Silver Lining Adventures

Bad photo/good bird

The boss was hit by a falling hay bale a couple of weeks ago and it really trashed his knee. It would probably heal pretty good except for the constant supply of ice to slip upon and wood to fall off the log splitter and hit him.

Anyhow, besides the misery for him, which is considerable I believe, he can only drive for fifteen or twenty minutes before it really starts to hurt. Something about the angle required to sit behind the wheel...

Thus along with every errand and chore being a challenge, birding has been pretty much a no-go, except for watching the feeder and walking the yard...which is also very icy.

However, the other day the blasted knee locked up while we were driving to Fonda, just as we crossed the river bridge.

I was exclaiming over the number of Mallards sheltering in its lee from a vicious west wind.

He said, "Good, you can get out and go photograph them while I get out of the car and walking around for a minute."

Well, okay then. I hate to ask to stop there because....well, I didn't think he liked to.

However, I tussled with the wind out onto the bridge and photographed everything I could find. It was hard, between the bridge bouncing up and down under all the tractor trailers and the wind forcing me to hang onto the railing sometimes so as not to become airborne myself.

Then I grabbed some shots of a ball of gulls on the fairgrounds and he walked the kinks out of his knee and we were on our way.

Once home I scanned all the photos looking for anything of interest. They were pretty bad thanks to the impossibility of standing still..... hmm...there was an all white gull in one photo. interesting....

Turned out to be a first-of-the-year for the county Glaucous Gull. Nice! Only the 3rd I have ever seen. This brings my count in Montgomery County to 178 and the county total to 194. Lots of fun!

Next day same story, only this time a Gadwall among the Mallards. Not a terribly rare duck but I hadn't seen one since last winter.

And then there is the amazing bird guide Becky won because she is so witty. More about that later....let's just say I went to bed kinda late last night because I was studying swans. I am now confident that the swan I saw at Lykers this summer was a Trumpeter based on its call, but I probably won't count it just the same.

So popular the actual book is sold out on Amazon