Wouldn’t you know!

The subject title for today’s entry just has to be - ‘wouldn’t you know!’

With 9 days to the eagle festival and 6 days until I can start project feeder watch….

the day started out with me doing a double take when I spotted this Mourning Dove out under my feeders.  Mourning Dove’s have been seen here before, but they can’t be called ‘common’ (at least not yet), in fact this is only the 3rd time I have ever had one in my yard….will it stay around so I can count it next week?  Only time will tell!

It was an absolutely beautiful day today, although with a brisk wind coming down the river.  I probably could have waded over to the park today but there would have been no point as I was told yesterday that parks had once again filled in the path…

So we took the long way and went to the park anyway.  Of course, wouldn’t you know, that on beautiful days, everybody goes out and so there wasn’t a bird to be seen or heard along the trail, just people and dogs (all on leash) that we did our best to avoid.

I did spot these Buffleheads just off of the log bay – the first I’ve seen this season.  It used to be that a little flock of Buffleheads had taken up residence near our boat launch by early December each year, the last couple of years it hasn’t been until January, but maybe these guys will work their way over.  You can see how choppy it was on the water and that was close to land, the river was really rough.

I suspect some sort of educational sign is going into this spot, judging by the two circles marked out on the ground – will be interesting to see what appears.

took the long route back and then went down to our end…there were close to 20 Swans sheltering out there and more Bald Eagles than I had seen earlier in the day.  Most of the Bald Eagles seemed to be having a great time riding the thermals over the hillside.

closer to hand was a windblown Great Blue Heron and what an assortment of ducks!

there were Common Merganser every where you looked!  these are all females but there were a few males as well.

and my favorite, the Hooded Merganser as well as the usual Mallard and American Wigeon.

this picture gives just a hint of how busy it was out there today.  I’d seen a couple of groups of Canada Geese fly into this general area too, but they must have settled into an even more sheltered location as they weren’t visible.