Sixteen very enthusiastic birders braved the cold yesterday at Emeralda Marsh. Can't keep a good birder down! We traveled by car through the very diverse habitat of the conservation and were not disappointed with the number of species that we found during our 3 hour excursion. The one thing that we are discovering with many of our field trips is that we are not seeing a variety of ducks. This held true for Emeralda. Just two species, the Scaup and Ring-necked with just a few of these two species. We did see the Purple Gallinule in our usual spot and saw three Northern Harriers. There were areas filled with American Coots, but no ducks. We had a list of 46 species for the day. Jim & Eileen took us outside the conservation area to a pond that did have Black-bellied Whistling Ducks. There hasn't been a lack of these ducks at most of our field trips this year, though. We ended our trip with lunch in Leesburg and a visit to the Venetian Gardens where the Purple Gallinules, White Ibis and Ring-billed Gulls put on quite a show for us. The list of birds can be seen at this link.
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