A quick lunch-time tour of the Lincoln Monument area turned up a large
flock of geese on the Constitution Gardens pond (pretty much frozen
over).  One was an orange-billed Greater White-fronted Goose.  Another
was a large Canada Goose with an orange collar (with lettering I could
not read).  Of the dozens of other Canada geese, none looked small,
smalled-billed or cute-headed.  

Other birds in the area included Mallards, Ring-billed Gulls, a Downy
Woodpecker, many Dark-eyed Juncos and a few White-throated Sparrows.

  A new mammal for the Mall was a (yearling?) white-tailed deer grazing
near the Vietnam Memorial (close to the statue of the 3 serviceman).  I
regularly mock tourists for being oblivious to the neat birds I see, but
the only person oblivious to the deer (while I watched) was a jogger.
She didn't even pause to look to see what all the commotion was about!
A real local!

   In local SI news, I took down the unvisited hummingbird feeder in the
Mary Ripley Garden.

                               Jim

 

Jim Felley

Smithsonian Institution