Mostly clear skies. Frosty overnight with temperatures into the 30s during the day. Light winds.
Hoping to find the Hooded Mergansers on open water at Swan Lake with better light, I ventured out this morning. The lake was basically completely frozen over.
No Hooded Mergansers around that I could see.
I spent a few minutes there, before moving on to the channel.
I spotted the Yellow-billed Loon near where it had been last time I saw it over the weekend.
I sat in my car and watched. It came relatively close to the shore (which was closer than usual to where I was parked, due to high tide). Then it swam further up along the shoreline.
It seemed to be taking a break from diving, so I walked up along the MEHS classroom building to keep taking pictures. After preening itself for a few minutes, it dove and looked to be heading further up the channel. I called it good.
I drove out to Sandy Beach, then made another short stop at Sea Mart before heading home.
This evening I added iNaturalist observations for all the days this year that didn’t yet have any uploaded. My streak is now up over 1450 days. Next week will make four years since the last missed day. Though I have been more diligent about uploading at least one observation for each day, I still have many observations from this year to get uploaded. I’m guessing 2000+ (I’m currently at 3699). I also have at least several hundred and maybe more than 1000 from last year (currently at 5758 observations). Once the observing work is done, I will likely try to devote more time to get caught up with these.
My iNaturalist Observations for Today
