Warm

I saw a bee visiting the camellias so I knew it couldn't be as cold as last week.  Buffleheads are out on the creek, mostly hanging out under the boatlift on the other side.  I think fish must hide in the shadow.  I saw three males and a female, along with gulls. 

When I came in from photographing the buffleheads, the feeder got very busy. Finches, chickadees and the nuthatch wanted a place on the perch.  On the ground I saw a sparrow, a wren, the nuthatch again, and a mockingbird.

A sheet of clouds moved in and then out as the morning progressed.  At lunch, a titmouse, a junco, and a dove joined the crowd.

The creek stayed mirror-like all day.  In the late afternoon, four males congregated in the boatlift's shadow.   A female came upstream and a male went down to meet her.  When she caught sight of the other three males she turned tail and paddled off.  A little later another female arrived, running on water.  She adopted the males as escort and they followed her down and up the creek.  So, four males and two females total.  In the morning, the males appeared black and white, but the afternoon light brought out chestnut and green and purple in the black. Cormorants did their evening commute.  The sinking sun set a tree ablaze upstream - it is one of the few to still have leaves.