Kern Audubon conducts field trips:
-Weekend trips, usually on Saturday, occasionally on Sunday mornings. We try to schedule trips either to new sites, or to places we've visited before. In the past 12 months we have made trips to Kern National Wildlife Refuge, Wind Wolves Preserve, Tule Elk State Reserve, Poso Creek, Lake Ming/Hart Park, the Kern Water Bank, Kern River Preserve, BHutterbredt Spring, Galileo Hill, Atwell Island Restoration Project, Bitter Creek National Wildlife Refuge, Carrizo Plain National Monument, and others.
Travel Details
Plan A. Often the field trip location is on the west side of Bakersfield so we meet at the Kern River Parkway parking lot north of Cal State on
Stockdale Highway at 7:30 to carpool and arrive at the site by 8 or 8:30AM. Ordinarily, we are back by noon. If people live closer to the field site than the
meeting place, they can go directly to the site and the others will meet them there. Call Madi Elsea (661-322-7470) or Ted Murphy (661-325-0307) for directions.
Plan B. If travel plans differ from the above, they will be given in the trip announcement.
Equipment Needed
Bring binoculars, bird guides, snacks, drinks, warm or cool clothes. Sunscreen and insect repellent may be needed
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February Field Trips
Wed. Walk - Feb. 8th, 8am - Kern River Slough -- Join us for this Wednesday Walk with Park Ranger Bill Moffat. Meet at the Park n Ride on Stockdale Hiway between Real Rd. & Hiway 99 at 8am. Bring water, snacks, binocs. Call Al (833-6705) for information. Sat. Feb. 11th - Kern Nat’l Wildlife Refuge -- Kern Audubon-Tehachapi will host this all day field trip to Kern & Pixley National Wildlife Refuges to view wintering wildfowl, hawks & shorebirds with Sandhill cranes at sunset. Tehachapi birders should meet at 7am in the Tehachapi K-Mart parking lot near the Burger King to carpool and then meeting Bakersfield birders at the Rosedale Costco (near the gas station) at 8am. Bring water, snacks, binoculars. The group will eat lunch in Lost HIlls or you may bring a lunch. Angela Guy is the birding leader--call her for information: 821-7702. Plan to share in gas expenses for drivers! Sun. Feb 12, 4:00pm - Pixley Nat’l Wildlife Refuge -- Sandhill cranes winter in the southern San Joquin Valley and this will be one of the last opportunities to see them before they leave for their breeding grounds. Sandhill cranes feed in the agricultural fields around Pixley Wildlife Refuge and then at sunset, fly back to the safety of the water on the refuge where they roost for the night. Seeing the cranes fly in and hearing their primordial call is amazing! We will meet at the Costco Rosedale parking lot near the gas station to carpool at 3:45. We will depart at 4:00pm and return after sunset. Contact Madi (322-7470) for info. Sat. Feb 25, 9am - Wastewater Ponds -- You read right! We will be birding the Bakersfield City wastewater treatment ponds, a great place to see shorebirds and waterfowl during the winter. Meet at the gates to the sewer ponds at 9am. Directions: Take Mt Vernon Ave exit off Hiway 58 and go south about 3 miles past the green waste plant to the end of the road. Bring snacks, water, binocs. |
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Wed. Jan. 18, 8am - This month's Wednesday Walk with Park Ranger Bill Moffat will be to local area Kern Audubon-Tehachapi Field Trip Sat. Jan 21
There will be a field trip this Saturday to Lake Ming & Hart Park led by Richard Sparks and sponsored by Kern Audubon-Tehachapi! If you are living in Tehachapi area, meet at 7am at the Kmart shopping center parking lot near the Burger King. Bakersfield folks can meet the group at Lake Ming near the restrooms at 8am. Bring binocs, snacks, water
Sat. Jan. 28, 7:30am - John James Audubon's Birds of America - USC's Doheny Gallery |
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The Wednesday Walk field trip this week, Dec. 14, 9am, will actually be an opportunity to "bike & bird" or BYOBB (bring your own bike & binoculars!). There are lots of waterfowl, winter birds and shorebirds, even white pelicans to be seen along the Kern River to the west of The Park at Riverwalk. We'll be following the Kern River Parkway west toward Enos Lane. Last Saturday on the field trip to the Kern Water Bank, we saw 43 species, and Wednesday should be very good as well!
