Seal Beach National Wildlife Refuge Update, Dec. 2019

By Carolyn Vance

Once again, the Refuge will be participating in the Seal Beach Christmas Parade, on Friday December 6. The Parade starts at 7:00 p.m. to 8:45 p.m. along Main St. between Ocean Ave. and PCH, in Seal Beach. Come and cheer us on! At press time, we don’t know if the Blue Goose and Sally Sandpiper will be with us this year.

A Ridgway’s Rail count was held on November 26. I hope to have the results for the January newsletter. Our rail numbers seem to be declining even though several captive-bred birds have been released the last couple of years. No one knows why, so this year’s count is extremely important to us.

The Refuge takes a break in December and there is no Tour. However, I will still be doing bird surveys. Nothing warms my heart more than a long, long line of geese calling and flying directly over my head. (Moon-roof in my car? It’s a goose-roof!) What could be better? The Refuge’s “Most Wanted” birds are mostly all here. Starting with the Pacific-golden Plovers, then Red-tailed Hawks, our ducks and geese (Redheads seen mid-November), thousands of shorebirds, Short-eared Owl, Ferruginous Hawk, Merlin, Large-billed Savannah Sparrow – the list goes on and on.