Every day for the past 5 days I've tried to motivate myself to bundle up and get out of the house to look for birds, but aside from a quick ride to see the Wild Turkeys a few blocks from here, I haven't been able to do it. I just hate the cold. This morning I had to go out to fix a couple of feeders--the constant cold and ice from last night's storm had snapped their strings (amazing since one of them was held up by parachute cord) and in the 5 or 10 minutes I was out there rehanging and filling them up I thought my fingers were going to snap off.
Shari was feeling all cooped up too, so when she asked where we might go today where we could bird relatively comfortably (meaning, near the warmth of the car), the temptation to go to Assunpink to see the 2 Barnacle Geese reported there overcame my loathing of the cold. 4 layers of shirts, long underwear, 2 pairs of gloves, a dickey, my heavy coat and I was ready to go. I couldn't lift my arms swathed in so many layers, but I was ready to go.
Assunpink Lake was 90% frozen. We saw a few birders to the right side of the parking lot and out on the ice and in a small patch of open water a large flock of geese. Setting up my scope one birder said to me, "Right edge of the flock." I found them right away. 2 Barnacle Geese is a record for me and the thought is that these are a pair. Barnacle Geese, like most geese, mate for life, so it's interesting that this might not be just one lost goose but one lost goose with a faithful companion.
Not much else was on the lake. A Bald Eagle flew overhead. We decided to drive over to Allentown and look around there and afterward have some lunch. The ponds at Mercer Corporate Park were also, unsurprisingly, frozen, though we did find a couple of Gadwalls and the always amusing American Coots.
Finally, we decided to swing by Brynmore Road to see if the lapwings had stayed around after last night's snow fall. Apparently they had, but had flown off this morning according to one sad birder I spoke to who had "just missed them by five minutes," that doleful refrain. We hung around, not gigantically disappointed, for 20 minutes or so. Brief excitement when 3 Killdeer flew in, but no lapwings. I hope one of the people who saw them this morning was a guy I'd been corresponding with the last few days who was driving 450 miles from North Carolina to see them.
The good news, for me, was that, with no wind and the temperatures reaching into the balmy mid-20's, I was very comfortable standing outside. Maybe I'll do it again tomorrow.
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