Flooding!

Wet Woods, originally uploaded by DMarcumPhotography.

I haven't posted in a while...I guess I have had a few things to write about since my last post, but no photos to show so I couldn't do it. Anyway, we have definitely had some great advances towards Spring in the last couple weeks!! Hmm let's see, catching up - Turkey Vultures have been back around for a couple weeks now. Red-winged Blackbirds have been coming in since early last week. I have been hearing Song Sparrows on the regular since last week, and other birds like Cardinals, Titmice, and Chickadees have been singing much more than previously too! This is all wonderful : )

After the awesome thunderstorm that we had on Sunday night, we had some serious flooding! Even now, the watersheds are still way high. I went out on Wednesday to check out a heron rookery that is in Kent. Because of the high water in and around Breakneck Creek, I couldn't get very close to the nests at all (it is better not to disturb them much anyway) I wanted to scan the area to get a head count on the herons, and also check to see if any Great-horned Owls hapened to be occupying a nest. They are known to be found using heron nests (among many other nests). The area around the rookery is beatiful, and there were a bunch of woodpeckers around making a racket the whole time I was there. Mallards were also feeding in the flooded woods. I saw plenty of beaver evidence, then the beaver himself decided to let me know that he didn't want me around and slapped his tail on the water at me a couple times! I love beavers : )

 I thought that I wasn't going to be able to see the herons, but for some reason they all flew off the nests at the same time and I was able to get a rough count of about 25 birds (that were flying at least). There are way more than 25 nests. I'm going to go back soon when it isn't so flooded and see if I can get a bit of a closer look. Nesting activity is on the way!

Apparently it is supposed to rain more this weekend, so I hope that it helps thaw out the ground and melt the snow! I'm ready to start looking for amphibians : )