Today was birding class and then this afternoon I had planned to go birding again later in the afternoon, but ended up just hanging out soaking up the warm sun on a rocky shore out of the wind.
Weather: It got down into the upper-20s overnight, but started warming up relatively quickly once the sun got up. The air temperature was probably only in the lower-40s but the sun felt quite nice. There was a light breeze that seemed to be coming out of the northwest this afternoon.
Birds: We didn’t observe too much in the woods while birding this morning. However, we did see at least three American Wigeons and two pair of Northern Pintails in Indian River estuary. There were also lots of mallards and gulls. Closer to the mouth were several Barrow’s Goldeneye and 2 or 3 Common Goldeneye. More gulls were on the beach and between the point and the visitor center we saw Buffleheads, Harlequin Ducks, Surf Scoters, Barrow’s Goldeneye, and a single Common Goldeneye in the water not too far of the beach.
This afternoon there didn’t seem to be much at Swan Lake other than the Mallards.
Someone apparently left some fish remains on top of the cleaning station off Alice Island. At first there were no birds there, but at some point a gull noticed the food. It didn’t take too long for several gulls to check it out, and only a couple minutes later the first eagle appeared. Pretty soon, there were several eagles and they had run off the gulls. The eagles were fairly aggressive. They would land on top of and/or grab other birds to pull them off a piece of fish. If one tried to take off and take a piece with it, it generally was chased by at least one other bird. Usually the piece of fished was dropped and sank before any eagle could get back to it.
Other Notes: Willows were starting to open up at Crescent Harbor.