I popped over to Spring Lake briefly yesterday to try to photograph an unusual bird reported there (which turned out to be a hybrid Red-naped Sapsucker x Red-breasted Sapsucker). Storms recently have dumped many inches of rain on us and Spring Lake suddenly filled to overflowing. The park was officially closed, but I walked in to look around a little. I wasn't the only one. The bird I was looking for had been made inaccessible by the flooding. Many of the trails were under several feet of water. A couple of guys on mountain bikes tried to stay on the trails, just for the fun of it. They somehow managed to stay upright (photo below). It was impossible to make a circuit of the lake, though. I contented myself with taking in the novel aspect of this familiar place. Before leaving, I spent a while watching and photographing Nuttall's and Downy Woodpeckers eating Chinese pistachio berries, which is somewhat unusual behavior for these birds. The storm added 2.45 inches of precipitation to our 2012/2013 total, which now stands at 12.65 inches (at my house anyway) as of December 3, which is well ahead of normal for this date (7.43 inches).
[Update: Subsequent rain added another 1.1 inches. The total was 13.75 inches as of 10:00PM on December 5.]
[Update: Since last reporting, we have had another 0.2 inches, bringing the total to 13.95 inches as of December 14, 2012.]
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