The ice is thawing on the Findlay Reservoir (and many other places). A March 16th excursion was the first time we saw open water here. Bring on the waterfowl!
Six swans were out in the middle, hanging with about a hundred gulls and a Canada Goose or two. Tundra or Trumpeter, we may never know. The gulls are persumed to be either Ring-billed or Herring for the most part. They were all out just far enough where we couldn’t ID them without a spotting scope, which we do not have.
In other unidentifiable news, a group of thirty or so scaups were fun to watch. These were close enough to identify, though I am not a hundred percent sure. I don’t go by size usually since it can be deceptive, unless more than one species is around for comparison, but I think since they had more of a purple iredesance on their head, that could make them Lesser Scaups.
The coolest sighting was the view of a thousand spiders. On the medium-sized rocks around the reservoir these dark rather large spiders were sunning. Dakota theorizes they are some type of wolf spider, we really need to bring our guide books along. In winter, I tend to get rather lax on the gear preparation side. We were also camera-less…not good birder behavior!
March 6, 2010 – Still Frozen
It will be intersting to see what the next few weeks bring in.
Good birding!
