All day bird watching

So today was an eventful day for us. We woke up around 8:30am and had breakfast. Then we were out the door by 9:30am and on our way to the Michigan City Harbor area to find our snowy owl. On our way there we drove past a house that we saw catch on fire yesterday and there was no longer a house standing there, just a pile of charred rubble. It was really sad to see that the whole house was gone. Hoping that the family that lived there is okay. So moving on to a brighter subject, we finally arrived to the Harbor and saw 5 Red-Breasted Mergansers, 1 Horned Grebe and 3 Common Goldeneyes but no luck with the Snowy Owl.(I'm just going to name the new ones that we haven't seen before in/around the different areas.) We then ventured out of the harbor and down the road a bit to the Calumet Trail and there we found 5 Red-Tailed Hawks and 1 Red-Shouldered Hawk perched along the road. Man were we on a roll today!!!! Now it was off to the Portage Marina and you wouldn't believe what new birds we saw there. We saw 6 Common Mergansers and 1 Belted King Fisher. We then made our way over to the Portage Fishing Pier and saw a very rare Purple Sandpiper! HOLY COW was that cool! There were some fellow bird lovers :D there with some really nice equipment so we were able to see the Purple Sandpiper up close. Spencer had heard that there was a Snowy Owl sighting not to far away at the Gary Works/DNR Fishing Pier Area, so we made our way over there and found the same guy that had the really nice scope. He beat us to the spot with high hopes just like us of seeing something cool! We got out of the car and he looked over at us and said, "are you guys still looking for that snowy owl, because I have him sighted into my scope here?". HOLY POOP!! Is he serious?!?! Yep, and there he was perched on the break wall out on Lake Michigan. What a amazing bird! Unfortunately, we didn't have a camera nice enough to get a good photo but the one photo we got you can tell he is there. There is this white blob on the top of the brown area in the rock wall.(It's really hard to see!) That's all the proof that Spencer and I need. Also at that same spot we saw 80 Greater Scaup, 40 Lesser Scaup, 1 Double Creasted Cormorant and 1 Red-Throated Loon. That pretty much completed our day of bird watching. We were on a pretty big high with all the different types of birds that we were able to see. Spencer and I then made our way home and when we got there you better believe that a nap was the next thing on our agenda. :D Today was a really fun day for us just being able to be together and have fun outdoors. Here are a few pictures of the amazing birds that we saw today. (Thanks to the great photographers who captured these pictures other than ours) Enjoy! (Also my picture for Jan 3rd will be here too)


Red Breasted Merganser


Horned Grebe


Common Goldeneye


Red Shouldered Hawk


Red Tailed Hawk


Common Merganser


Belted Kingfisher


Purple Sandpiper


Snowy Owl


Greater Scaup


Lesser Scaup


Double Creasted Cormorant


Red Throated Loon


We were being watched by these guys! LOL


Spencer looking for birds. Oh how I love him! :D


Day 3/ Jan 3rd Picture!! Beautiful right!!??!