This afternoon the rain/snow stopped and the sun came out and I just had to get out for a walk…
it was just beautiful…and I noticed, way over there…a lot of
Great Blue Heron, six in this picture…
another four over here and I’m sure if I’d had binoculars with me I could have spotted even more!
this view shows some of the heron and some ducks…Mallards
approaching the log bay (you can’t usually see it like this! The snow has really bashed down the bushes)…
I could hear swans…
some here…along with Mallards and a Glaucous-wing Gull
lot’s more on the flats…this was just one group, there were more further down…
some of the ducks…Mallard and a few Northern Pintail here
Green-wing Teal here…
a couple more of the Swans….
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…
but when I got back to my end…there was this Trumpeter Swan family…
so managed some decent shots anyway. Notice the white patches on the young birds…they are starting to molt into their adult plumage.
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!
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