Over the past two weekends, I've spent some time in two of my favorite places in California's Central Valley. Both the Colusa unit of the Sacramento National Wildlife Refuge Complex and Gray Lodge Wildlife Area are publicly owned, managed primarily for water fowl but with benefits for lots of other wildlife - and for people who like to spend time outdoors looking at birds and such.
I had my camera along so I thought I'd share some photos from both places just for the fun of it, starting with the gorgeous creature at the top of this diary. This Bald Eagle was perched in a tree adjacent to the auto tour route road at Gray Lodge, close enough for decent photos. That doesn't happen very often with large birds of prey, so we felt lucky to be able to watch him/her for a fairly extended period of time.