I thought the story of the lake yesterday was going to be the weather and, sure, there were some dark clouds lingering in the sky and twigs and small branches on the ground as evidence of the storm, but the major excitement was the return of the pelicans. Not only were there ten swimming around the lake, but there were another twelve flying high above it. What started as two groups of six eventually merged into a flock of twelve. They circled high overhead and flew off out of sight to the West.
When I first got to the lake may attention was drawn by two white ducks circling each other or wrestling or doing something else. They separated and went into full bath mode. The third white duck was nowhere to be seen.
I looked up to notice no cormorants were in their tree and when I looked up I saw many birds flying far away. My initial thought was that they were cormorants but when I got closer I could tell they were pelicans.
When I got to the midpoint of the East side I saw there were cormorants flying low, both North to South and South to North.
There were multiple Buffleheads in the spur Northeast of the island, including at least one diving male. They were strung out almost to the other side of the lake. Besides these stragglers the rest consolidated down into a single group on the West side just North of the midpoint. There were several diving males in and around the main group.
There were a handful of turtles on the first log, a solitary wet turtle on the middle log and less than ten on the main log, which showed signs of the water rising a few inches from the rain.
Phyllis was tucked in on a bank with four to five black and white ducks. Just slowing my walking slightly agitated the black and white ducks to raise their necks so I didn't stop to take a photo.
As I was walking through the parking lot I looked back and some of the cormorants had returned to their tree. It was no longer empty.
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