Birding

Molly is looking at a snowy egret.

We went birding this week with our co-op group. We visited a nature preserve near the bay with a guide from the Audubon Society. She took our group on a little hike into the wetlands so see some birds.

Henry is spying on a Night Heron taking a nap in the weeds.

It is actually hard to see the birds in the pictures since I purposely pulled back and tried to put the kids in the pictures. But we saw a Snowy Egret, some cinnamon teal as well as mallard ducks, sand pipers, swallows, turkey vultures, and bunches of others. I believe the kids kept a count of all the different species they saw and they got up to 29.  That included the mocking bird and hummingbird we saw while waiting for the group to begin the walk.

Here are some American Avocet that were doing a little dance for us. Evidently it is breeding season and court by dancing.

Molly looking out over the Slough. Lots of coots and sand pipers down digging in the mud.

Here the kids are getting to touch and handle some wings of a barn owl that the ladies from the Audubon Society brought along.

Last night my husband and I watched a birding movie. My husband had put it on our Nexflix queue and the disk arrived yesterday by coincidence.  The Big Year is all about some men who are trying to see and count the most birds in one year.  It ended up being a much better movie than we anticipated.

So I had my fair share of birding yesterday.