Today was another sunny, windless and unusually mild day, the last before a forecasted return to cool and rainy weather, and this morning I took my bike out for a ride along the river to enjoy what may be the last mild day of the year. Along the way I stopped at Britannia Park to see if there might be any Purple Sandpipers out on the rocky pier (there were none). I normally don’t walk out on the pier, but with plenty of time on my hands and the weather so fine, I thought why not. I didn’t expect that I was going to see many birds anywhere else today anyway.
 
As I hopped across the rocks this Long-tailed Duck came into view as it scooted away from the edge of the pier. It was out of camera range, but a couple of minutes later, while I was immersed in taking landscape shots of the pier (my next two photos), it had returned to the edge of the pier. I swapped lenses and proceeded to try to approach within camera range, but that wasn’t necessary as the Long-tailed Duck came to me!
 
I stopped elsewhere to watch the courtship displays of male Mallards. I keep hoping that I will catch a photo of a male giving his courtship display, but that wasn’t to be today or yesterday. Maybe next week! I saw another Merlin today, a number of Hooded Mergansers, a Common Loon, and what appeared to be a Black Scoter (it was at an extreme distance). Songbirds have been scarce for the last ten days or so and today that trend continued.