Good fishing!

Despite the cold, the creek flowed free beyond a margin of ice and waterfowl returned. Red breasted mergansers started fishing right after breakfast.  There were more females than males and a mad-eyed juvenile. 

Up at the feeders, the red bellied woodpeckers showed up early.  Wind ruffled her stripes.  Yellow rumped warblers were hungry too.  A half dozen doves hoped for water in the birdbath but it kept freezing as fast as we poured in more hot.  The tailless blue jay returned.  Downy woodpeckers waited for their big cousins to leave. 

When we got home, the was a wigeon drake on the creek.  It tried to join a flock of hoodies.  A great blue heron caught a fish bigger than its beak.  I believe I glimpsed an eagle with a fish. 

The sky clouded up during lunch.  Pine warblers joined the butterbutts.  Carolina wrens appeared.  Song and white throated sparrows kicked mulch. 

The fishing went on in waves, heralded by a circus of gulls, till I could not see any more.  The camera had already given up.  But all day I only saw one cormorant. 

New birds!

I didn't spend long in the morning because I had a breakfast meeting.  The butterbutt ate mealworms, then the oriole moved in.  Downy woodpeckers stuck to suet.  White throats visited the seed feeder when tired of poking the mulch.  Titmice were up early.  A blue jay also snacked on mealworms. 

When I got home, the cloud cover was tearing apart to the South.  I saw the oriole in the dogwood, on the suet, and at the birdbath.  Carolina wrens were eating mealworms.  The usual heron was in the usual spot.  A couple of female red breasted mergansers were out on the creek.  And then a pair of American wigeons paddled by a napping ruddy duck.  A dozen cormorants dried out on a dock downstream.  That dock looked quite nasty from the guano.  A flock of crows headed somewhere and a buzzard tilted in the wind.  Pelicans patrolled the creek.  Last night was the full moon so low tide was very low. 

It grew warm enough for flying bugs, though the wind was chilly over the water.  A ring-necked duck and a bufflehead were diving in the lake.  Last time I saw it (Jan. 15), I misidentified the ring-necked because it was so distant.  I thought it had a white breast but this time I could see that a curve on the side had fooled my eye. Sunset was a pale gold haze.