Meet at the Park at RiverWalk parking lot at Stockdale & Buena Vista at 9am. Bring your bike, binoculars (there will be extra binocs if you don't have a pair), water and snacks. If you have questions, call Al Caetano at 833-6705. Al and Park Ranger Bill Moffat will be co=leading this outing.
Remember....volunteers are still needed to help with the various Christmas Bird Counts that are planned for Kern County between Dec. 14 and January 5th. Please go to the website: www.kernaudubonsociety for dates or to www.natureali.org for complete details.
Happy birding!
Madi Elsea
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Sat. December 10, 8:30 a.m. |
FIELD TRIP: Sat. December 10, 8:30 a.m., Kern Audubon Destination: Kern Water Bank This time of year there is lots of water and lots of waterfowl, raptors and shorebirds. Meet at 8:30am at the Kern River Parkway parking lot across from CSUB (Stockdale & Don Hart Dr.) or at 9am at the entrance to the water bank on Enos Lane (Hiway 43). Go west on Stockdale Hiway to Enos, turn left (south) to the green gates on the west side of Enos, approx.. 2 miles south of Stockdale. Bring snacks, water, binocs. We will return around 11:30am. Call Madi for info (322-7470)
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Sat. Sept 24th, 7:30am - Kern River Preserve Turkey Vulture Festival The 17th annual Kern River Preserve Turkey Vulture Festival will be Sept. 24th to coincide with the one of the largest migration sites of Turkey Vultures as well as the fall land bird migration. There will be booths, workshops, nature walks, childre's activities, etc. plus seeing the vultures as they lift-off from their roosting sites around the preserve. You can travel to the preserve on your own (www.kern.audubon.org) or meet to carpool at the Albertsons parking lot on Mt. Vernon & Hiway 178. Call 322-7470 for info. |
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COMPLETED TRIPS
Sat. Sept. 17, Bird Sounds and Careful field observation Hart Park, Bob Barnes
Wed. Sept. 14, State Tule Elk Reserve, Bill Moffatt
Sat. July 16, Kern River Preserve, John Schmitt
May 4, Ripley National Reserve/ Poppy Preserve, Bill Moffatt
May 7, City Waste Water Treatment Ponds, Michael McQuerrey
May 14,2011 Tejon Ranch
May 28,2011 Truxton Lake, Roger Coley
April 17,2011 Kern River Preserve, Bob Barnes
April 13, Kern River near Hart Park
April 2,2011 Kern Water Bank, Cheryl Harding
March 26, Kern Foothills and Granite Station, Lucy Clark and Clyde Golden
March 19, 2011 Tehachapi Area, Richard Sparks
March 16, Poso Creek, Roger Coley
March 5-6,2011 Carrizo Plains and Morro Bay Weekend Field Trip, Scott Frazer
February 26, Kern National Wildlife Refuge, Refuge Biologist Pam Williams
February 16, 2011 Tule Elk Reserve, Ranger Bill Moffat
February 12, Panorama Vista Preserve, Andy Honig and Bill Cooper
January 22,2011 Water Treatment Ponds, Michael McQuerry
July 17,2010 Kern River Preserve, Bob Barnes
May 15,2010 Lake Truxton, Roger Coley
May 8, Panorama Vista Preserve, Bill Lydecker
Sat. April 3,2010 Wind Wolves Preserve, Ginny
Sat. & Sun. March 13-14, 2010 Carrizo Plain and Morro Bay weekend field trip, Scott and Trude Frazer
Mon. Feb. 15,2010, Sand Hill Cranes at the Pixley National Wildlife Refuge, Roger Coley
Sat. Jan.30, 2010, Kern Water Bank, Cheryl Harding, staff, and Bill Lydecker
