during 30 mph winds. This year, I got us reservations again and even though we’ve been having unusually freezing cold weather lately, there were no storms on the horizon to cancel this trip. They only offer this tour twice a year on two weekends in January before the area is open to the public. Ranger Steve was our tour guide today and had a goodies bag for us, some brochures, an eagle identification chart and other miscellaneous stuff. As we were boarding the open air boat, we saw an osprey dive into the water, snag a fish and fly up on to a telephone pole to feast–a fantastic way to start a bird watching tour! We headed out across the lake, spotting gulls, grebes, ducks, cormorants, geese and of course, bald eagles. At one point we saw three juvenile bald eagles together; they were flying and diving around each other and gave us a great show. Ranger Steve told us that last year was the first year that bald eagles at nested at Pardee Lake and it’s neighbor lake, Camanche, so they were very pleased to see eagles here again this year. We didn’t see any adult bald eagles, which are the ones with the white heads, but the immature ones are quite impressive too and it’s thrilling to see our national bird coming back from the brink of extinction. Folks in the kayaking group have been excitedly reporting sightings of the bald eagle at other lakes in the area too. Next we went down a canyon finger of the lake that was really pretty. The recent freezes had left ice flows in some of the crevices and there was all this pretty lichen on the canyon walls. When we reached the end of the canyon, Ranger Steve hit the gas and took us back to the marina at full speed and at that speed it created a 25′F wind chill factor, so it was one cold ride back! A great trip and I got to see where the longest 2 mile wildflower hike in April will be held–gotta sign up for that one too. LOL
Pierce Canyon Falls QTVR
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Sutter Buttes Peace Valley QTVR
Left-click and hold your mouse to scroll around the photo in a 360 degree loop.
Left-click and hold your mouse to scroll around the photo in a 360 degree loop.
Left-click and hold your mouse to scroll around the photo in a 360 degree loop.
The Apple QuickTime Viewer is required to view the QuickTime Virtual Reality (QTVR) panorama 360 degree images on this page. If needed, the free software plugin can be downloaded from: http://www.quicktime.com
* If the QTVR doesn’t load properly, click the refresh button to have it load again.
