Mer Bleue on the First Day of Spring

Deb and I returned to the east end on Sunday.  Now that the Canada Geese have arrived in massive flocks, we wanted to check out the traditional spring flooding areas along Milton and Frank Kenny Roads to see if we could come up with a Snow Goose, Killdeer or some puddle ducks among the flocks.  We found the geese without any problem….there must have been over 5,000 at each spot along the Bear Brook floodplain!  Despite spending a great deal of time scanning the flocks, however, the only other species we could come up with was Ring-billed Gull.  We didn’t even see any mallards.

There were a few other birds of interest around, including a couple of flocks of Wild Turkeys, a single Horned Lark on Giroux Road, and a couple of Red-tailed Hawks at the same spot on Russell Road although on opposite sides of the road.  We also had our first muskrat of the year swimming in a water-filled ditch on Milton Road and three deer on Giroux Road.