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Friday, March 18, 2011

Subdued day

Before I get into today, I want to post some poor pictures of what I witnessed last night…

Migrating birds

Yesterday evening I had just taken my little old blind dog out for her ‘quality time’ when I noticed, moving up the Harrison River, wave after wave after wave of migrating birds.  My first thought was that they were swans, but they were completely quiet and it’s been my experience that swans are quite vocal at least when starting out….

Migrating birds

I hurried down to a more open area as quickly as I could (finally scooped the dog up and carried her!) by that time the orderly waves of birds had all passed by and disappeared towards the north but more and more birds continued…

Migrating birds

With no binoculars and hearing no calls I have no idea what they were or even if there were more than one species…after down loading the pictures and then magnifying them as much as I can, I see the birds are white and appear quite stocky…I am wondering if they could have been Snow Geese but I really have no idea.  I do know that the sheer numbers of them was rather awe inspiring!

Now back to day.  Just as we started our walk there was another incident of Steller’s Jay mobbing in a grove of cedar trees….looked and looked but could not spot the object of their ire…but what ever it was, hawk or owl, it must have first flown over the park because there was complete silence the entire way…

Gray breezy day

I had lots of time to stand and listen as something very interesting must have walked the park path, my dog had to stop and sniff more twigs and blades of grass!…when we finally reached the log bay there were a few Mallard here, the first we’ve seen in several days, and the pair of Canada Geese were noisily swimming northward along the shoreline…

Dark Eyed Junco

as we headed back the birds, like this Dark Eyed Junco, were starting to relax and show themselves.  Nothing out of the ordinary today although I did hear a call I did not recognize, but couldn’t spot what was making it.

House Finch

The House Finch, like this red male, do seem to now be firmly established in the area as I see them on a daily basis now.

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