Fake News!

Patty and Bernie led a bird walk at Whitesbog this morning.

The first really cold day this year, 21° F at the start.

So the "walk" was a drive around the impoundments.

A friend had reported Tundra Swans, Buffleheads, and Ring-neck Ducks the day before.

We did not see Tundra Swans, Buffleheads, nor Ring-necked Ducks.

We did see these.

At first we were excited! Finally some waterfowl. We got out the scope for a closer look. These "birds' were made of plastic.

Decoys.

Here is our birding group. If you look closely (click on the image to bigafy it), you'll see that they are looking in different directions.

There was no bird! It's a fake! Staged to fool people! A scam! An attempt to make it seem people were having fun to get them to come on future bird walks.

📰 🗞 📺 🗞 📰

The walk was a drive.
The reported birds were not there.
The "birds" we did see were fake.
The group shot is a fraud.

Yep, fake news! It is all the rage these days.

🐧🐧🐧🐧🐧

In non-fake news, we did see some birds. Including this Rusty Blackbird.

Image courtesy Renee Evans Esposito

Which for me was the bird of the day. A nice find and a good bird.

We also had a very nice fly over or an immature Bald Eagle.

And everyone did have a good time. For realz.