Early Arrival

Last night we witnessed this lone female Northern Pintail fly in and land on Beaver Creek. She was most elegant in the evening light, and instantly ignited my imagination. Where had she spent her summer, British Columbia or as far away as Alaska?  Will she stay put here, or venture on to California or Central America to spend the winter? And where are her traveling companions? These are all unanswerable real possibilities.  What I do know, is that this is the first reported sighting on eBird for Lincoln County of this fall’s southern migration of Northern Pintails. The last of the northern migration was reported in May.