GBBC Day 1

The birdbath was frozen again and the sky clouded over at first.  Two pelicans passed each other over the creek.  At breakfast I saw a Carolina wren, a titmouse, a nuthatch, a yellow rumped warbler in the camellia, the oriole, white throat and song sparrows, a downy wood pecker and the regular three: cardinal, house finch, and chickadee.  The wren has taken to chasing away sparrows that get too close to the mealworms.  Afterward, my hands were free and I was ready to count.  So, where did all the birds go? Eventually they began to reappear.  I counted a great blue heron, 3 mallards, a pelican, a downy, a cormorant and 3 crows.  Humpf.

Then, while the sky cleared, I was gone till lunch.  I didn't wait till I finished eating this time.  The female red bellied woodpecker, a titmouse, and the oriole came for their treats.  White throated sparrows foraged.  A buzzard circled over the creek and then 6 crows flew over.  A heron was in its usual spot on the dock by the dam.  A pelican flew upstream.

In the afternoon I tried watching from the office window.  A couple of crows were stationed outside.  A Carolina wren sat in a bush.  I think I saw a flicker but there was too much vegetation in the way.  A pair of mallards, a female bufflehead, 7 geese, and 2 herons were on or around the water.  One heron was on the snag on the lake, the other on its favorite piling on the creek.  Then a flock of cormorants came through driving a school of fish right past the heron on the post.

This was not an exciting start to the GBBC.