A beautiful Sunday with friends and birds

Our day started in the dark with a beautiful look at the Moon. Then it was off to an early breakfast.

A restaurant that we had not visited before. A highlight for me was being able to get cheesy grits that were quite good. It was also nice to have time to chat with our friends Mike and Linda. Afterwords Mike joined Susan and I as we headed over to Lake Erie Metropark.

Somehow, securing our border from Canadians seems the least of our worries.

The number of Great Egrets was pretty amazing. The largest group had 77 birds.

This single egret was quite striking with its reflection in the calm water.

There were a number of Bald Eagles passing by, as well as a single Golden Eagle. This bird was in a large cage as it had wing damage and would never fly again.

While Mallards were the most common ducks, Wood Ducks were also there in numbers, along with a few Blue-winged Teal.

We saw Oriental bittersweet (Celastrus orbiculata), but as become disturbingly frequent none of our native bittersweet.

The butterfly on the left is an Eastern comma, we managed to find several sunning themselves. Seeing Rusty Blackbirds in fall plumage is always nice.

And finally a group of around 90 White Pelicans feeding in Lake Erie paled to the 350+ that were seen at the sight yesterday, but was still a great find.

More tomorrow…