Birds at Conowingo Dam

My husband had read about the Bald Eagles at Conowingo Dam - particularly in the early winter - so we decided to reconnoiter the location last weekend and then plan to go back late in the year. The location is only an hour from where we live. Wow! We were surprised when we got there and saw the number of birds fishing at the base of the dam.

There were mature and immature bald eagles - sometimes in groups

Sometimes interacting with smaller birds -

Soaring up high to the top of the dam -

Surveying the river from a dam abutment

Or the rocks to the side.

There were quite a few great blue heron as well. Both my husband and I tried to catch them in flight.

This heron had just landed on the water and looks startled that the cormorant is so close!

Here is a series my husband took that show the way the heron’s wings look as the bird flies very low over the water.

There were quite a few cormorants and it seemed like there was always one wrangling a fish.

We also saw quite a few black vultures and tree swallows….but the Bald Eagles were the big draw for us. Both of us want to go back with slightly different equipment and a little bit earlier in the morning. 

Swanquarter and Mattamuskeet National Wildlife Refuges

We headed out to Swanquarter National Wildlife Refuge first thing one morning. The birds that winter there had already left. We tried to walk silently on the decking to get close enough to take good photographs of terns and gulls that are always around.

I watched an osprey dive successfully for a fish but the bird was too far away to get a really good picture.

Our next stop was Mattamuskeet National Wildlife Refuge. This refuge had many groups of coots.

There were egrets fishing in the shallow water. I managed to get a fuzzy picture of one becoming airborne….different enough from the stalking poses I usually capture.

The turtles line up on anything in the sun. This morning was chilly.

I liked this grouping of cormorants. There were some noisy Canadian geese nearby so they did not hold this pose for very long.

The male and female pintail ducks swimming single file was my best sighting at this refuge. I captured these pictures by leaning out of the open car window!