Spring Birding

I took my non-teaching responsibilities today and went birding. 

 I'm remarkably bad at IDing ducks.  Still, these are ring-necked ducks, though I'd be hard pressed to find the ring in these pictures.

 I love Northern Harriers; they're right below kestrels and white-tailed kites in my favorite raptor list.

 This is a trumpeter swan, I think.  If so, it's a first time seeing one for me!

Pied-billed Grebe.  Very cute, and a picture that's surprisingly sharp for me.

 American coots.  And you can sort of see that there's snow falling.  It wasn't a perfect day for birding, except that it was pretty darned good to see birds.

 Buffleheads!

 Blue-winged teal.

The same Blue-winged teal, and a female Blue-winged teal, too.

Another trumpeter swan.

 A Northern Shoveler.  I love the size of their beaks.  Those are serious beaks.

 And a female Northern Shoveler, with an equally impressive beak!

 This isn't a great picture, but if you look carefully about a third down and a third to the right, you'll see a duckish bird with a sort of horizontal stripe on its head.  That's a Garganey, a mostly Eurasian Duck that's been sited around this area lately, and which I was lucky to see.

There's the same Garganey in the picture below, maybe a bit easier to see.

It was hanging around with two female and one male Blue-winged teal.  (Not the ones pictured above.)  You can see the female teal in the lower picture, to the right of the Garganey if you look carefully.  It makes you realize how hard these guys can be to see!