Sunshine!

The last day of January 2011 and the month is finishing as it began…

with sunshine!  Actually I’m cheating a bit – the above picture was taken yesterday when we had clear blue skies all day…

Today there is a covering of high, thin cloud…so not as brilliant in the sunshine department.  As is expected with clear weather this time of the year, there is a cool out flow wind blowing so temperatures haven’t risen above freezing all day..

partly because of the wind, there were lots of ducks sheltering over on this side as it is more protected than the open river area.

at least a couple of hundred Mallard, almost half of which were in the area of the log bay…

A surprising number of Gadwall as well, and some Green Wing Teal (the tiny little guys), most of the teal were at the log bay…we didn’t go too close as they tend to be flighty birds and didn’t want to disturb them.

With the wind, there wasn’t as much activity in the bushes although the flock of Red-wing Blackbirds were spread out along the whole route and it was a

definite Spotted Towhee day….the above, one of 3 I saw by the log bay…

and this, one of 5 seen at my end of the path.  Other items of note for today was the spotting of a single male Evening Grosbeak….Grosbeaks were with us all fall and then disappeared…since they travel in flocks, I suspect this guy was scouting the area and we can probably expect more of them in the days to come if the weather continues nice like it is supposed to.  Also saw a Chipmunk today for the first time since the fall….so we now have Douglas Squirrel, Black (Gray) Squirrels, and Chipmunks running around.