A beginning Twitcher

       Yesterday we went out to do a bit of birdwatching. I am quite new to this, so while I recognize black ducks and Canada geese (and there were plenty of them!) I am not so good on the bufflehead or the goldeneye. However, there were plenty of these as well! It was not ideal for the pursuit in that it was raining from time to time, and there was fog, or at least evaporating snow.

      We began at the National Park, starting at Dalvey Lake. Unfortunately it is frozen over, so no birds, but we could hear the surf from the beach so we went there next. Just gulls there, of course, but the surf was spectacular. The moon is full, so the tide was quite high already, and some stiff Easterlies in the past few days had churned up the water quite well. It was not cold at all, so the surf looked like you could just dive in. Except for the snow cakes on the beach. There's been a lot of sand blown around, as the dunes aren't frozen yet.

Afterward, we went to Covehead harbour, where we saw a whole flock of common redpolls, playing around the lobster traps, eating weed seeds, and bathing in a puddle. There were about 30-35 of them, the first we've seen this season.  We went on to Oyster Bed Bridge, and saw mergansers, buffleheads and goldeneyes. A busy day!