Hello!
During the afternoon of November 27, I wandered around Wahtoke Lake. This small body of water is located northeast of Reedley and almost due south of Campbell Mountain. Wahtoke Creek is fed by the surrounding foothills and joins the Kings River a few miles downstream from the lake, which is owned and regulated by Alta Irrigation District. The lake and stream were dry throughout the long drought that hit California over the past years, and came back with lively vigor after the exceptional rains and snows that hit this area last season.
After coming out last week to investigate, I returned with the Canon Rebel XTI and the Sigma 70-300mm lens, hoping to capture some of the birds that I had seen before. Wahtoke Lake is still surrounded by an area called "Wahtoke Park" on many maps, but it is in fact private property and is inaccessible to the public. I parked my car on the roadside and decided to walk quietly along the lonely country roads that followed the general outline of the lake. There is no temptation to cross the fences and ignore the no trespassing signs, because there is very little ground between the road and the water. I was greeted by a little female Western Tanager searching for seeds among some dry flowers.
The internet provides a surprising lack of information about Wahtoke Lake, and the earliest record I was able to find was a postcard dated July 4, 1910, that shows a party out on rowboats. I almost fancied that I could recognize the spot where they were, near the southern edge of the waterfront.
The lake probably covers about forty acres, and wends northeast from the place where I began my walk. A dead end road meant that things stayed relatively calm, which was ideal for sneaking up on unwary birds that might have been hanging about near the water's edge. I noticed some Coots and Egrets on the far banks as I started off in the open, but soon came up to a row of sycamore trees overlooking the waterfront. After a coot was scared away by my approach, I saw a Snowy Egret perched tensely on a bit of driftwood. We stared at each other long enough for me to get a couple of shots in focus!
After the Snowy Egret flew off I left the sycamores behind and regained an open view of the lake, looking nearly due east towards the foothills. More than a dozen Coots and Ring-Neck Ducks were out in the middle and afforded me a decent view. The Ring-Necks were a mixture of males with their distinctive white flanks and females, which I had previously mistaken for Scaups. I watched them for a few minutes until they moved further off.
Looking around, there were lovely cattails and reeds all around the water's edge and some of the shrubs and small trees had recovered nicely after the drought. There were many dormant trees standing further away from the water that provided an interesting contrast. When the ducks left I turned my attention to the reeds, where I had noticed an egret wading in the distance.
Rounding the corner, I moved forward at a snail's pace to keep it from noticing me. My patience paid off, but I only got a couple of photos to focus well as it went about its business. After it saw me and took off I managed one more decent shot!
I came to an apparent impasse. Ahead of me was the end of the road and a gated avenue leading to a house that sat among citrus orchards. The gate was temptingly opened and the "no trespassing" sign stood in stark contrast. I decided to walk up to the house to see if anyone was around, and a couple of yapping dogs kept me on edge until an elderly gentleman came outside.
Jim, who I wound up talking to for nearly half an hour, had lived his entire life in that house and farms the surrounding oranges. He is a Korean War veteran and had known some of my relatives that lived in Orange Cove, and was able to recall many things about the region's ever changing landscape. This all made for an interesting conversation! With his permission I continued walking along the lakeside. It was after three o'clock and dusk was nearly upon me.
The avenue moved away from the lakeside for about a hundred yards. When I got back to the water's edge there were a couple of Pied-Billed Grebes nearby. One was just below me and kept bobbing under the water and popping up a couple of feet away a moment later. It seemed preoccupied with its hunting but I thought it was looking up at times... Being rather confident that I got at least one good photo, and there being no other birds nearby, I determined that it was time to head back.
Directly across the avenue from Jim's house there was a tree that seemed peculiarly laden - there were eight Cedar Waxwings sitting in its slender branches! I stood below them for a couple of minutes as they fluttered about in twos and threes and moving in curious synchronicity.
Coming back to the public road and the spot where I had previously watched the Great Egret, I watched another one flying over. It looked as if it were coming in to land but swiftly veered off. I'm sure that it had spotted me and I thought my luck had run out. Only a minute later a Great Blue Heron began making the same approach and then changed course in the same manner as its cousin!
Looking back in the direction that I had come from, I was able to view the line of sycamore trees beyond the water and spotted two birds perched on the same piece of wood where I had previously seen the Snowy Egret. I was still rather far away when they noticed me and flew off together. It was a Black-Crowned Night Heron and a Snowy Egret - an odd couple! I had seen several other Snowy Egrets over the lake but could not get them to focus from such a distance while in flight. They tended to settle down on the eastern side of the lake beyond my line of sight.
I made it back to the car without any more particularly interesting sightings or views, and determined to search out the local Kingfisher, which I had seen flying and calling out busily during my visit the week prior. I noticed it on an electrical wire overlooking the lake once during this outing already, but it had not shown itself for some time. It did not take long for me to find it downstream of the irrigation weir, but I was unable to get close enough to it for a decent photo before it flew out of sight to the east.
Altogether, my walk along the edge of Wahtoke Lake lasted nearly an hour and a half, despite not having traveled much more than a mile. There were many opportunities for viewing birds at ranges allowing me to take decent photos with a 300mm lens, and the chance to talk to Jim about local history was worth the trip alone! Cheers!
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