I birded a good deal so far this weekend.

I started with a Thanksgiving day trip up to Lake Wallenpaupack, Dunmore Reservoir, and Lake Scranton. There really wasn’t much worth mentioning. Wallenpaupack held the same female LONG-TAILED DUCK that I found a couple weeks ago on my birthday. It was very foggy around most of the lake and so I headed out early. Dunmore Reservoir held nothing; I couldn’t see a single gull over the dump. Lake Scranton held the best birds of the day with a female SURF SCOTER and a RED-THROATED LOON.

Friday I decided to hit Francis Walter Dam and Beltzville State Park. Absolutely nothing. I did get a couple HERMIT THRUSH at Beltzville, worth mentioning since I haven’t seen any in a while.

Today I did the same trip as Thanksgiving. Wallenpaupack was pretty dead. Same female LONG-TAILED DUCK. Dunmore Reservoir seemed very interesting with hundreds of gulls swirling around.

In all the swirl of gulls I could only find about 6 HERRING GULLS, mostly immature. The rest were RING-BILLED GULLS.

There were more gulls to weed through at Lake Scranton. Finally, out of the mass of lighter gray popped a darker mantle- a LESSER BLACK-BACKED GULL. It was too far for any real photography and the birds all lifted and apparently it went out on the lift as I never refound the bird.

A female Black Scoter was on the other end of the lake. It was very close in, but dogged me on photos as it dove everytime I got it in frame and focused.

After a trip with my daughter to Chuck E. Cheese, I did a quick spin around Harvey’s Lake. I’m glad I did as I found 5 LONG-TAILED DUCKS and 4 BLACK SCOTER. The scoters were all female, but the oldsquaws were all male, 4 adult and 1 first winter. Another treat was a fos COMMON GOLDENEYE.