February 3, 2026
It has been about 2 months since my return from Antarctica, and I’m pretty much bouncing off the walls to be somewhere else. Just like my wife had happy feet when it came to moving every year or two, I have my limits for living the Eleanor Rigby life here in Gold River. I did get away for my little jaunt over to the coast, but that was a few weeks ago, and I still have almost three weeks until my serious travels begin anew. So, to preserve my sanity, and to get myself out of the funk I’ve been in since the holidays, I decided an outing was in order today. I need to fill these long gaps going forward. Or pad the walls in my bedroom.
Last month, I had signed up for a photo outing at the Cosumnes River Preserve with the photography club I belong to but was “fogged out” from that. I still wanted to go there since I’ve never been there before, and I thought it might be a good place to see Sandhill Cranes. Plus, I really wanted to try out some of my gear. Practice makes perfect so they say (who is “they”?). Late afternoon lighting was recommended for photographing birds at this location, so I headed out for the back-roads path at 2:30 – it’s fun zig-zagging through the farm communities to get there, although some of the roads are really beat-up. Too many tractors and big rigs I guess.
The preserve runs along Franklin Road, south of Elk Grove near I-5, with a visitor center and trails on the East side, and more trails with larger wetlands on the West side. It’s a pretty easy drive from where I live, about 50 minutes depending on how many tractors are on the roads.
As I approached the river, I could see large flocks of waterfowl on either side, and quite a few cars pulled alongside the road. Birders no doubt. I’m not one by the way – I really like photographing them, but cannot remember the names at all. My brother was a master birder, as is his wife, and they traveled the world to add to their species list (and of course, to vist some fantastic places). I appreciate the beauty, but I’m not interested enough to identify the species of everything I see. It’s sort of like collecting baseball cards. Or gnomes. I’m going to get in trouble if I keep on going with this train of thought. I know a lot of serious birders. Sorry.
The preserve manages about 50K acres of wetlands, floodplains and agricultural land along the Cosumnes River – the river is permanent, but the wetlands mostly dry up during the summer. You can see that on the current Google Maps photos – there is not much water visible when those pictures were taken from space. But during the winter and spring, the river floods into the open areas, and it’s a great place for birding and photography. I opted to start with the west side mainly because I passed by the parking lot first. It was a good decision.
The main trail for this side of the road is a raised levy and boardwalk which winds through the flooded areas and ends in a raised viewing area. I picked a perfect day – very few people and perfect weather. I hooked up my camera and 500mm lens to the fancy monopod I purchased last year, and trudged off in search of things to photograph. The first flooded area had a variety of ducks and geese – nothing very exciting, but very tranquil.
The sun was still high, and the lighting harsh – not really conducive for photographing the waterfowl. But all of a sudden, a huge flock, almost a cloud, of snow geese exploded out of the ponds to the North, and swirled around in waves of birds. The chattering was incredibly loud – time to take some pictures!
I’m not sure what triggers these mass flock movements, but it seems to happen every 20 minutes. So, I just kept on walking, and stopped to photograph the clouds of birds every so often. I also switched to video a few times.
Once I reached the end of the trail, I hung around at the viewing area for a while, just watching a flock of Coots paddling around. The lighting was still awful, so I decided to head back to the car, and drive over to the visitor center. Which unfortunately was closed. Darn. I did wander around some of the trails, one of which goes to the river and another which leads back over to the other side of the road. Since the sun was setting, I decided to head back to other area and take advantage of the improved lighting conditions.
I pretty much had the boardwalk and viewing area to myself as the sun set. I shot a few more photos of the Coots and geese, and just enjoyed the incredible beauty and tranquility (other than the noisy geese).
I did have a surprise guest as I approached the viewing area – cute little guy.
The one creature I was hoping to see, Sandhill Cranes, were somewhere else. When Jan and I first moved to the South Bay, we drove off one day to some other wildlife refuge, where the big birds flocked to during their migrations. It was pretty amazing. But it was an open agriculture field, dry, not flooded. I chatted with a couple of birders along the boardwalk, and they gave me directions to a couple of farms where I might see the cranes. Maybe next week. Or not. I’ll probably visit this preserve and another wetlands area again instead.
And I did get to play around with my toys – this was the first time I really had an opportunity to use the fancy monopod I bought last year. Worked really well. I also played around a lot with focus, ISO and exposure settings, something I really need to gain some expertise in instead of experimenting on a trip.
In three weeks, I’ll be photographing gray whales in Laguna Ojo de Liebre (Baja)…maybe even petting one. I made a promise to not pet or kiss the whales…forget kissing. Gross. But I would like to touch one, even though the naturalists with National Geographic said that is not proper etiquette.
I’ll be shooting mostly video with a GoPro on this trip. No big lenses. And switching gears, here is the finished product of the changes I made to the fireplace in my living room, with the rotting log photo I had printed on acrylic.
I’m through printing acrylics for a while – I’ve got too many trips coming up, and want to save some wall space.
Peace
Here’s a link for the preserve if you ever want to check it out:
The Traveling Widower 