Dateline: 16 December 2023
Overall a nice day at Presque Isle State Park for the Great Christmas Bird Count. Too cloudy/dark for ideal photography, but mild/dry and plenty of birds to be counted. Great to see the ‘regulars’ (“One Ring-billed Gull, two Ring-billed Gulls, three Ring-billed Gulls, …”), but also fun to encounter something exotic, like here on Lake Erie near Beach 4:
And…, it’s a loose decoy calmly floating by real ducks, nowhere near any duck hunters. Ack. Move “1” from the ‘bird count’ column to the ‘birding fail’ column.
Soon thereafter at that same location, nothing better than incoming/landing waterfowl. Here, poorly lit but fun shots of (mostly) Red-breasted Merganser:
Ack! The one duck I counted was a decoy? I guess this team member was sippin’ too much Jack to know the difference!
Oh, well, at least I didn’t try to shoot it!