last Saturday's morning in Kearney

Our first interesting discovery Saturday morning was this Eurasian Collared-Dove in the town of Funk. This was my first of this species. They are believed to be derived from the African Collared-Dove and introduced to the Bahamas. In the 1980s they became established in Florida and now are common throughout the mid to southern U.S. Stan, our group leader, believes they will frequent Minnesota in the next decade or so.

Of course, we continued to see flocks and flocks of Snow Geese.

The dark ones are also Snow Geese, known as Blue Geese.

Many of the ponds still had ice on them.

We stopped for lunch at a Prairie Dog town near Republican City. (There has to be a joke in there somewhere.)

After lunch, Birdchick & Amber directed us to a site where in previous years they had found nesting Great Horned Owls and Red-Tailed Hawks. Sure enough, there was the Great Horned; I believe the little "puff" to the side is a baby one.
Tomorrow: our last post from Nebraska (and Kansas)