Sunny aftermath of a
rainy morning, still quite warm
With automobile registration
problems of my own making, we had to delay the start of the birding until late
in the afternoon. Since we were in
Haverstraw at the DMV office (delightful as ever), we decided to bird the
Hudson waterfront and see if we could find any shorebirds, waders, or
fowl. At the first stop, we had
about 40 ducks, but they were all mallards…..each and every one. There fine looking birds, but you
become jaded when you see them almost every day. So we moved on.
The next stop was the
Haverstraw Bay County Park. I had
an osprey, but he was too distant to afford a decent shot, so I just checked
him out and moved on. Next bird
was a nice Northern flicker, but he also was pretty far away and the shots I
got were pretty grainy…not worthy of posting. All of a sudden, however, a big ole groundhog came
scampering across the grass and started to graze close to the flicker. I was in the car, but managed to shoot
through the window and over Sharon’s head. Well, at least we had something to start with.
On the way out of the park, we
encountered two more groundhogs, but these were quick to head into the brush as
the car came near.
We headed just down the road
to the marina and tried our luck there.
More mallards and little else.
Little else except for another groundhog…this time a little
youngster. He held his ground in
the shadows of a maple, and was close enough to pose for the camera. That made four of the varmints in about
a 5 minute period.
As it was
getting close to dark, we decided to make a quick run up to Iona Island and see
if we could just possibly find a heron or egret or even a rail! Not to be, but we did have another
groundhog. And so, while not the
greatest birding experience I’ve had this year, it was fun to see so many of
the groundhogs aka woodchucks, our largest member of the squirrel family. Maybe there will be birds tomorrow!
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