Day 18.049: Saturday morning presentation

Exile #4 sent us a link to watch their group presentation for the project. It was great to see and hear a little about the project. This was all happening on Saturday morning in Thailand, but still safely on Friday for us on the opposite side of the world. 

Day 18.048: Icy; birds

It was rather treacherous underfoot at the cemetery this morning. Melting snow had refrozen and then the top surface had remelted making each puddle a potential slip hazard. We did see some birds and no-one fell - although there were some near misses.

Downy woodpecker

A grumpy-looking robin maybe wondering why there is still so much snow on the ground after we passed 50 degrees (F) yesterday

And then, as we were about to disband, a flyby from two immature bald eagles. One with some missing tail feathers.

Day 18.047: Nonesuch birds

Although things were quiet on the beach at Pine Point (in terms of birds), our visit as a whole was not. The mouth of the Nonesuch River (which flows through Scarborough Marsh was very busy and we observed lots of birds there from Town Landing and from the breakwater at the very end of Pine Point Beach. 

Common eiders and one stray long-tailed duck

American herring gull

Long-tailed duck

Black scoter

American black duck

Common loon

Common loon

Red-breasted merganser (female)

Red-breasted merganser (male)

Greater scaup (likely; could be lesser)

Bufflehead (adult male)

Bufflehead in flight

Bufflehead in flight (adult male)

This large bird being mobbed by several gulls caught our eye as it approached

Happily we were able to get a good view of it a few moments later - a young bald eagle

Day 18.046: Windy on the beach

We had a little outing on Sunday after lunch to Pine Point in Scarborough. We had a little walk on the beach. It was cloudy and windy. The bird action was all on the river, but I’ll save that for tomorrow. 

I don’t really recall the sun making an appearance, but I guess it did

Wind erosion on a tiny scale

Day 18.045: More Saturday birding

After out walk on the beach on Saturday, we decided to drive along to the mouth of Goosefare Brook. We were glad that we did. Here is some of what we saw.

We saw mallards…

Lots of mallards…

In fact, we logged 220 and that was quite a conservative estimate. I guess open water is at a premium right now. 

We saw a couple of black ducks, but the rest seemed to be mallards with a few diving ducks (see below). 

At one point, we saw a flock of rock pigeons and then…

…a fly-by from a red-tailed hawk which seemed to have spooked them. 

Common goldeneye

Common goldeneye

Red-breasted merganser

Pair of red-breasted mergansers

Day 18.044: Exile #2's Sunday Column #514

Exile #2 writes...

When we go out to our nature group early on a Thursday morning, it is not unusual for me to be wearing two thermal layers, a shirt, a sweater, a fleece vest, another fleece layer and my big coat, along with all the gloves and hats and wool socks and insulated boots that come as standard at this time of year. Even with all of that, there are some mornings when I have to nurse a hot water bottle for some hours afterwards, slowly thawing from some pretty challenging temperatures.

Yesterday morning, however, for the first time in what seems like forever, Exile #1 and I got to enjoy a walk on a beautiful blue sky day with temperatures above freezing. It was a much appreciated hint that spring might eventually arrive and, as always happens at this year, it gave the illusion of warmth, because our big coats, at last, were enough!

Bonus picture of the horned larks from that outing

Day 18.043: Beach birding

It’s been a while since we went for a walk on the beach. I’m glad we went today. 

Almost the first birds we saw were a group of horned larks - new for the life-list

The Canada geese were dabbling. We saw more than fifty of them

A noisy American herring gull

An aloof-looking great black-backed gull

Gulls are hard. We believe this is a Bonaparte’s 

Immature bald eagle

Distant common goldeneye

Day 18.042: Footprints and an impasse

Actually, I’ll start with the very literal impasse spotted at the cemetery yesterday morning. One of the two bridges over the creek has been plowed. The other looks like this:

Also seen nearby this red fox footprint:

And today at work, these wild turkey prints (with my foot for scale):