Misty end to the GBBC

There was rain overnight but by breakfast it was just mist.  I dashed off to a virtual meeting before the birds got up.  So the tally began at lunch with two female buffleheads.  For this year's Great Backyard Bird Count, I turned in 8 lists over 4 days covering a total of 8 hours, during which I saw 25 different species, plus a gull and some crows that I couldn't nail down.  None of them were new to me.  

Since I first started eBird in 2013, I've reported on 92 species.  I've seen more but I didn't  realize at first that I could enter a list any time, not just during the GBBC.  And I haven't tried to go back and add birds I saw before.

The mockingbird was already having trouble with the suet.  The very red bellied woodpecker male managed without a tail prop.  Downy woodpeckers can brace against the suet cage.  A pair of bluebirds got a good lunch of suet.  Then a Carolina wren found an opportunity to have some too.  The brown thrasher, as usual, preferred to eat what fell.  White throated sparrows stayed on the ground out of the way. 

The yellow rumped warbler chased another away.  It also chased a chickadee off the sunflower seeds which the warbler doesn't even eat.  Then it got bold and tried to share the suet with a bluebird. 

Toward evening, the mist thickened.  The creek was very still except when birds made ripples.  A pelican floated by the downstream dock, then paddled up the creek.  It was beginning to get the dark feathers of breeding plumage.  Geese kept a respectful distance from the larger bird.  I peered through the mist at the lake and saw a flock of cormorants.  A great blue heron stalked along the shoreline.