This morning Mike and I went out to the Dobbins Farm Ponds to see what was there. Our first beautiful sight was not avian - As we turned onto Fred Dobbins Road, about a half mile down, two deer came running across the field, leaped over a barbed-wire fence, crossed the road, leaped over a second barbed-wire fence, then disappeared across the fields into the woods. They jumped those five-feet fences without any trouble at all, and what was instinctual to them appeared to be something that had been practiced for months or years.
Then we watched about 20 blue-winged teal on the farm ponds. There were a couple of scaup mixed in the group. We could tell they were teal because of the white markings on the face and back end.
A female kestrel practically posed for us on a fence post. The bird book said "hovers while hunting," and we watched it hover on three occasions before it returned to the post.
Saw two mallards on the second pond but that was all. I also watched a Savannah Sparrow.
A good morning!
