Santa’s sleigh

 There was a slow-speed parade through the park last night.  Santa had the hottest ride; the back of this.   That was last night. This morning, a Merry Skype Christmas.  An hour with Becky’s family, an hour with Matt’s family, happy kids with presents, a white Christmas, and our feet never even got cold. Had a friend, Joan, over for dinner.  Judy served meat pie.  Not a traditional Christmas dinner, but a traditional family dinner. Merry Christmas everyone. 

1,000 Scaup

 …out on a pond south of Donna.  Somewhere in those 1,000 Scaup is a Long-tailed Duck.  The Long-tailed duck is unusual for here. Somewhere in this mess of Scaup is one duck that is different from the rest. I’ve been there several times looking for it. I haven’t found it yet. Today I went back to look for it with determination, the scope, and Judy. It’s especially good to have Judy there. She is good at spotting things that are different. It’s not like the ducks are holding still, making it easy. But after 2 hours, there.  Second from the right.  That duck is different. Now all the way on the right.  The Long-tailed Duck! Year Bird!  The bird looked better in the scope than it looked in our photos.  If we could have gotten closer to it, it would have looked more like this: