 |
||
|
Northern Wheatear
15 Oct 1988 in farmyard north of Orland |
||
 Tehama
County is a large county at the north end of the Sacramento Valley.
It was created in 1856 out of then much-larger Butte & Colusa counties;
its primary town is Red Bluff. It stretches from the eastern slope of the
Coast Ranges in the Yollo Bolly Wilderness, across the Sacramento Valley,
and then up the slopes of a series of mountains at the north end of the
Sierra Nevada Range. A part of Lassen National Park covers the northeasternmost
corner. It thus has a wide variety of habitats from valley grasslands to
fir forests, but has been rather little birded in the big scheme of State
birding. The State's only chaseable Northern Wheatear to date appeared
on an anonymous ranch in the lowlands, north of Orland, in Oct 1988.
County birding statistics and links are on Joe Morlan's site. |
||
The sad fact is that I have only one bird photo
from Tehama County so far, and it is among my worst photos ever.
It is a major rarity — California's first chaseable Northern Wheatear back
in fall 1988 — but you can barely tell it's a bird in the picture [it is
sitting on the righthand post in the shot above]. I've blown the shot up
(below left) and maybe you can see some white in the tail (and a black
inverted "T"), and in another shot (below) right a buffy breast on an upright
perched bird, but jeez, these are awful. Something better will come along
some day....
|
||
In my only scenic shot, along Route 36 west of Red Bluff, we see oak
woodlands stretching west toward the mountains (19 June 2006). Those distant
ridges are in Trinity County.
 |
||
| All photos & text © 2006 Don Roberson; all rights reserved. | ||
|
TO NEXT COUNTY |
