Connor, Rowan, and I took a brief trip down to Lincoln Street Beach this afternoon. After that, I took them over to Melissa’s Mom’s place and then went over to Alice Island to try to locate the Lapland Longspur again.
Weather: It was partly cloudy through most of the day, but the heavier clouds started to move in later in the afternoon. Winds were fairly calm. Temperatures were chilly, but above freezing. I did notice that puddles were freezing a little bit, so the lack of insulating cloud cover during the day combine with a still frozen ground may have allowed the water temperature in puddles to get down to freezing.
Birds: I’m pretty sure that I heard a couple of different robins. One was outside our house this morning, the other in around the large alders behind Whitmore this afternoon near sunset.
On the brief trip to the beach, I noticed four Bohemian Waxwings. They were flying between an ornamental tree that had berries and the power lines near the utility pole on the Totem Park side corner of Kelly and Lincoln. Before we left the beach, they left the area. The last I saw them, they were flying toward downtown.
There was a pretty good flock of over a dozen Bufflehead (mostly females) right near the shore at Sage Beach when we were on our way home.
Shortly before I was going to take the kids over to Melissa’s Mom’s, Melissa told me there was a bird I should see. She thought it was a shorebird or something. When I got there, I was able to locate it and saw that it was a Wilson’s Snipe.
I did manage to find the Lapland Longspur today, it was not where it had been yesterday. Instead, it was across from the old Kindergarten. It was feeding on a section of gravel road and seemed fairly tolerant of my approach.