After the festival

Well the Bald Eagle Festival is over for another year.  The weather wasn't the greatest, but it could have been worse.  Water levels were perfect for protecting the habitat and for viewing in some areas, but in other areas, not so much.  Still 'official' counts, taken from the boat tours, on Saturday were 1,434 and on Sunday, a day of very low clouds, the 2nd highest count ever - 4,100!

Now that the weekend is over, of course the weather has improved. Let's start with yesterday morning....

this guy was right beside the yellow tape, still up from the weekend to protect the grasslands.

see how close...

In the afternoon we headed over to Harrison Bay....

it was a lovely, but rather quiet day....

there was a good size flock of Buffleheads in close....2 males and a female here

there were Mallard - like this pair, in many of the puddles in adjacent fields.  Also saw a few Green-wing Teal, the first we've seen this fall.

In another area a number of small birds, like this Dark eyed Junco were feeding on the seeds of the alder trees.

can you find the Song Sparrow in this picture?

Today we got up to a gorgeous day....

water levels have crept up again a little bit...

and it was pretty busy out there....67 Bald Eagles visible in this photo and 5 or 6 what turned out to be Tundra Swans.

look closely at the base of the bill on the swan....that yellow is one of the features that identifies it as a Tundra, rather than a Trumpeter.

Turning around to head back home...

this guy flew into a tree that we had  to walk right under....

not the least bit disturbed, he continued to eat his breakfast.

After lunch it was time to head to Harrison Bay again, this time the walk was in the opposite direction and again, it was pretty quiet for birds...

Other than Common Loons....seems they like this particular spot...

this one was busy attempting to eat a crayfish