The blog drought? Nothing but Sunday Stills posts as far as the eye can see...
Well, first I guess is that the short days and darkness really mess with me. I just plod along one foot in front of the other and hope for the best. Not much joy this time of year.
Then there was pointing up part of the house foundation. The big limestone blocks and random field stones of one part were devoid of anything resembling mortar so we mixed up some stuff and had at it. Felt good about that but the next part is under one of the porches. Not looking forward to that, but it only took a couple of hours to get almost half of the total done so that's a good thing.
We did get over to Cooperstown NY to look for American Coots
Found them (thanks Bill)
As well as this statue, named Indian Hunter
by John Quincy Adams Ward.
Not much birding/not many birds. With all the rain the river is barely staying in its banks let alone receding to reveal lovely mud flats and shallow feeding areas that ducks and water birds love. Just roiling waves and swirling currents and logs and branches galore. Scandalous gas prices don't help either. We have to ration our travel pretty sharply.
Lotsa Black Scoters
We saw good ones last week though, at the same reservoir where I took several of the Sunday Stills photos this week. When we arrived there was a flock of ducks in the middle of the first large impoundment at Cobleskill Reservoir.
I knew right away they were something cool, but neither my camera nor my binoculars were up to the job of being sure what they were. I could see that they were scoters, but which ones? Turned out they were Black Scoters and not the rarer sort I thought and hoped they were but still the first ones I had seen in NY. Forgot I had seen one in NC, so not lifers but still cool.
So anyhow, between the season and not much of interest going on, I have not been able to write much. Sorry. Better days are coming, it says here in fine print...or at least that is what my dad used to tell me.