With around 7 inches of snow at DeKorte today, tried something a tad different — birding while cross-country skiing.

The snow was definitely deep enough, and since DeKorte is flat as a pancake in most places, it was a breeze.

The Transco Trail (below) is about as straight and flat as you can get, and you get to see ducks on one end and raptors on the other.

We carried binoculars and a pocket camera, and kept mental note of the raptors and ducks we saw — 3 species of hawk and 10 species of duck.

We think we got better looks at the Lesser Scaup and Green-winged Teal because we were on skis…

We did not pay much attention to the other stuff — but did get a chuckle from a Great Black-backed Gull atop the Osprey Platform in the Lyndhurst Nature Reserve.

Full list follows. 

Location:     Richard W. DeKorte Park
Observation date:     1/12/11
Notes:     We tried some birding on cross-country skis… We have about a half-foot of snow at DeKorte.
Number of species:     20

Canada Goose     X
American Black Duck     2
Mallard     X
Northern Shoveler     1
Northern Pintail     3
Canvasback     60
Lesser Scaup     1
Bufflehead     6
Hooded Merganser     5
Common Merganser     4
Ruddy Duck     2
Northern Harrier     2
Sharp-shinned Hawk     1
Red-tailed Hawk     2
Ring-billed Gull     2
Great Black-backed Gull     2
Mourning Dove     1
Northern Mockingbird     1
Song Sparrow     6
Northern Cardinal     1

This report was generated automatically by eBird v2(http://ebird.org)