Mallard Hybrid?

Some sort of Mallard Hybrid? Now I will be looking at the other mallards more closely. This fellow came up when I fed the geese this morning around 9:45 this morning. Is it 44 degrees out and sunny. Usually the mallards keep there distance. If anyone knows what he is crossed with I would be interested in hearing opinions.

Froth

There were three large froth blogs going down the creek this morning. Someone please explain to me how this is natural. Bert is in the photo so you can get some perspective on how large they were.

On the bird side of things I see the Green winged teal couple daily.

Green-winged Teal

Interesting waterfowl passing through... I assume. We shall see who stays and who goes. I think there were two male Green-winged Teals. I did not get a good shot of the second one, nor do I have binoculars yet. They were hanging around with this mallard couple. The size difference caught my eye when I was out trying to get my dog Bert back in. Luckily I had my camera with me. It is sunny out today. Snow still on the ground. It is 41 degrees out.

Fox Sparrow

It is noon and it is raining tiny hail balls. It is overcast and 32 degrees out. I just saw the Eastern Towhee. Glad he is still around, but I have still only ever seen one. Today I saw a Fox Sparrow. In fact I think I saw two. The one photographed here was digging underneath where the suet used to be. I need to refill it. The Northern Flicker seems to have departed since the suet is gone. The second photo was him taking off. I thought it was cool how the photo showed how his feet were the last thing to go!

Wood Duck

I caught a blurry photo of the alusive duck today at 5 p.m. It appears to be a Wood Duck.

Yellow-Bellied Sapsucker

Took a little walk in the woods with Josh this morning and spied this guy, a Yellow-bellied Sapsucker. I was actually out trying to catch a photo of a pair of ducks that are alluding me. The are very shy, mallard size, maybe a little bit smaller. The male seemed to have a very black head with a touch of white. The female had a touch of white in her near the top back end. I still have no guesses though. It is now 10:15 and 68 degrees and overcast. Earlier it was a little sunnier.

Breakfast for the Red Tailed Hawk

There was a Red Tailed Hawk in a tree one this side of the creek, right on the edge of the lawn. I ran to get my camera, but he/she must have spied me, for when I raised my camera it flew off. So Josh was waking up, I changed his morning diaper. I told Joe that there was a Red Tailed Hawk, and he asked if he got anything at our feeder. I said no, he flew to the island. Joe ran down to the laundry room, and I looked out the window again.... well it does appear that the Red Tailed Hawk fed at our feeder. I believe he/she got either a Junco, Titmouse, or maybe a Mourning dove. The last bird I saw there was a titmouse though.

Other news is that the chipmunks are out of hybernation. I saw the first one a few days ago. They actually live in part of our house. The stone wall between our living room and dining room. I have heard them from time to time over the winter chittering abve the main door we go in and out. They enter and exit by our office/dining room window.

The tempature this morning is 59 degrees and it is sunny. This will certainly help our oil bill if this keeps up!

Hooded Merganser

Three hooded mergansers have started to hang around. A Great Blue Heron is back around. It seems the Eastern Towhee is gone. The flickers are here whenever I have suet out.

High water

We had a big rain storm last night. We are not flooding, but the creek is quite high. About 9 feet plus. My experience with the Perkiomen creek will not do any major flooding since the rain is over (1-2 inches?). I worry when we get three to four over night, or four or more over a day or two. BUT we did have melting of ice that was on top of the smaller streams, so that throws in a curve ball. The Graterford gage is at 9 feet +, normal height is 2 feet. 11 feet is flooding, around 12 feet it is on my driveway in my garage, around 14 feet it starts coming in the lower floor/basement my bank house. That said at this point I am not worried.

If you want to watch stream flows take a look at the webpage I work on for the Chester County, County Animal Response Team at:
http://www.chescocart.org/links.html#Local
I have a stream flows for Chester County creeks and the river listed there.

This page has a nice general map of Pennsylvania and you can click on the dots to see other stream and river levels.
http://waterdata.usgs.gov/pa/nwis/rt

It is 58 degrees out, and overcast. The flickers come daily now that I have suet out. I have seen a bluejay more regularly the past week. The mergansers and mallards, and geese have stayed all winter. I just saw about 8 of them fly by. Yesterday I saw four brown waterfowl, one clearly with a white ringed neck fly upstream. I have no idea what they were. Right now the fog is beginning to roll in.