Summer Field Trip at Big Creek Ranch:  June 1, 2024 at 8AM

By Jill Davies

The Big Creek Ranch, owned by the Langton family for seven generations, has a wonderful variety of year round and migratory birds. Please join Jill Davies and Gretchen Langton for a walk around the ranch on Saturday, June 1, 2024 at 8AM. We ask folks to meet at 2977 Mittower Rd West to begin. Mittower is a county road just north of the Big Creek Bridge, off Highway 93, 3 miles north of Victor. Mittower Road goes West and then North. Please stay West. When the Big Creek Ranch sign comes into view, 2977 Mittower is on the right. Pull in and park on either side of the driveway. We will begin near the house with the American Goldfinches, Hairy and Downy Woodpeckers, Nuthatches (three varieties), Chickadees and Great Horned Owls.  We can then walk through the towering Ponderosa Pines along Big Creek where the Great Blue Herons and the Belted Kingfishers feast, and the Clark's Nutcrackers, Stellar Jay's and Northern Flickers holler at each other. Then we'll make our way out into the meadows and hopefully catch site of our resident Great Grey Owls and American Kestrels hunting voles. The Killdeer will no doubt be showing us their broken wings and the fat American Robins and proud Western Meadowlarks will make lovely background music. And we may hear the Sandhill Cranes in the field next door and the geese overhead making their way to the refuge. We often have Bald Eagles peering down into the chicken yard wondering at the odds. Usually, a Murder of Crows isn't too far off and we can't avoid the European Starlings or the Turkey Vultures. We feel lucky to live in a place with such bird bounty and we are excited to share this experience with the BAS folks.