Sunday, March 29, 2009

Gaggle Me!

First tour of Montezuma for the year and apparently everyone else had the same idea. So many cars on the drive, many spectators at the carp convention. We found ospreys on one nest along Route 20 but no others. I sure hope there will be more soon, but at least two nests on Route 89 have come down. As usual for this early there were mostly waterfowl to see: Canvasbacks, ring necked ducks, lots of mallards, coots, and geese. As you can see by the photos there were hundreds of snow geese (thanks for the heads-up, Max). Their activity was really strange, one minute they were congregated on the pond, then they all got up and flew around in circles for maybe 10 minutes, and finally settled back down for a swim....go figure. Oh yes, the turtles - they were loving the warm sunshine just like the rest of us. Meanwhile, back at the lock, Mama Eagle is sitting pretty incubating her chicks. They should hatch in another couple of weeks. I hope this year I can get good shots of the newborns.