White winged Scoter and a few other goodies at Lake St Clair

Its been so gloomy out lately... Where is the sun? Well, it was sunny this afternoon so I figured I would get out there and enjoy some sun light & some good birds. What a great way to end off the work week!

Upon arriving at the Kayak Cove park I noticed a dark black scooter. I was quite sure it was a lifer, and upon referencing my trusty field guide... White Winged Scoter (lifer #222 )!  It was so cold out today... it was ridiculous. My goose bumps had goose bumps. I was probably only out there for 40 minutes.

My first attempt at age-based Gull Identification. Would this be 3rd, 2nd and 1st winter Herring Gulls (respectively)?

A Red Breasted Merganser. All three Mergansers were seen!

A Great Blue Heron flew slowly along the shore and then perched on a branch on Peche Island (top middle on the photo above). Only in the depths of January is this particularly interesting!

Greater Black Backed Gulls were around. I would love to get a very crisp, clear photo of  a Greater Black backed Gull.

This photo has several Bald Eagles just to the left of the middle of this photo. I think I'm counting about 6-8 'lumps'. Pretty cool! I  hope they stick around when I get my Kayak back in the water.

I still haven't yet seen a Long tailed duck. I think it might be my nemesis bird! This duck eludes me!

Overall, a pretty good post-work birding trip. I met up with a new blog reader (Kelly) who kindly brought her scope. I think I'm convinced that I'm going to buy one. I'm thinking about this one. Any thoughts on buying scopes? Are the specs on this one decent?

In Birding,
Dwaynejava