Sitemeter

Saturday, January 14, 2012

Snow day continued….

This afternoon the rain/snow stopped and the sun came out and I just had to get out for a walk…

Snowy Landscape

it was just beautiful…and I noticed, way over there…a lot of

Six Heron

Great Blue Heron, six in this picture…

another group of heron

another four over here and I’m sure if I’d had binoculars with me I could have spotted even more!

Heron and ducks

this view shows some of the heron and some ducks…Mallards

approaching the log bay

approaching the log bay (you can’t usually see it like this!  The snow has really bashed down the bushes)…

The log bay

I could hear swans…

Swans, Mallards and Gull

some here…along with Mallards and a Glaucous-wing Gull

Some of the swans on the flats

lot’s more on the flats…this was just one group, there were more further down…

Collection of ducks

some of the ducks…Mallard and a few Northern Pintail here

Green-wing Teal

Green-wing Teal here…

Pair of Trumpeters

a couple more of the Swans….

Heron on a post

as we headed back…another Heron on a post.  A Northern Harrier flew by and more and more swans were coming in, in groups of two and three – unfortunately you really need to have two hands on the camera to get shots of birds in flight…so missed some great opportunities…

The family

but when I got back to my end…there was this Trumpeter Swan family…

Pair of young ones

so managed some decent shots anyway.  Notice the white patches on the young birds…they are starting to molt into their adult plumage.

the family again

one more look at the family…and I have to mention that while I was standing watching these swans I heard Sandhill Cranes fly in.  I have no doubt they were Sandhill Cranes…but for them to be here in January would be most unusual…I would dearly love to get pictures of them.  They have been here on the estuary before, during migration, but I’ve never been able to get a picture.  There were also some little shorebirds flying around here – probably Killdeer…nothing like some extreme weather to bring excitement to the birder’s world!

No comments:

Post a Comment