Depressing day

If it was April, we’d say we were having ‘April Showers’…since it is still March, I guess they are just showers…

The day started off dry…and first I noticed..

these Trumpeter Swans….heading north…

next came a flock of Canada Geese in the typical ‘V’ formation…also headed north…

by mid day the showers had begun…the Canada Goose pair were hanging about down at this end as were a large number of ducks…

there are 3 Mallard pairs here, but there were also quite a few Green wing Teal and a pair of Hooded Merganser

walking along the trail was quite enjoyable as there were a number of Spotted Towhee, Song Sparrows, Junco, Robins and Bush Tits all going about their business….

at the log bay….

this Red-wing Blackbird was putting on quite the territorial display….unfortunately it all came to a very depressing conclusion when someone with what looked like a pair of dogs came into sight, walking along the foreshore with the dog or dogs running loose all over the place.  That explained why the Goose pair and all the ducks were way up the far end!   This is a protected area!  You are not supposed to be walking along the foreshore and you most certainly are not supposed to be letting your dogs run loose in the riparian habitat!

Before ending a couple of items….yesterday I showed a picture of the Chipmunks that are around again…

Today I managed to capture a native Douglas Squirrel…not the clearest picture as the lighting was rather dark…

and then I wanted to share this with you.  This is a Dark-eyed Junco that was in my yard today, there are quite a few Junco around right now and will be more for the next month or so.  Notice the ‘white’ on the top of this birds head.  Markings like this are called ‘leucistic’. The term ‘leucistic’ means lack of pigment and takes two forms…a completely leucistic bird will lack pigment or be paler than normal over the entire body.  They aren’t ‘albino’ as they will have some pigment and their eyes will be normal colored…an albino is pure white with a pink eye.  This guy is a ‘piebald’ leucisitic because he just has spots of white in other wise normal colored plumage. Leucistism in birds is rare, but if there is a species where it could be classified as being more common – it is the Dark eyed Junco.  Every year when they are migrating through a few of these what I like to call ‘oddballs’ show up.