Quieter weather

A couple of tufted titmice got up before the warbler and visited the feeder.  The red bellied woodpecker was another early riser, as, alas, were a couple of starlings.  The downies came later.  Song and white throated sparrows, juncos, robins, and finally Carolina wrens foraged on the ground.  Three blue jays quarreled in the trees.  I also saw all the seed feeder regulars - cardinals, house finches, and chickadees. 

I was photographing buffleheads on the creek when a pair of wood ducks paddled swiftly upstream.  I only got the male in the rear.  While it was mostly buffleheads, I did see a hooded merganser.  And, of course, mallards, cormorants, and geese floated, while gulls flew over.

When I went out to hang mended birdhouses, I was cussed out by a flicker.  Daffodils, hyacinths, and a lone leucojum were blooming.  There was a lot of testy songbird behavior this morning.  Finches squabbled and then the warbler chased them.  Squirrels, on the other hand, were feeling romantic.

The feeders were pretty quiet at lunch and after.  Out on the creek, mallards dabbled while buffleheads, cormorants and pelicans fished.  Motion in the shoreline reeds caught my eye and eventually revealed a crow foraging in the mud.   The sky was clear right through sunset.