After visiting Sheldon's today, I was going to just head home, but instead drove down to the Bay. (Glad I did) None of the shots are that great but sufficient.If I had 500mm or more might have had some great shots but the bay was full of bird's today and I got a few new ones.
First picture shows how busy it was and thats just one direction.
Great Black-backed Gull
This shot has immature Black-backs, they have a light colored head compared to Herring Gulls.
Red-breasted Merganser, there were thousands of them it seemed. New bird for me.
A female R-b Merg
Taking off
A lot of Common Mergansers were there, good sized bird. New bird.
Double-crested Cormorants
Merganser getting to speed before takeoff.
Ruddy Duck's
Common Goldeneye. New bird.
Canada Goose with too much saturation. lol
Before I left a wave of birds (thinking Mergansers) came by. Amazing sight as it was a very long line, my guess is a good quarter mile long.
Wow, that a lot of birds. Glad you decided to head for the bay, good assortment of birds and congratulation on the new ones.
Nice ones Burd!
I ended up with 3 new birds, but going to head back down there today see if I can add to my list. ;)
Congrats on the new bird sightings. Hope your find more. Looks like an exciting place to be!
Glad you made the decision to visit there, Burd. What a great area.
Thx All! Well its nice that the Bay is only 3 miles from my house, today's visit was not a swamped with bird's as yesterday, and I ended up heading west along the shore for about 20 miles, but my part of the bay was really the only open water, did take pics as usual. Noticed Great Black-backed Gull's are more plentiful than I thought, and their the easiest to Id lol. Did get a few shots along the drive and ended up by the Blue Hole, where there is a pond with different ducks.
Ruddy Ducks
This part of the Bay was pretty much frozen over, and when I arrived 3 Bald Eagles were there, but of course they took off when I got out of the truck.
An Immature Eagle
Common Golden eyes were around.
On the way back from that part of the bay, I got my first shot of an American Kestrel. (where is the sun when you need it) :(
Arrived at the pond and ended up with 2 new birds.
Forgot to add the name of the bird's. Gadwall's
This message was edited Dec 21, 2009 5:54 PM
American Wigeons, apparently they can have different color patterns.
Both were new birds. Here's a Wigeon with nice coloring.
And a nice photo of a pair of Northern Shovelers. I,m going back there whenever the (SUN) comes back out.
Wonderful to see all of your pictures! Hope the sun comes out soon and that you stay warm enough while you are out there.
Nice pics Burd! Love the Shovelers, Wigeons and Goldeneyes!
More from the Bay today.
Double-crested Cormorants standing on the edge of the ice.
Another dreary day, and I didn't take the tripod, and that was a mistake...just showing some of the pictures that were not blurred.
Ring-billed Gull
Little closer of a Ring-billed
The tell-tale V formation of Canada Geese.
Spotted a Great Blue Heron, don't think Ive ever seen one this late into December. Far off shot.
Found the bird's today in a spot just down from where I normally go. And it was swamped.
Believe it or not I caused this, huge takeoff and I was still a good 100 feet from the water.
This is where I was standing for the most part.
Cant fit the whole thing into one shot but when they all took off it sounded like a 50mph gust of wind, as you can see it was quite thick with bird's. Along with Gull's there were Common Merganser's, Red-breasted Mergansers, Double-crested Cormorants and Common Goldeneye's.
Wow, Burd_Fotos, you were busy. And a bunch of new birds, to boot. Great shots.
Hack
Wonderful. What a sight and sound it must have been.
