Dateline: 26 December 2022
Friday-Sunday in the greater Erie area: light/moderate snow, mostly overcast (some sun Saturday afternoon), windy, and extremely cold. No BirdingPI.com field operations due to unsafe conditions. Monday, overcast and cold, but warm enough (-7 deg C) to muster a small team for a chilly outing to Presque Isle State Park.
In park news, with the cold snap the back bay made an abrupt turn from ‘mostly unfrozen’ to ‘mostly frozen.’ Also, as of Monday afternoon, outer loop main park road was closed from East Pier to the main turnoff for the Coast Guard station. Presumably due to icy road conditions along the bay. (Extreme cold + high wind = blowing freezing water.) Access to West Pier also closed, for the same reason.
Reasonably good bird activity Monday. Lots of Tundra Swan activity (especially in an unfrozen area of the back bay by Feather Platform – more on this later in the week), plus sparrows, Blue Jay, Northern Cardinal, various ducks and gulls, and various woodpeckers. Here, Tundra Swan far out on Lake Erie, taken from Budny Beach. For a bit of colour therapy, interspersed with Northern Cardinal (m) also along Budny Beach:
Bad shots of swans in flight:
All trail conditions generally poor: 13 cm snow on top of ice/frozen rain. Windblown areas close to the water not safely traversable due to slippery conditions. Paved trails in reasonably good shape.
Bonus bad swan video:
As always the red of a cardinal is breathtaking.
This team member decided that he had seen enough snow and headed to Arizona where there isn’t any water, but at least it isn’t snowing!