RARITY DISCOVERED NESTING AT MAGEE MARSH!

The Great Lake Erie...iced over...not unlike my feet.

What an amazing sight to behold! And not a soul stirring other than your intrepid host and his side kick, the delirious Doodles! We had the boardwalk at Magee Marsh all to ourselves. It was a very cold day with the trail deeply covered in freshly fallen snow. The only signs of life were the tracks left by the squirrels, desperate to eke out a living for their squirrely families...and the occasional Downy Woodpecker, pecking wood as only a woodpecker can.

We walked quickly at first, then we slowed to a crawl as we heard nothing, a nothing like nothing we had never heard before! It was a fluffy quiet that hits your ears like an over cottoned q-tip. We took every step, step by step, being sure not to make any mis-steps that would be mistaken for a step that was not. "Shhhh. Did you not hear that?" The Doodles ear-muffed ears heard a muffled nothing closing in on us. Let's step up our stepping, stepping carefully of course...

The only steps to be seen are the steps of the Doodles stepping carefully around her steps to photograph the steps left by her steps.

The shock and stress caused her to faint and fall as a flake of snow would fall, falling into the snow like snowflakes do!

"OH. MY. GOSH."
Said I. Still in shock while driving after stepping...and picking up the Doodles.

And here it is!
The FIRST photographic evidence of a nesting "Carpodacus Ninguis" or Snowball Finche!

Your intrepid host crept quietly while stepping stealthily to nab a close up of this Snowball Finche upon her nest.
Its obvious from the field marks that this is a female.

Of course I would never think of blogging a blog without the behind of the bird!
It's ventral aspect is astounding!

As you can tell, even the Downy Woodpecker had to stop pecking wood!
A sight to behold, of that I am sure.

I'll be waiting for that call from the Cornell Lab of Ornithology...
or some sort of professional institution...