Yesterday afternoon I put Connor in his backpack and went for a walk down to the beach and then around Totem Park. Near the hatchery we saw two common merganzers, a male and a female. Earlier in the week I had seen an additional male, and I wondered if it was still hanging about somewhere. Along the beach near the park visitor center, there was a good number of mallard ducks, though I did not count them. On a previous walk through the park I had seen quite a number of different birds near the mouth of Indian River and I was interested to see what might be there on this afternoon. We saw a fair number of mallards near the opposite shore as well as a pair of female merganzers and a kingfisher. In addition, I heard an american dipper singing and later saw a two different ones a little upstream from the mouth.