Dyeyo and I continued our bird-watching safari.  After we saw the Snow Bunting in Palm Coast, we went to Lake Woodruff National Wildlife Rufuge, where several Snow Geese have been reported there over the last week or so.  They were there!  They usually don’t come to Florida.  There was a mix of white morph adults and juveniles, and one juvenile blue morph.

Dyeyo and I really liked Lake Woodruff.  It reminded us of the Circle B Bar Reserve.  We were there around mid-day, which is not prime bird activity time (or bird photography time!)  But there were hundreds of birds.  We’ve  never seen such large flocks of Glossy Ibis.  White Ibis, Lesser Yellowlegs, Least Sandpipers, Little Blue Herons, and Killdeer were all over the place.

The first thing we saw when we walked into the refuge was a turtle.  (Happy Rich!)  He sat there sunning himself, with all four of his feet sticking out.  The turtle kind of rocked back and forth on his shell.  We saw several turtles over the course of the day.

There were Killdeer all over the place at Lake Woodruff.  There were a couple of birds on the ground right in front of us as we started to walk around Impoundment 1.

I tried to photograph the birds as they flew, and lucked out with one good shot.

Dyeyo admired the bright colors of the birds’ backs as they flew:

A brave little Savannah Sparrow was hopping around on the path not three feet away from me.  He kept hopping into my minimum focusing distance.  He barely budged when we walked past him.

We heard the call of geese, then sighted the group of Snow Geese in the middle of Impoundment 1.  I was so excited to see my first Snow Geese!  They are so pretty.  They were hanging out with a large group of White Ibises.  The adults are the plain white geese, and the juveniles have the darker patches.  The one blue morph is also a juvenile.

The White Ibises in front of the Snow Geese were splashing around in the water.  I tried to take some videos of them bathing, but they kept giving me camera-butts!

We saw several Wilson’s Snipes in the distant pools.  I got one decent shot before one bird disappeared into the reeds.

Dozens of Black Vultures sat resting in the shade along the far bank of the first impoundment.  They gave us dirty looks as we walked by, insinuating that we shouldn’t be the ones walking close and making them move!

A Great Blue Heron let me walk right up to him.  He was so intent on watching for fish that he could have cared less that I was there.  I went past him, looked back, and he gave me a big yawn…

Eastern Phoebes were darting around looking for insects.  One posed in a tree close by:

Pied-Billed Grebes, American Coots, and Common Moorhens gathered to say goodbye as we left…