On Saturday Susannah and I took a rare weekend day off and went to the George C. Reifel bird sanctuary with Christine and Marcus who are visiting from Germany. I had been here about the same time last year when my Mum visited from NZ and had a great time so I was keen to go back.
What I really love about this place is that it is fairly natural - there are walking paths, but the natural habitat is left pretty much as it should be for the birds to enjoy.
At this time of year there are huge numbers of ducks. If you look closely though you will see many different varieties. All ducks are not the same :) Here is Marcus and Christine feeding some ducks...well, Marcus is feeding them, Christine is being morally supportive.
Here is a wood duck - one of the rarer and more beautiful varieties....
This a Canada Geese formation flying by. I love these birds. I don't know why, I just do.
Christine knew the name of this bird in both English and German. I had no idea of either, but it was teeny tiny and very cute! Here is me feeding a chickadee...
And me feeding the ducks...
One of the reasons I had wanted to take Christine and Marcus to the sanctuary was the snow geese which arrive in great numbers in November and December. They were very far away and we couldn't get a good view and I was a little disappointed. After we left, as we were driving along the road we saw huge numbers of them gathered in a field. We pulled over and this is what we saw....
This photo doesn't do them justice - there were hundreds if not thousands of these birds gathered there. Christine described it as a once in a lifetime sight and I think she was right. Beautiful, simply beautiful!
