Quest for the Cuckoo

2010.08.22

We walked quite a ways down this levee to get to the spot the bird had been sighted.

The Sacramento River bypass

This would've been an easy task if the bird had been in the top of this tree, but....no such luck!

Tom looked in this area for about an hour....later we ran into another man who had been on the other side of the bypass looking for the same bird for two hours. What an effort to try to find a little bird in such an large overgrown area!

Eventually we went after things we knew we could find....geocaches! Tom got a geocache here while I admired the view of the rice fields and the Sutter Buttes.

Here's where I could insert an insensitive comment like "The only cuckoo we found today was....", but I won't do that. Here's Tom at the site of one geocache. The first house we ever bought was in Yuba City...I have fond memories of the town. We didn't find the cuckoo, but we had a fun day.

Tom got word through his birding sites that a rare bird for this area, the yellow billed cuckoo had been spotted near the Sacramento River bypass. I wasn't terribly interested in the bird, but was enticed by the chance of seeing some beautiful scenery, getting some geocaches and just spending time with my husband. We were more successful with the geocaches than with the cuckoo quest.

Sorry you didn't get your bird, but you gave me a thrill - my dad used to fish for salmon when they made their run up the Sacramento River in Redding. Gee, what a great memory!! Thanks.

djnana · 2010-08-22: 22:19