Halloween Birding

On this lovely four day weekend, I went out three of the four days to go birding.

I saw a lot of the same things, but there were a few that stood out.

While in Southampton, I went to the beach and saw a huge swarm of Herring gulls and Ring Billed gulls.

I later took a walk through town, and journeyed to the duck pond. On my way to the pond, I saw 5 very fat Greater White- Fronted Geese, mixed in with a family of Canada Geese. They were waddling across the street, looking exceedingly out of place surrounded by Mallard ducks (identifiable with bright green heads and yellow beaks), and what I believe to be Mottled ducks, which I had to figure out based off of the dark brown bodies, multi-colored feathers (blue peeping through), yellow beaks, and orange legs. It also had a darker brown eye line, which could have been confused with another duck.
When at the pond, more excitingly, I spotted a Great Blue Heron, calmly picking at the reeds with its long, slender neck and dark legs.

Overhead, I saw many, various birds, all flying in their traditional, usually migratory "V" shape. Almost every specie I saw this weekend, I saw flying together in a larger group later on.

The birds that flew overhead consisted of:
-Great Cormorants (large and very black with a white flank patch)
-Sea Sparrows (olivey-gray body with a yellow spot in front of their eyes, white throat, and no wingbars). I saw these up close, but a huge cluster flew out of nowhere from a little bush nearby.
- Song Sparrows
- And these black birds which I strongly believe were small herons, all flying slowly and gracefully in a "V" shape, but I am still unable to identify them.

Even though there was no group trip this weekend, I certainly got my fill of birds. Not only that, but I was forced to not only dig through my bird guide for a long period of time, but also to look up certain traits and characteristics to attempt and identify the black bandit.

I hope everyone had a great Halloween weekend, and that the birds didn't eat too much candy... er... trash.