Sun. Jan.17, 2010 Kern National Wildlife Refuge, Roger Coley
Christmas Bird Counts: Sun. Dec.20,2009 Bakersfield, Mon. Dec. 21 Buena Vista, Sun. Jan.3,2010 Kern Valley
Sat. Nov. 27, 2009 Sycamore Canyon, Tejon Ranch
Sat. Nov. 14, 2009 Pixley Wildlife Refuge-Sandhill Cranes, refuge staff
Sat. Oct. 6, 2009 Beginning Birders at Lake Ming, Michael McQuerry
Sat. Sept. 26,2009 Kern National Wildlife Refuge Fall Open House
Sat. Sept. 12,2009 Waste Water Treatment Ponds,Michael McQuerry
July 25,2009 Kern River Preserve, Bob Barnes
May 23, 2009 Galileo Hill, Michael McQuerry, Gary File
April 4, 2009 Kern National Wildlife Refuge, Nature Day
March 28, 2009 Wind Wolves Preserve
March 14, 2009 Andy Honig and Kelli Levinson, Panorama Vista Preserve
February 21-22, 2009 Weekend Field Trip: Carizzo Plains, Morro Bay, Scott Frazer
February 14, 2009 Valentines Kern River Bike Path Walk and Great Backyard Bird Count, Dr.Ted Murphy
February 7,2009 Bald Eagles of Lake San Antonio, Deb See and Bill Moffat
January 16-19, 2009 Morro Bay Winter Bird Fest
Saturday Oct. 11, 2008 Beginning Birders- Hart Park, Michael McQueery
Saturday Sept. 27,2008 Turkey Vulture Festival, The Kern River Valley Preserve
Saturday Sept. 20, 2008 Gardening for Birds, The Kern Chapter of the California Native Plant Society
Saturday Sept. 13, 2008 Bakersfield Waste Water Treatment Ponds, Michael McQueery
Saturday July 19,2008 Kern River Preserve, Alison Sheehey, naturalist extraordinaire.
Saturday May 10, 2008 Bittercreek National Wildlife Refuge, Mike Sockton, refuge manager
Tuesday April 25, 2008 Galileo Hill (Silver Saddle Resort), Ken and Brenda Kyle, leaders.
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KERN AUDUBON SOCIETY FIELD TRIP April 22, 2008, to Galileo Hill, led by Brenda and Ken Kyle |
Saturday April 12, 2008 Col. Allensworth State Historic Park, Bill Moffat, coordinator.
Saturday March 15, 2008 Kern Water Bank, led by Cheryl Harding, Kern Waterbank Authority manager.
Saturday Feb.9,2008 Our intrepid birdwatchers once again headed to the great out of doors at the Kern National Wildlife Refuge where staff members Jihadda Govan and Pam Williams led an educational and exciting tour of this fabulous facility.
Saturday Sept. 29,2007 This field trip joined "The Kern River Valley Turkey Vulture Festival" which celebrates the height of the fall Turkey Vulture migration through California's "Valley Wild", the Kern River Valley. After visiting the Kern River Preserve we quickly took up our observational posts at the Sierra Vista Restaurant near the best South Fork Vulture Roost. The restaurant served a special RoadKill Quiche and Compost Fruit Salad for the vultures. We humans substituted fresh ingredients and enjoyed a delightful breakfast while watching the spectacle of the morning vulture lift off. Did you know that circling vultures do not necessarily indicate the presence of a carcass. Circling vultures may be gaining altitude for long flights, searching for food, or playing. The 2004 count period from from September 14th through October 14th tallied 23,898 vultures. The magnitude of the migration over this southern Sierra Nevada count site is awe inspiring. In addition to a plethora of vultures we were able to observe a variety of other birds as well. After our vigorous expedition we returned to Bakersfield satisfied both in mind and body.
