Leon Turnbull Photography

I’ve been antsy lately to get out to see some waterfalls. I get this way once the rain starts here. I love the rain. You may think I’m crazy, but to me, rain means waterfalls. I love hiking in the rain too. You may think I’m crazy about that too. The only thing that is a bit tough is taking photographs in the rain. After striking out waterfall hunting the previous weekend, on Christmas Eve, I was pretty much going bonkers. My wife let me (or kicked me) out of the house for a couple hours, and off I went to Traverse Creek Falls.

Traverse Creek Falls is a nice little 30 ft. high waterfall, close by, and fairly easy to get to. It is a good one for seeing how the waterfalls are flowing generally, because its flow varies so much. In the summer, it is completely dry. When it is flowing, it varies from a single segmented form (seen here), to a beautiful Havasu Falls type double segmented form, to an all out 25 foot wide torrent of water. I was hoping it would be in double segmented form, but unfortunately it was still in single segment form. We just need a little more rain.

But it has been raining quite a bit this month. We’ve gotten quite a lot of snow in the mountains, much needed for our water supply (and the spring waterfall season of course). Snow in the mountains usually means rain in the valley. And that means the valley and coastal waterfalls flowing again. On Christmas Eve it was raining in Folsom when I headed out to Traverse Creek. Did I say I love the rain? But fortunately, it was only drizzle by the time I got to the waterfall for taking pics, though I only took this one picture while I was here. But it was definitely nice to get out in the rain and see a waterfall. Merry Christmas everyone!

I found a very cool spot for bird watching and it is basically right across from my house! I could easily walk to it from my house, and although it is right beside a very busy street, it seems to be somewhat isolated from traffic. Well, you can see and hear the cars going by, but it seems not too many people walk down there. I had the place all to myself, and only saw one jogger going by while I was down there (but then again, it was a windy and cold day).

I’ve lived in Folsom quite a while, and have passed this spot (and have seen it) many times. But I’ve never had an urge to go down there until now. It is a neat little marshy area. The really nice thing about it is that you can get right down to the water easily (though it did require a bit of whacking through overgrown prickly brush). I saw quite a few birds in this area, including this egret, a GBH, a hawk, American Coots, another unidentifiable duck like creature, and plenty of smaller birds as well. I unfortunately scared off this egret when I got down to the water, even though I was trying to very quietly make my way through all the brush and branches. But I didn’t scare off the heron or the other birds. So I had a grand old time just sitting down there, enjoying the birds.

By the way, I did go out waterfall hunting this past weekend. But I struck out. It’s finally been raining like egrets around here. The waterfalls are flowing again (at least for now). I went out to try and find a brand new waterfall that someone had told me about in passing. What I found was a 20 footer along a small creek that wasn’t flowing too well. It’s one of those types of waterfalls that would only be decent during a raging flood. I didn’t even take a picture of it. I gotta start asking more questions when people tell me about waterfalls. How tall is it? What is it like … really ? So in the meantime, you’re stuck with wildlife shots for awhile. Hopefully, I’ll be able to get out and find some more (good) waterfalls over Christmas.

I found a family of beavers while I was out and about recently. It is “somewhere along the American River”. It is kind of a