On November 6, 2017, I drove to the field directly to the west of the Burlington Honda dealership with the objective of photographing swans I had previously seen in the field.  Upon arriving I found the field full of Trumpeter swans and Snow geese and spent the better part of an hour photographing them flying in and landing.

I’m somewhat embarrassed to say that my concentration was so focussed on flying swans and geese that I had’t noticed that there were many Cackling geese feeding in the field… with more groups flying in.   I eventually estimated that there were at least 100 Cackling geese in the field.  Prior to this day I had only seen Cackling geese on one occasion, and in that case there was only a single pair!  If you’re not familiar with this bird, it looks very similar to the larger Canada goose but is only about the size of a duck.

I had time while monitoring arrivals to consult the app on my phone regarding the Cackling geese, and when doing so I noticed that there was an Aleutian goose, apparently a sub-species of the Canada goose.  I began looking through all of the geese and finally found a pair of the Aleutian geese.  (Note the white ring around the base of the bird’s neck.)

As I watched flock after flock of birds arrive at the field I noticed an incoming flock with a single bird that didn’t resemble the rest of the flock.  The distance to the odd bird was formidable (I estimated it at more than 150 yards) but took a photo in the hopes that I might be able to identify the bird.  When I processed the photo I was surprised at its quality considering my distance from my subject, and the bird is easily identifiable as a Greater White-fronted goose.

I had been sitting in my car at the edge of the field for well over an hour and my attention was finally drawn to what appeared to be a large clod of dirt about 30 feet away in the recently-plowed field.  I trained my lens on the object and found that it was a motionless Wilson’s snipe which I was able to watch for the rest of the time I was there, about 30 minutes.  Again, I think all of the other activity in and over the field allowed the snipe to go undetected.

I’m still trying to recover/hone my typing abilities after the three surgeries (elbow, wrist and finger/palm) I had on October 5.  My pre-surgery typing has definitely improved but I’m still having difficulties with the right side of the keyboard.  Thank so many of you for your encouragement and inquiries as to when I would resume blogging.

I’ve managed several birding trips in the car over the past couple of weeks (my usual winter birding activity) and now have a couple of periods in the yard as supplements.  I’ve got enough photos/stories for a couple of blogs, but ‘lm going to publish them in reverse chronological order.  So first these photos I took in the yard on November 11, 2017.

It was a dark and dreary day…  : )  … and much cooler than my healing finger would have liked, but the presence of Varied thrushes in the area around the house induced me to stay outside longer than I would have liked.

Beginning with the mundane, we have four of these Eastern Gray squirrels in the yard of which I would love to divest ourselves!  This one is taking a rest after gobbling some of the bird seed I scatter for the sparrows.

A Golden-crowned sparrow (probably a male)…

And another Golden-crowned sparrow taking a bath in the watercourse…

One of the Song sparrows we have in the yard.  It took me a while before I was really confident of my identification between it…

… and the Fox sparrows…

The sparrows are the birds that provide a little something to do while waiting for the more unusual visitors… like this juvenile Cedar waxwing, the first waxwing of which I’m aware that has visited  the yard in about a year. I think this is the first juvenile I’ve ever seen and it is quite a shock comparing it to an adult which always has perfect plumage.

We got an unexpected visit from a Brown creeper, which I’ve said on many occasions is difficult to photograph even when you can find one.

And finally, the bird that motivated my hunt… a Varied thrush, presumably a female.  We had three males in the yard earlier in the week and another male on this day, but I wasn’t able to photograph any of the males.

ln closing I want to note that we have had at least one (and usually only one) Slate-colored Dark-eyed junco in the yard every winter for the past eleven years.  Yesterday I saw a second one, although I never see two at the same time!  Our original visitor this year had a very dark (black) mantle while the one I observed yesterday had a mantle the same color as the bird’s neck and back.