Spring, Ducks, and Herons Going For A Swim?

It is now legally spring, notwithstanding the fact that it has been spring several times so far this year.  Each previous attempt at spring, however, has been met with one day of actual winter at the tail end.  I hope now that we are at spring finally.

Birds, however, don't seem to care too much whether spring is official or not.  They have been chowing away at my birdfeeder like there's no tomorrow.

The most common birds are House Finches (Haemorhous mexicanus), followed closely by my favorites, the Carolina Wrens (Thryothorus ludovicianus):

Notably, I missed both of these on the big day, despite their being the most common birds at my birdfeeder.  The irony is much appreciated.  That being said, I do love these little Carolina Wrens.

While on a two-hour break from classes, I got a call from a fellow birdwatcher, Vaughn Suhling, of Meeting People Online For Golden Eagles fame.  He was interested in looking for a Lesser Black-backed Gull that had been hanging about the Lake Springfield Beach House for some time recently.  (As of this writing, it has departed.)  We met up and went to the beach house, for one of the best birdwatching trips I've ever taken there.  First off, there were ducks aplenty:

It's been awhile since I've seen such a mixture of ducks on Lake Springfield, as in probably not since last February or March.  I could have spent more time trying to look at this group of ducks, but as they were on the far side of the bay and we had a gull to find, we moved on.

Some ducks flew past the clouds and the smokestacks.  Closer examination proved them to be Northern Pintails (Anas acuta), which I rarely see locally!  Unusually large numbers of birds greeted us along the trail, but we pressed forth towards our goal species.

We then found a gull, and began debating its identity.  Two more nearly-identical immature Herring Gulls showed up, and by comparing the one gull to them, we determined it was a Lesser Black-backed Gull (Larus fuscus), the bird we'd been after.  (I think this is the correct photo, but Vaughn, who's much more experienced, identified the correct bird at the time.  Other people say this is a Herring Gull. I know that I saw the correct species in flight, but they moved around a lot. My photos are mixed up because I took photos of the other non-gulls seen nearby between photos of gulls.)

 This gull, whatever it is, landed in the water, as did another bird usually not so prone to swimming:

Why on earth is there a Great Blue Heron (Ardea herodias) in the water?  I've never seen one swimming before.  Apparently they can, but it renders them out of focus for my camera:

After finding this, I parted ways with Vaughn and went down to Lincoln Greens Golf Course, trying to see something akin to last spring's mass of cormorants and pelicans.  It was still a bit early, but I did see something more interesting- an American White Pelican (Pelecanus erythrorhynchos) run over a Double-crested Cormorant (Phalacrocorax auritus).

This pelican deliberately plowed the cormorant under, and the cormorant is shown here coming up for air afterwards. I have no idea why this happened, either!

Every so often, a Bonaparte's Gull (Chroicocephalus philadelphia) would fly up from the lake on their white wings, and drop down after a fish.  They're just beginning to get their black heads.

Meanwhile, at the Dividing Dam, a mixture of Lesser Scaups (Aythya affinis), Ruddy Ducks (Oxyura jamaicensis), and Horned Grebes (Podiceps auritus) snoozed away the day or fished lazily.

On the shores, a Great Blue Heron waded, though it showed no signs of diving into the water.  Nearby, a Herring Gull attempted to harass a heron into giving up its fish, though I was unable to get clear photos of this event.  It was fascinating to watch, as were so many thing this day.  Thousands more ducks sat out on the lake, but I ran out of time for them all.

Here, lying on the water, is the future, deferred:

Even in this blogpost, I've run out of photos of all the great birds, from Shovelers to Creepers, that I saw but wasn't able to photograph.  This was one of the better days I've had at the Beach House, and so I've provided an Ebird checklist of everything I saw:

Lake Springfield Beach House:
http://ebird.org/ebird/view/checklist/S35241712

Lake Park (next door to Beach House):
http://ebird.org/ebird/view/checklist/S35243930

Lincoln Greens Golf Course:
http://ebird.org/ebird/view/checklist/S35244236

Dividing Dam:
http://ebird.org/ebird/view/checklist/S35244716