Niagara Falls, finally...

It seems like I've driven by Niagara Falls a million times on my cross country adventures but have never stopped to oooh and aahhh over the grandeur of our nation's oldest state park.  Luckily I was deployed, if you will, for some bird surveys in the region and finally took the chance to go see the spectacle for myself...

Needless to say, the falls are crazy.  Any place where 675,000 gallons of water/second gush over a dropoff that high couldn't help but inspire awe and make you feel small.  Apparently Nikola Tesla discovered the alternating current system in Niagara, making the area the birthplace of commercial hydro-electric power.  Sweeeet.

And I found this pretty wild - in 1969 the U. S. Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) (I like to pronounce the acronym so it rhymes with Versace) actually stopped the flow over the falls to study erosion.  Visitor numbers to the dry falls apparently broke records.  It's worth Googling a picture of...

But it didn't take very long for my attention to be diverted to the hundreds of Bonaparte's Gulls swirling below over the turquoise waters where Lesser Scaups and Common Mergansers were loafing on the shores amongst Common Goldeneyes and more bobbing bath-toy Bonaparte's.  Of course they were all just too far for photos...

 
Huge rafts of Common Goldeneye were floating on the Niagara River, but unfortunately these massive rafts were not conveniently located in the waters adjacent to the pull-off where we could get pictures.  New Yorkers certainly have a certain style of highway driving, and I didn't feel like risking my life to get a photo.  Plus it was raining and we were pressed for time on this whirlwind tour.  

I really think these pull-offs should be everywhere - but I found myself imagining birders clogging the roadsides and the town building this in an effort to keep the crazy fowl lookers contained in one place...maybe this road needs a bird lane...

These unreserved Mallards of course posed for photos...

While these Common Goldeneyes played it cautious and peeled out immediately...

A highlight of the visit, and something I've never seen before, was this melanistic Eastern Gray Squirrel.  These black beauties are interestingly common in the Toronto and Ottawa, Ontario regions...yeah, these photos aren't going to win any awards either, but the documentation is there and the thing was adorable...

 
And how about the knobbly knees on this Ring-billed Gull?

 
Or the speckled head on this fella'...

What a cool place Niagara Falls is, with an interesting history and awesome birds!