Duck!

[Blue_In_AK]

Winter is officially over. :)

[sandnsea]

1. And that is officially, really and truly,

a duck. (As opposed to my previous bird offering)

:rofl:

[WannaJumpMyScooter]

2. I did not listen

and bumped my head...

oh, wait...

wrong duck

[mth44sc]

3. You might be right...

here's one that shoulda...

[JeffR]

4. There's a bar out in the soulless western suburbs called

The Muddy Duck. This guy could be their mascot!

[Blue_In_AK]

5. Oh, yes, it's very muddy where we saw this guy and his mate...

and no grass yet. The ponds and the lagoon are still frozen, so they were hanging out here in Fish Creek riding the tide.

[JeffR]

6. For all that I gripe about winter

I'm at least grateful not to be a bird. They have a lot more to deal with than shoveling the front steps.

[Blue_In_AK]

7. It's forecast to be in the 50s later this week

and once it starts really warming up here, spring happens fast, so it should get a little easier for the birds (and all the rest of us) soon.

The most amazing migrating birds we have up here, in my opinion, are the arctic terns. They travel from the arctic to Antarctica every year, a round trip of 24,000 miles, and since they live to be almost 20 years old, according to Wikipedia, the average arctic tern travels the distance of to the moon and back in their lifetime. I find that really astonishing. They and the trumpeter swans are my favorites that we see this time of year.

[JeffR]

9. I'm very ignorant of all but the most general knowledge about

bird migration, but I have been reading a little about the rise of the Leslie Street Spit a little southwest of us in Toronto as a major layover for many species of migratory birds, though the ring-billed gull population has dropped so much in recent years that it's fallen from 1st to 4th largest concentration of these birds in the world.

I'm planning a bike trip down there with cameras in the next week or so, before the trees get too filled in.

A recent article about the Spit:

http://www.thestar.com/comment/columnists/article/414004

[FlyingSquirrel]

8. Ha. 8 inches of snow yesterday in Everett, WA

Wish I coulda got some pics of blossoming trees covered in snow