March 8 -- A Morning At the Wildlife Area, Then Dinner With Good Friends

Yesterday at 7:30am I met Norm Parrish, my Canadian birding buddy, at the parking lot of the Overton Wildlife Management Area for another bird count, and to have a "meet and greet" with folks from the Nevada Department of Wildlife in preparation for volunteering next winter at the wildlife area. The main entrance gate was closed (there's a sign reading "gate open weekdays until 3:30pm"; more on that later) so we entered via Wildlife Road, further down the main valley road, where I had the "run-in" with a "game warden" a few days previous. As before, the faded "Do Not Enter" sign was still in front of the open gate leading to the wildlife area, and the reason I mention these locked and unlocked gates is because there doesn't seem to be consistent rules governing when they're to be open, closed, or making the wildlife area accessible to the public. Norm and I had an excellent early morning, highlights being the area's adult Bald Eagle, 2 Least Sandpipers who seemed about to be blown away by the wind at Honeybee Pond --

2 femaled Hooded Mergansers, a Peregrine Falcon trying to get an early lunch while negotiating flying in the wind, and 2 Ross's Geese hanging out with the Canadas.

And we finally both saw at the same time what we had seen separately, and suspected -- a Cackling Goose. He's the small one, 2nd from the left --

He's smaller than the Canadas, with a stubbier bill and rounder head. There are a few subspecies of Cackling, and according to my National Geographic's "Field Guide to the Birds of North America", this Goose is in the range of the "Leucopareia" subspecies. This is one of the things I find enjoyable about birding -- figuring out the puzzle in what you are seeing. AND getting a good photo to prove your ID. Around 9:30am we headed back to the main entrance (which gate was still closed) to talk with folks from the Department of Wildlife who were having a "fair" that day in a field at the wildlife area. Norm and I met with Doug, Jennifer and Tammie and discussed the online procedure to apply as volunteers, what we had seen that morning -- and the confusing closed gates and "do not enter" signs. It appears even they were surprised that the main entrance gate was locked, even when I mentioned the sign about being open only on weekdays. Norm and I left to continue birding in the southern part of the wildlife area, but we'd already seen the big surprises of the day, though we still ended up with 55 bird species in a little more than 4 hours -- a good number. But luck held one more surprise for us, as upon leaving the wildlife area parking lot I saw about 20 White Pelicans circling way up high in the air -- 

After lunch at The Inside Scoop we went to the Overton Library to build Norm an iPod Touch loaded with bird calls, Norm having brought his Windows laptop. We encountered a few issues which were thankfully resolved by my boondocking friend OP, who dropped by to do work on her MacBook, using the library's WiFi, and now Norm is the proud possessor of an iPod Touch filled with the calls of birds of Western North America.  OP, Norm and I ended the day with dinner at Sugar's with Lee and Gaye Horn, where we had good food and conversation between good friends. Then I walked back to Discovery where I crashed-out, feeling a cold coming on...