Saturday, August 11, 2007. A small group of KAS members attended the Kern River Preserve Hummingbird Celebration. A special treat was observing graduate students trapping and banding a variety of hummingbirds, then letting lookers-on release the birds! Reed Tollefson, Preserve Manager, gave several interpretive talks about the Kern River Valley and its biota and led a walking tour of the Nature Trail that ended at the South Fork of the Kern River - which was dry sand.
Tuesday, July 31, 2007. Over 20 persons took an evening tour at the Kern Water Bank . Cheryl Harding, Kern Water Bank Authority Manager, was our guide. The species count was low but the OhWow factor was high. Thanks to Bill Moffat for arranging the evening.
Saturday, June 30, 2007. Field trip to Panorama Vista Preserve, a 1000 acre riparian area below the Panorama Bluffs. KAS members Andy and Sacha Honig are very familiar with the area and showed us around this prime riparian habitat. For more information, go to the Preserve's site http://www.panoramavista.org. If you wish to visit the Preserve, contact the Honigs- andym5@cox.net.
Saturday, June 2, 2007. Field trip to Piute Ponds, Edwards Air Force Base. KAS member Kristie Grubb led us to hundreds of acres of ponds with many migrating and nesting birds, especially waterfowl and shorebirds. Dozens of herons and egrets were seen feeding on African Clawed Frogs, which inhabit the ponds-what a sight!
Saturday, May 12, 2007. Mike McQuerry led a trip to the Poso Creek Riparian Area east of Granite Road. Flanked by oil fields and range land, the creek is inhabited by large trees and shrubs and harbors many bird species. In addition to interesting birds, there was water in the creek and feral pigs in the water. Many Native American sites are also found near the creek.
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Saturday, May 5. Bill Lydecker led a group to the Kern River Valley, rendevoused with Bob Barnes and had a good time birding. Tom Page joined the group for his first trip and impressed every one with his 1960 version of Peterson's Field Guide! The group enjoyed lunch at the Sierra Vista Restaurant before coming down the hill.
Sunday, April 22, 2007, thirteen Earth Day participants spent several hours learning some of the local trees, shrubs, and other plants along the Kern River Parkway at Truxtun Lake. Thanks to Linda Cooley and Steve Hampson for lending their botanical expertise to the trip. We also saw a number of birds: Bullock's Oriole, California Thrasher, Mockingbird, Robin, House Finch, Song Sparrow, Killdeer, Canada Goose, Aubudon's Warbler, Mourning Dove, Cormorant, etc. And the group, ranging in age from 5 to 70+, picked up dozens of bags of trash from the floodplain and bike path.
Saturday, April 21, 2007. Eight California Condors were seen by 22 Auduboners at Bitter Creek National Wildlife Refuge in southwestern Kern County. Few wildlfowers were seen but some magnificent scenery was viewed on a side trip to Pine Mountain (first for many) and a brief visit was paid to the southern end of the Carrizo Plain National Monument. Scott Frazer was very helpful in locating and identifying birds on this trip.
Saturday, April 14, 2007. Butterbredt Spring. Bob Barnes led us from Butterbredt Spring to Kelso Valley to the Kern River Preserve and Scodie Park, showing us a lot of migrating birds and good spots to look for them, as well as a Great Blue Heron rookery. Located in BLM's Area of Critical Environmental Concern 15 miles southwest of Ridgecrest, the Santa Monica Bay Audubon Society and the landowner, Onyx Ranch, have declared the Buttebredt Spring a sanctuary. The Spring is a place where you can sit in a comfortable chair and just watch the birds fly in - an outstanding birding trip. We were joined on the trip by Tom Bacon, a member of the Golden Gate Audubon Chapter who was enroute to birding in Galileo Hill and hiking in the Grand Canyon.
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Saturday, March 31, 2007. Galileo Hill. John Wilson lead a small group on this trip to a "migrant magnet" at a resort at California City in eastern Kern County . Over 60 species were logged, including 8 species of sparrows!
