I visited Eastern Neck National Wildlife Refuge this past Monday morning and first stopped at the causeway to the refuge’s entrance to see what might be there.
Off in the distance there were 24 Tundra Swan, they made me smile. A few stragglers still or maybe these had stopped at the refuge while enroute north for home.
No ducks. Just a few Ring-billed Gulls in the sky, along with three Osprey and an Eagle.
I continued my way into the refuge for two hours and then stopped again at the causeway on my way out.
A couple dozen Ring-billed Gulls were hanging around the mudflats area in the water, waiting for the tide to finishing lowering so they could scout the mud for food.
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“Hey, this is my spot. Move on!”
Ring-billed Gulls
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A single gull caught my eye as being different.
Welcome to my bird lifer list #256 Bonaparte’s Gull! 🤗💃😊
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Bonaparte’s Gull (nonbreeding adult)
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Bonaparte’s Gull (nonbreeding adult)
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Also wading in the water was a handsome Greater Yellowlegs.
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Greater Yellowlegs
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While searching the other side of the causeway, I heard the Greater Yellowlegs calling as they do when taking flight and luckily spun around to get some flight shots.
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Greater Yellowlegs
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Greater Yellowlegs
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She was there again, a Belted Kingfisher, sitting on a pole alongside the water’s edge. Pretty gal!
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Belted Kingfisher (female)
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And, luckily, this time an Osprey was perched on the nesting platform that was empty when I first arrived.
Note the Osprey’s heavily frayed feathers that took a beating getting here from South America. New ones will be on the molting agenda this season!
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Osprey on a man-made nesting platform
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It was an awesome visit. I saw, with most getting photographed, a total of 39 bird species. I’ll share some of my favorites of those next post!
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(Side note: I made some changes to my blog a week ago, and it seems to have caused some of you a problem with not being able to comment and/or like one of my posts. I’ve made some more adjustments again before this post. If you are still having a problem, would you please email me at bayphotosbydonna@gmail.com so I can accumulate the issues to go back to WP. Thank you so much, I’ve been very frustrated with this, trying to get it fixed!)
