Birdwatching

Sabbath afternoon, after lunch, we invited Daddy to go birdwatching with us. I had read online that someone had seen ~120 sandhill cranes the day before at Barren River in Ky (25-30 miles from us). We didn't really know where to look, so pulled off at the first parking area--got out and hiked the shoreline a way.

T found this really cool natural bench to sit on. We saw only gulls, so moved on to a different area. The next stopping place was a marina.

There we saw more gulls, some mallards and a kingfisher. As we were getting ready to leave, a group of black vultures came in--getting ready to roost somewhere.
Between the fact that it had been rainy earlier and was still overcast, the early (about 4:30 p.m.) sunset helped us decide it was time to head home--it was getting too dark to see clearly. As we drove across a bridge I looked to the right and saw lots of birds in the mud flats. M pulled off on the other side of the bridge (there was a parking area there--of sorts) and we walked back to the edge of the bridge. There in the dim light we could see hundreds (more than ~120--more like 300-500) of sandhill cranes where they had come to roost for the night. The wind was blowing away from us, so we couldn't hear them, but with the binoculars we could see they were grey with long necks and legs and were shaped in flight the same as the sandhills we had seen before at Hiwassee. We were able to see our sandhills after all!