Today, I’m including Tuesday’s list along with yesterday’s list.  By the time I got Tuesday’s list I was too tired to do anything with it, SORRY! I did survive the grandkids!! Actually, they were really well behaved and I loved it. It is just exhausting work compared to bird watching/counting!!

  This week there were loads of ducks, mostly dabblers on the Main Pool but some divers were beginning to show up too.  Canada geese are arriving in large numbers and using almost every unit. Seeing the lines and vees of them in the sky and hearing their calls brings back wonderful childhood memories, I hope for you as well.

  We found a large group of sandhill cranes hanging out in the vegetation in a back area of the Sandhill Crane Unit.  I suspect they were flushed from the adjacent agricultural fields when the farmer went in to harvest soybeans.  We also saw 95 sandhill cranes in Knox-Marsellus Marsh!! The total number of cranes in our area is increasing. Woohoo!!

  I’m including pictures of the now deserted great blue heron colony, showing some awesome Autumn colors and a pair of adult bald eagles that I saw on the ground/standing in water out by the eagle sculpture last Monday morning. The eagle on the left was eating from what appeared to be a large carp. Also, Linda sent me a pic of adult bald eagles on the nesting platform at Tschache Pool from Tuesday and a picture I took yesterday of an immature bald eagle on the same platform. I can’t resist sharing pics of pied-billed grebes at the Sandhill Crane Unit.  They are just so cute!!

 Hopefully you can get out to explore the Montezuma Wetlands Complex trails, towers and the Refuge Wildlife Drive and experience the awesome colors of Autumn as well as our wonderful wildlife.  Dogs on a leash are only allowed in and around the Visitors’ Center and on the Seneca Trail.

ENJOY, be respectful and safe.