Thanksgiving Bird Count 2013

There are more buildings in the neighborhood, and the park pond has not become yet as natural as it had seemed before the 2007 restoration.  Metro Parks has signs that warn of a big fine if visitors feed any wildlife.  Yesterday was a fine, clear day and not too cold.  Birds usually there right now  may have flown somewhere else for yesterday. 

At the park pond yesterday people walked past a lot while I watched for an hour for birds on Thanksgiving.  There were not so many birds at the larger part of the pond, beyond the small bridge at the smaller part of the pond  floated around a sunshining flurry of a dozen seagulls, and I knew there were ten or so mallards, some stood in a shallow part, created as Metro Parks had pumped it out earlier in the month,  others swam in the rest, which was a little lower than its regular depth.  There was no usual waterfall between the pond parts. 

At a previously used spot, where I watched, when I brought out my field glasses from the 1950s, my thoughts returned to birds that have not returned since the park pond was restored seven years ago.  Shoveler ducks visited over the winter for a couple of winters.  Buffleheads were there, perhaps in 2002 and earlier.  And Hooded mergansers, from the field glasses their image seemed to me to flow again. 

Pond During Restoration 2007