Pea Island National Wildlife Refuge

It was a bird watching day for John and Jean and Gretchen had a day to herself to walk to the outlet mall, read (unfortunately, her book was in the car with us), and start the essential Christmas cinnamon rolls (yum!!).

John and Jean headed south to Pea Island National Wildlife Refuge. Pea Island is nearly 6000 acres. There are several paths you can walk along beside the North Pond. This time of the year many of the migrating birds are here.

Whistling Swans - there were hundreds.

Common Pintails - also abundant.

Shoveler

Bufflehead

Back of bufflehead - the red is his foot..

Blue Heron

White Ibis

Then we saw what looked like a large flock on the water in the distance so we headed down to the end of the pond and found this....

hundreds of Redhead ducks. And hundreds more in the adjoining small ponds. They got a little nervous with us around and once one took off, the others soon followed...

but usually landed nearby.

As we headed back to the car we saw this Great White Heron as he caught his lunch....

tasty...

arguing swans....

then one more stop at the north end of North Pond...

a hunting Blue Heron...

a snow goose...

and a Double Crested Cormorant. It was a birders heaven.

We headed back to the timeshare and helped finish up the cinnamon rolls, worked on the puzzle more and generally relaxed. Great day!!