Last weekend was a tough one – very few birds and almost no photo ops. This weekend was a different story. The PINK-FOOTED GOOSE on Saturday was by far the highlight, but in addition to that, it was a birdy weekend and I took a lot of photos. Heat shimmer gave me fits for photos as well as scanning, but that can’t be helped. I was at Wickham Lake both mornings at sunrise; the lake is loaded with birds right now and made for some enjoyable birding. There are many Common Mergansers (hard to say, but probably 300-400?). Gulls were plentiful as well; it was probably the most gulls I’ve ever seen on that lake, with approximately 100+ Ring-billed Gulls and 20+ American Herring Gulls.
I can’t even tell you how many geese I looked through in the past two days – many thousands for sure. I had 11 Snow Geese (8 were blue morphs!), and I also had one bird that I think is a very good candidate for a Cackling Goose; see photo at the bottom of this post. Two Sandhill Cranes were reported at the Liberty Loop on Saturday afternoon – I ended up seeing them on Sunday morning through dumb luck (they flew in and landed in front of a flock of geese I was sorting through).
Matt, I was down at Wickham Lake today around noon and my conservative estimate of 700 Common mergansers was based on a photo count of roughly 1/6 of the flock.
I totally believe it Silas – there is a LOT of birds there right now! Thanks for checking in. Matt
Such Fun to see some different “Faces” these days!
Thanks for sharing ( I also am having a bear of a time with “heatwaves”).
Happy Birding,
Patty
It seemed like a long winter, with the same faces, didn’t it? It’s only going to get better and better. I’m excited for spring. Matt