Port Washington!

The stream of new sights in Estabrook Park has slowed a bit lately, and it’s a Sunday, so you know what that means. It’s time to join Donna and her Sunday Birders and visit someplace new, and today’s location was Coal Dock Park in Port Washington. Yay!

It did not disappoint, and our first treat is this bufflehead drake enjoying an uncharacteristically smooth lake. We usually get to see them in Estabrook eventually, but not yet this season.

There were also a few female and/or immature male red-breasted mergansers, and here’s one, but it took me a while to get a picture of them, so the light is better, and the water is a little rougher. I expect we’ll see them in Estabrook, too, once the river starts to freeze.

Here’s a bird that we’ve been seeing almost every day in Estabrook, yet another great blue heron.

Then Donna’s group arrived, and they helped me find a few more. Here’s a bird I do not believe I’ve ever seen before in my life, a dunlin (Calidris alpina). It looks a bit like the sanderlings we saw at McKinley Beach, but with a longer, decurved beak.

They also found for me my very first snow buntings (Plectrophenax nivalis), freshly arrived to their wintering grounds from far up north. I had heard them earlier, but couldn’t find them with my own eyes, so it sure helps to have a few more pairs. They were foraging on a far breakwater, so this is the best image my camera could muster. Oh well.

Another far off bird that we have seen before, but only in the Horicon Marsh, is this ruddy duck.

Here, finally, is a bird that wasn’t so shy, and that we do see from time to time in Estabrook, a double crested cormorant drying out its wings.

And just resting.

On my way home, since it was right on the route, I stopped in Estabrook to see who might be around in the late morning. The first surprise was this merlin oddly holding its ground, what little bit there was above the water, while I took this portrait.

Other than that, the river was quiet, so I continued to the pond, where I found a second surprise: a little red-eared slider up out of the water in November. The sun wasn’t even that warm today.

Lastly, the hoodie and woodie are both still there, and while the woodie hid under the bushes along the shore, the hoodie was back to fishing, but I didn’t stick around long enough to see what it caught today.