Winter Wildlife Festival

The mulch was frosty and the birdbath solid ice, but there was open water on the creek.  The water at dawn mirrored the sun on the far bank.   White throats were undeterred by the frost as they kicked the mulch to reveal fallen seeds.  The female downy was already eating suet.  Titmice must have been hungry because they started raiding the feeder earlier than usual.

Blue jays came to see if there was more bark butter, but pecked at the leftovers.  Some robins just wanted water.  A myrtle warbler experimented with seeds.  A heron fished below the bend in the creek. 

Another heron waited for a fish in one of the shallow ponds around the Back Bay Wildlife Refuge office as I embarked on the Back Bay/False Cape Terra-gator and Tram Tour.  The bigger impoundments had geese and tundra swans.  Our ranger said they were Canada geese but they were silhouettes to me.  I saw a turtle sunning on a limb fallen into the ditch, but it slid into the water before I could focus.  Taking pictures while riding in a tram on a dirt road wasn't easy. 

Since birds were scarce I took a lot of photos of vegetation, especially when we got out and walked in False Cape State Park.  Some fellow travelers found an owl hairball full of bones including a jaw I believe belonged to a muskrat.

Then we boarded the Terra-Gator and came back along the shore.  Alas the windows were filthy and also picked up fragmented reflections.  There were great blackback gulls and I think lesser as well, herring and/or ring bill gulls, some kind of sandpiper, and I believe terns.

Sunset came soon after we got back.  It was all glow and cloudless.  The derth of birds in the woods illustrated a point form last night's lecture - that suburbs have far more species of birds than nature preserves, at least in the temperate zone.

Hot!

If the car temperature sensor is to be believed, it got up to 80°F.  Since this was the last weekend of car access to Mackay Island Wildlife Refuge, we made an expedition South to N.C.

People were out fishing and photographing in the glorious weather.  Turtles abounded in the waterways, particularly Northern red bellied cooters  (Pseudemys rubriventris) and yellow bellied sliders (Trachemys scripta scripta).  Insects were flying and the car gathered several mosquitoes.  A female kingfisher perched in a dead tree.  Ducks, coots, geese, and swans paddled and fed.  A large flock of white ibis hung out on and below a dead tree.  This was a new bird for me.

We had lunch at Blue Pete's on the way back, a nice opportunity to visit a place too far for usual days.

When we got home, a Carolina wren was waiting. A buzzard circled in the hazy sky.  Downy woodpeckers visited the suet while a female red bellied woodpecker stuck to the trees.  Chickadees and other birds scooted between bushes.  A great blew heron flew upstream and cormorants flew and paddled in the creek.  But the daylight was all too short.

Stars glittered in the night sky, untroubled by cloud or moon.  The day set a record with an official temperature of 77°F. 

Autumn haze

A light fog misted the trees downstream when we got up.  A few finches were up and at the feeder.  Just before we went out an eagle swooped past.  A great black-backed gull circled.  A yellow jacket took an interest in the hummer feeder.

So we took advantage of the warmth and went to Back Bay.  A noise like little kids playing at Indians turned out to be tundra swans.  Several turtles were sunning on a log.  Warblers and other birds were working on the bayberries.  Wasps were hunting mud.  I saw one cabbage butterfly.  A wild persimmon tree had mushy, sticky fruit. Cat briars were loaded with black berries and trumpet vines with pods.  Many kinds of cottony, wind-dispersed seeds were blowing everywhere.  I thought I saw another eagle over the marsh.