New Year's Day (27 Species in All)

I always go out birding on New Year's Day. I stayed up past midnight, but was out the door by 7am. As I made coffee, I spied my first bird of the year, a Mourning Dove. Its usually a Dark-eyed Junco, but this year the doves won. With coffee in hand, I started my effort walking through the Milwaukee County Grounds near my house in Wauwatosa.

The Belted Kingfisher was a nice surprise along with a Barred Owl. I know exactly where to find a pair of Great Horned Owls, but the Barred Owl was a welcome treat. After a nice hike through the County Grounds, I headed down to Milwaukee's Lakefront. There's always a large number of wintering ducks along the lakefront including some species that you'll never any other time of the year. It was surprisingly quiet, but saw the usually Lesser Scaups (can anyone really tell the Greaters from the Lessers), Red-breasted Mergansers, and Common Goldeneye. After searching thorough an large flock of gulls for anything interesting and running out of coffee, I ended the day of birding. I closed out the day with 27 species.