At long last, birding!

I have finally gotten/made some time for a little birding, both last night and this morning. I hit two points quite close to home: Wharton Point (on Maquoit Bay) and Simmons Point (on Middle Bay). Here are my results:

Wharton Point, last night: The tide was in, unlike last time when the tide was out although it was about the same time of day but two weeks ago. I got lucky and found a flock of peeps huddling together and shivering in the cold:

 I counted the flock both there and in my photos, and I got 166 Semipalmated Sandpipers...

 What a cutie!

...and four Dunlins, including this juvenile:

Here's a shot of both species:

A view of the bay:

The wind chill must've been in the low 40s.

This morning, after seeing a report on eBird of a Red-necked Grebe at Simpson Point, I went there. Here's the boat launch:

and the shoreline:

and the bay with some small islands:

I got no photos here, as all the birds were way out on the water. Again, it was chilly and windy and overcast, so photos would've been ridiculous. Still, I got some nice birds:
Canada Goose  19
American Black Duck  9
Common Eider  13
Long-tailed Duck  1    
Double-crested Cormorant  19
Snowy Egret  1
Ring-billed Gull  54

There were more birds out there but I couldn't make any confident ID due to distance and conditions. My little Meade Condor scope was working as hard as it could, but I'm pretty sure that Gretchen's Vortex scope (a Razor, I think) would've performed better. Someday, maybe I'll spend the dough, but for now -- I just can't do it. I also saw a dark sparrow for a split second, but I couldn't ID it in that short a look.

I thought you might also want to see the house and the yard, so I took some pics. We'll start with the outside:

 We live in the left half, the front half. It's three bedrooms, two floors, a nice-sized kitchen and a bath (downstairs, while the beds are upstairs - unfortunately). Here's the big barn on the property:

 Wish I could say I have access to such a fabulous place, but it's off-limits. Our landlady runs her business out of it. It's part of a farm:

 And there is granite EVERYWHERE.

Here's the cool weathervane on top of the barn:

and there are five or six old-fashioned lightning rods:

complete with the glass globes. I love these!

The grounds are rather extensive:

 Back there right in the middle is where my veggie garden will go in the spring.

Part of the front yard, including the woods across the street in which I heard the Barred Owl:

And this is the side yard:

You can just make out our firepit and Adirondack chairs out there.