Feb 29 2012 - clouds (well birds anyway) across the moon

Arriving back home from Chicago, geese calling high overhead attracted Chrystal and I to a skein of 75 or so Snow Geese heading north directly in front of the crecent moon

Feb 5 2012- Moscow

A short walk up the road and through the snowed up park found a few birds and a couple of surprises. Amongst the house sparrows were a number of tree sparrow. The former looking very dingy and grimy, the latter looking smart and dapper so it can't be soiling, maybe there a darker sub species of passer domesticus here. A couple of Blue Tit looked 'normal' but the great tit looked grubby too. A single fieldfare fed on some tree fruit and looked a little odd by itself (I'd seen a couple of large-thrush flocks from my window which were also probably this species).
It's still a little strange seeing Hooded Crow dossing around and relatively tame (as opposed to Scotland's wild and distant birds) but there were a number around the park. High over Moscow City a Hoodie was watched aggressively mobbing an Accipiter of approximately equal size.
A small flock of mallard take advantage of the ice breaking operation on the river

Feb 4 2012 - Moscow (yes THAT Moscow!)

Despite being -20c (or maybe because..) there was a flock of hooded crow and jackdaw around the airport car park and a few hoodies along the route into town. I also picked up house sparrow and FRPD and over the city centre a Peregrine. Weather doesn't look great for a lot of outside time so we'll see how much else can be added.

Jan 14 2013. Riverbend wildfowl walk - lite

With the recent rain, the river was in full glow and the wildfowl well dispersed. However chrystal and I had a good group of 7 and we walked downstream. Conn Island didn't produce it's usual duck but the pair of Bald eagle perched nicely. At various points on the river we had 100 or so Ring-necked, Buffleheads, Common Mergansers and a few Coot. Before and after the walk we had single black duck and finally found 3 female and 2 1st-w male lesser scaup before we came away.

Jan 8 2012

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The grebe getting shy


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The coot getting used to being around people!

Jan 7 2012 field trials for Chrystal's new scope!

A trip to the patch to try out Chrystal's new scope and take some fresh air found an American Coot with a Pied-billed Grebe in the reception pool area and then we nearly overlooked the imm. Night Heron (BC!) under the green heron tree.

We were quite late so it was a little quiet although a nice Winter Wren skulked around Pooh Bridge and later we watched a juv Red-tailed Hawk on the gravel in the area (from our vantage point up stream on Rusty Bridge). A few moments earlier an American Crow was mobbing an Adult Red-tail as it circled nearby.


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Nov 12 2011 - where did they go?

Good day at Chincoteague from sunrise to sunset
The sea was quiet to start with but later had a good procession of ducks (Black Scoter and teal mainly, what no surf scoter?!?) and good numbers of Gannet. several flock of Snow Gees over were the only ones seen (later they were absent form the pool). Several parties of Bonaparte's Gull were watched.
Several small parties of dolphin breached conveniently.
Hundreds of YR Warbler everywhere plus at least 1 Palm.
The flock of Dunlin included a couple with some remaining dark belly feathers
A rather nasty black duck x mallard hybrid swam nearby
The only white birds on the wildlife loop were Tundra Swan including a couple showing small areas of yellow at the bill base
A 2nd yr (?) male Harrier hunted the marsh and gave great views and 3 1st w white ibis were with the egrets in the marsh
Goof numbers of teal, wigeon, pintail and shoveler were periodically spooked by the harrier and the local eagle