An interesting day

 Today was a rather interesting day....the weather is changing and that always seems to contribute to more bird activity.  

this morning, out on the flats, there were so many eagles....in fact my co-caretaker for the IBA managed a count and ended up with 1,130....of course that was just in the immediate area and most were way, way out....but it was an encouraging number.

here is the scene in another section.

After lunch we headed over to Harrison Bay where the water levels are even lower ...

never have we seen the river like this!  With rain in the forecast, hopefully this is as low as it goes and water levels will rise a bit soon.  It is now so low that all those Coots that have been hanging about seem to have moved on.  I heard some were further up the river and there were a few scattered along this section, but nothing like the numbers we have been seeing.

until we reached this spot, it seemed like nothing was happening....but then...

out on the river, a couple of Loons (actually there were more than just these two) and Double Crested Cormorant...

Mallards and Wigeons along the shore and what makes this interesting is that it looks like the male wigeon (top middle) could be a Eurasian cross notice the yellow forehead.

and it wasn't just on the water - robins!  so many robins...50 or 60 of them...very unusual for this time of year.

here is a close up look at one of them...

Woodpeckers...heard several but this female Hairy was the only one I could get a picture of...

Northern Flicker too...this male posed nicely but there were at least 3 more.

and lets not forget the eagles....there are actually two of them in that nest, you can just make out the tip on one of their tails as they work to enlarge the nest, ready for next year.