Monday, December 29, 2008

Home Again, Home Again

We're just back from yet another inadvertent vacation from the blogosphere. Just as well, I'd rather be spending time with family, friends, and birds than the computer (though I did spend more time than I planned on a final report for work).

More to come shortly, in the meantime here's a typical scene of eastern Arkansas birding. What waterfowl can you identify?

Waterfowl flight in eastern ArkansasEastern Arkansas in flight. What are they?


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6 comments:

Rouchswalwe said...

Wood ducks??
Have a happy new year!!

slybird said...

Pink-footed Geese?

Anonymous said...

My eyesight's not that good... Welcome back home!

noflickster said...

Rouchswalwe - interestingly, the day I was out birding we saw *no* Wood Ducks! Lots of other waterfowl (including the pictured birds), but Wood Ducks were a big miss.

Nick - I wish Pink-footed Geese would make it to AR, especially in numbers like these geese (oops, I just gave away they're geese). Pink-footeds would be a lifer!

Jan m - are you saying my pictures aren't clear enough?? :-)

Actually, I agree, and it's something I hope to fix in the upcoming posts.

Incidentally, it was great to read your blog and keep up on what was happening in the area! Not as much snow upon our return as we expected. I wish you knew where I lived so you could have told me our feeding station got pulled down. Again.

Hope you all had great holidays!
-Mike

Nate said...

I believe the hunters call these guys Specklebellies.

noflickster said...

Give n8 the cupie doll! This is a flock of Greater White-fronted geese, which also held the only Canada geese we found for the day (and I suspect there was at least one Cackling in there, but I'm not positive).

The Canadas aren't visible in this shot, but there are two "blue geese," or the blue form of the ubiquitous-in-Arkansas-in-winter Snow Goose. They're the ones without the dark band on the tail.

Nicely identified, n8! Now I can start the new year with nothing left unresolved; a clean slate of sorts. Thanks for the peace of mind!
-Mike

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