Bennington Lake Today

We saw two northern shrikes on our walk this morning.  One of them was very agitated, either with the other shrike or with a kestrel that was nearby. The killdeer have returned to the lake - there were three of them today.  We saw one great horned owl, a sharp-shinned hawk, a male northern harrier and one red-tailed hawk.  There were 31 common mergansers on the lake, two mallards and two canada geese.  The Bewick's wrens were singing, and there were downy woodpeckers, juncos, robins, Townsend's solitaires, song sparrows, white-crowned sparrows and black-capped chickadees along the trail. One ring-billed gull circled the lake while a great blue heron kept watch from the top of the dam.  All in all, a pretty typical February day at the lake.      Ginger