Cold day birding

I tried to wait until it warmed up some to go out birding today. I waited until about 1:30pm to venture out. Unfortunately, it didn't warm up all that much!

First birds of the day were these Black Vultures who just flew up off of a deer carcass on the side of the road as I drove up.

Black Vultures

I decided to hit the local reservoir, East Fork. One good thing, there was nobody else out walking or fishing that I could see that would have scared off the birds. As I scanned the lake, the first bird I saw was a male Common Merganser right off the beach. I tried to take a pic, but my camera did not like the cold and the batteries died. I did not feel like walking back to the car, so I turned the camera off and put it under my shirt to warm it up.

I walked the beach and could see waterfowl off in the distance that I could not ID without my scope, so I was headed back to the car anyway. On the way to the car, I could hear Horned Larks, but I could not see them. I kept walking and three Horned Larks flew up and two landed on the sidewalk way in front of me. If they all would have landed in the grass, I would have never seen them! My camera came to life just enough to get these pics:

Blurry, far away Horned Larks

My camera starts acting wonky when it gets cold!

Horned Lark

One can really see how camouflaged they are!

After I got my scope out, I could see lots of ducks - Mallards, Black Duck, Common Goldeneye, Gadwall, Red-breasted and Hooded Mergansers, Ruddy Ducks, and Common Loons. I also spotted two Adult Bald Eagles flying high above the lake.

Nothing spectacular, but a good day nonetheless. After about an hour, I quickly became cold and decided to head home.