Tuesday, January 25, 2011

Misty, moisty and warmer

It was foggy at dawn on the creek and the ground was wet. A great black-backed gull was swimming around the pilings across the creek and seemed to be catching something. The water is open on that side where the current rubs the bulkheads. Later some geese paddled by over there. Weak sunshine has not melted any more of the creek. I glimpsed the eagle headed over the lake toward Witchduck Road.

At the feeder, only chickadees and titmice. Bird shadows pass overhead, probably gulls or crows. The predominant gull species here is the ring billed, not the herring gull. Great black-backed gulls come up the creeks in the winter and return to more open water in the spring. Laughing gulls replace them for the summer. The ring bills are year-round, along with occasional herring gulls.

Gray again, with skins of ice still floating on the creek. A pelican just went paddling upstream over where the ice is gone.

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