It’s time to return to reality after the warm weather photos and memories in the previous posts and face the persistent winter of 2020-21. There have been a few brief periods of relative warmth but winter isn’t quite ready to move along yet. These pictures are from a couple of outings in the past week.
Snow Buntings, like the snow, are still around. Here is one from a small flock that perched right close to us. The second photo is a Carolina Wren waiting for a turn at my feeders. I have had two regular Wren guests this year, a welcome sight. They appear to be a mating pair so maybe the number of visitors will go up next year.
There is a spot in Gloucester that always has Bufflehead, Mergansers and Gadwall to see. These are a male Red-breasted Merganser in flight, another swimming past us, a Gadwall stretching and another posing coyly.
I was photographing ducks from a riverside park in Newburyport when I spotted this fellow floating leisurely down the river. Either this young Bald Eagle is really lazy or is trying a new hunting technique. None of the ducks or geese paid attention to him so maybe the idea is to float into a raft of ducks and pounce! The reality is more mundane. He picked a floating hunk of ice to rest on and didn’t mind that it was mobile.
A Ring-billed Gull was doing the same thing a few days later. Looks like a buddy decided to join him on the cruise.
This is a Common Eider shaking a crab that it grabbed from the riverbed. Another Eider wasn’t so lucky when a Herring Gull made off with its crab. (Had to add a pirate story!)
We spotted Sanderlings running along the high tide mark at Salisbury Beach. I have to say that the conditions were nicer when I photographed them in Ft Meyers last year.
Birds in My Viewfinder 