Saturday, March 10, 2007. Dr. Steve Laymon, director of BLM's Atwell Island Restoration Project near Alpaugh, gave a dozen Kern Auduboners a fantastic trip around the project. With so little rain this winter, few wildflowers and little greenery were seen, except in the irrigated areas that have not been retired from farming. The bird list was nearly sixty species and included sandhill cranes, barn and horned owls, kites and harriers galore, red tails a-courting, several sparrows, marsh wrens, black phoebes, redwing and Brewer's blackbirds, shrikes, whimbrels, long-billed curlews, killdeer, black bellied plovers, avocets, stilts, cinnamon, green-winged and blue-winged teal, mallards, ruddy ducks with bright cheeks, cormorants and ring-billed gulls. Several sightings were records for the project. And we stood on the bank of the historic Tulare Lake, kicking remnants of freshwater clam shells that abound in the soil. An additional treat was a visit to a never-cultivated plot where two Coast Horned Lizards were seen and held.
Saturday, February 24, 2007. Mike McQuerrey led a group of 16 Auduboners to the Bakersfield Waste Water Treatment Ponds on Mt. Vernon, south of Highway 58. Mike, as well as Gary File and Ken and Brenda Kyle helped the novices see a wide variety of water fowl and shorebirds. Highlights were: a Tundra Swan, 7 Snow Geese, a Greater White-fronted Goose, and a large flock of 174 Long-Billed Curlews. Some of the group went on to Hart Park where they spotted Purple Finches.
Saturday, February 10, 2007. Greg Warrick, Center for Natural Lands Management ecologist, took us to Semitropic and Sand Ridge Nature Preserves. Rain was forecast, it never came, the preserves could use it! Sand Ridge showed lots of Bakersfield cactus and other interesting plants, but few birds. Semitropic, a large never-cultivated, but grazed and burned preserve has a very interesting iodinebush-dominated ecosystem which grades into a spiny saltbush system. Probably the highlight of the trip was Sage Thrashers and perennial bunch grasses, seldom seen in the valley.
Saturday, January 27, 2007. Kern Water Bank west of Bakersfield. was explored under the leadership of John Wilson, local birding expert and coordinator of Audubon's Christmas Bird Counts. Cheryl Harding, manager of the Kern Water Bank authority led us to some fruitful spots where we saw white pelicans, egrets, herons, Virginia rail, flocks of black-crowned night herons, ducks, ibis, coots, shorebirds.... and lots of signs of coyote, kangaroo rat, kit fox, and skunk. We are planning an early evening tour in the spring to see the abundant nocturnal animals.
Saturday, January 20, 2007. Carrizo Plain National Monument. led by Kathy Sharum, Bureau of Land Management biologist and graduate of CSUB. A record number (24) of Auduboners enjoyed a beautiful day in a spectacular setting. Few birds spotted, but seen were Soda Lake, San Andreas Fault, Painted Rock, San Joaquin antelope squirrel, Giant Kangaroo Rat precincts.
Saturday, December 9, 2006. Kern National Wildlife Refuge. Scott Frazer, a KAS member and US Fish and Wildlife Service biologist showed us birds on parts of the Refuge that are off the trail route. Great weather, great group, great birding!
Saturday, November 18, 2006. Tule Elk State Reserve. Roger and Barbara Coley, KAS members who have been surveying birds at the Reserve for several months, led this trip. The Reserve has a wide variety of birds, raptors, songbirds, waterfowl, wading birds, as well as a large herd of Tule Elk. A large flock of White Pelicans was enjoyed on the trip. Learn more about Tule Elk State Reserve
Sunday, November 12, 2006. Kern National Wildlife Refuge, Delano. This trip was be led by Dr. John Wilson, longtime KAS member and expert birder. Fourteen of us saw lots of waterfowl and wading birds AND A PEREGRINE FALCON!
