It was another cool and damp day, with the temps never getting above 53 F with overcast skies. The rains did come last night, but let up by noon. So after some time working on the DVD for this trip, we took a drive to two areas of potential bird life. One of which was successful. ( One of the tanks for the propane ran out while we were working , so I took that over to the Office and got it refilled. (#30 is $38.00) Gasoline is $2.89/gal.
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| A stop at the Post Office to mail some items to my two great grand children |
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| One of those "back walls" I wrote about,... behind the houses. |
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| These new homes did have some well manicured yards. |
The first area was a newly developed residential neighborhood , that borders both Mallette's Bay (a bay of Lake Champlain) and the Lake itself. There are high cliffs above the Lake and there is where the house building is going on. In order to build, the designers have to figure out where to put the houses around or over the huge rocks that are in this area. One man had a huge bucket shovel working in his back yard that was moving some of the huge rocks into place so the yard could be somewhat leveled. Another home had the back of the house walled in by a 60 foot wall of stone. Some houses were on flat ground with few rocks. All were large 3,000+ sq.f homes at least in size. There were no birds that we saw in that area, even though it was close to the water.
Along the road by the Bay we did see some MALLARDS and COMMON MERGANSERS. The Mergansers were going ziggity zaggity all over the water chasing those fish.
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| This is the season to bring in the boats. There were hundreds at this Marina. |
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| One of two Common Mergansers we saw chasing fish. |
I remembered that there was a park on US 2 (same road) called Sand Bar Park located just before the road crosses Lake Champlain to go to one of the four Islands at the north end of the Lake. We did go there and stayed a while identifying Nine birds: BLACK CAPPED CHICKADEE, PINE WARBLER, GADWALL, NORTHERN HARRIER, BLUE WINGED TEAL, DOUBLE CRESTED CORMORANT, RING BILLED GULL, and GREAT EGRET. The Pine Warblers were a surprise as we had not seen any warblers for about three weeks. They moved quickly away, but were visible just long enough to identify. The Great Egret I saw flying when were were turning on the road. I told Ruth we should watch for them on the shore of the Sand Bar Park. When we stopped and got our equipment out , there they were . Eventually we saw 5 of them, so beautiful was that white against the gray water and sky. While standing there a very mature Northern Harrier flew between the trees and headed for the water. I think it might have had it's eye on something smaller than the Egrets, as the Egrets didn't move. It was swooping and turning constantly, so we had a good show to watch.
Sand Bar Park was established in 1933 and was built by the CCC (Civilian Conservation Corps) by 1935. The stone bathhouse is a National historic Building , built by the CCC. The sand bar is a natural sandbar at the end of the peninsula across from the Islands. Now there is a causeway connects the two.
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| The bathhouse built by the CCC in 1933-1935 |
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| A plaque telling of the history of the area. |
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| The flag goes with this memorial for the victims of 9/11 (Neat story) |
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| A look at upper Lake Champlain at Sand Bar park. (Looking south) |
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| One of the five Great Egrets we saw there. |
It took us a while to identify the Gadwalls some 400 yard s out in the water as they had their heads down, and until they moved we could not identify them positively. It was getting cold out there so after they started to move around, we called it a day and headed back to the trailer.
Supper was spaghetti, and this time, I talked Ruth into having it with Meatballs and we did. Very good.
Usually I take a short walk to stretch out the legs and I did again today before starting this blog.
Tomorrow if the day opens up a bit we will start a trip through the Islands. From there the New York Adirondacks can be seen as well as the Green Mountains of Vermont.
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