A Goldfinch????

This was a good birding day.  To start things off I decided to take a walk down to the estuary in hopes that there wouldn't have been any disturbance yet....and I was in luck...from a distance I could see the water was full of ducks...but then...

an eagle flew in low and sent half the flock flying...not content with that it swooped around and went after the rest of the flock - which is what a captured here.  I've said it before, I swear they do it just for the fun of it...they certainly aren't hungry this time of the year.

and  isn't it amazing what you see right in close when no one has been sneaking around trying to 'get closer'!  and I will also say that all of those Bald Eagles were still there happily feeding or resting when I left because I took the pictures with my telephoto and then cropped them further when I down loaded them.

there was lot more activity up the other way as well....and no they aren't leaving...they were having a bit of a disagreement!

After spending a bit of time watching and taking pictures I headed for home and was I ever shocked to see....

this American Goldfinch!  It's not a great picture, just one I label as 'proof it was there'.  I have never seen a Goldfinch here in November before.  Fortunately it was close enough to home for me to include it in my Project Feeder Watch count since it is a count day.

I'm pleased to say that the lack of disturbance continued with our usual walk time and that was reflected in the amount of bird life there was around....like the 3 Great Blue Heron in this picture..there were still eagles feeding in this area as well although not quite as many as earlier, but definitely more than we've seen for a while - at least in the middle of the day!

the log bay area was unoccupied for the first time in weeks...which is probably why this guy was content to be perched there.

and with no one walking along the foreshore....the Killdeer were back...only one in this photo but saw several of them.

there were lots of ducks everywhere....you don't often get these species to be quite this co-operative though!  A male American Wigeon (bright green stripe on head), female standing on right, male Green-wing Teal standing between the two and a pair of females feeding in the puddle.  It was at this point my camera battery died and I discovered I'd forgotten to charge my spare, so we headed home..

Do want to add a couple more taken from around the feeders today....

a Steller's Jay - there were a lot of them all over today and being very vocal, leading me to believe there was probably an owl around somewhere.

and a Song Sparrow..