Best Birding ever part #2

(click any photo to see larger) The only other place I have seen such large numbers of birds at one time, would be when the Snow Geese come to our area.  If I had been able to count the ducks, geese, gulls, swallows, sandpipers it would have been in the hundreds or thousands.

 The ducks were harder to take photos of or to identify.  Lots of Mallards, I am sure, but I also saw Shovelers and I think teal.

 The one on the right lifting its wing....a green patch shows....Green Teal?

 They mixed with the sandpipers along the shore, but were very nervous and swam out into deep water whenever our car got near.  They allow hunting in this area at certain times, so that might explain their nervousness.

 One of my closer shots

 A few flying away

This Wood Duck female was in the deep ditch along the side of the road.  

 These two shots of the road are to give you an idea of the length of these two lagoons we were driving along, but also to show the swallows.  There were thousands of bugs....midges?.....flying around and an equal number of Swallows swooping back and forth across the road eating them!  There were more swallows sitting on the wire resting between flying and eating.  100's easily!  I could not figure out how to take photos of them, but these two shots give a little bit of an idea.  Should have shot a video.  Our car was full of the bugs by the time we left the area.

A couple of the swallows on the wire.

Across from the lagoons were large fields of crops and Canada Geese were eating there.  If you were looking from the air, these fields would look like huge green circles with irrigation running across them.  This is where they pipe some of the treated water.  I'm sure if we had driven around the fields, there would have been even more birds and animals.  Too much to do and too little time to do it!  This place would takes weeks and months to explore and really appreciate at all seasons.

 Gulls nest at this site and there were a lot of both adults and juveniles sitting around on the rocks, swimming in the lagoons and the pits where they were treating and aerating the water.

 There were the common Ring-billed Gulls that we see everywhere in the states, but I believe a lot of these were Herring Gulls.  Not sure about that, but definitely not Ring-bills.....yellow bills with a red spot, pinkish legs, light eyes.

 A juvenile spreading his wings to land.

 Another distant look at the water.  That gull in the lower right looks odd, but don't know if it is different or just a different phase.  That distant shore is where we were driving before being swooped by swallows.

 More juveniles

 I enjoyed getting a close-up look at them as we drove along.

 The color varied from dark gray to a light gray.

 The adults

 Dark and light.....different kinds

Sometimes the high weeds were a problem for taking photos.  At times like this I wish we had a truck or a high SUV!  I'm always trying to shoot over stuff that is taller than where I am.  I was able to get out of the car a few times, but mostly the birds were too nervous for that.

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More stuff to post next time.  

The US Tennis Open starts this week, so I am glad I have some stuff to post without having to go out looking for something :-)