Waterfowl, Waterfowl, and more Waterfowl

With cold weather birding comes the invasion and challenge of identifying waterfowl. At first glance, waterfowl seem to be an easier subject than the flighty warblers of spring.  After all, there's no such thing as "Waterfowl Neck".  I've written before about the wonders of waterfowl so I won't go into them here.  Well, I will because I can't help myself.

The waterfowl that breed in the tundra make their way down to the rest of the US during the winter.  While some birds have their favorite spots and refuges, storms and strong winds mean that the possibility of a rarity exists in a variety of spots.  This winter has yielded a variety of types of waterfowl.  I got a Tundra Swan (a lifer) that was hanging out with some Mute Swans and a Trumpeter a few days later.  Which means that I've gotten 3 kinds of swans in as many days.  The only thing left would be a Whooper Swan but that's a real rarity.  As only 2 records of Whoopers in New England according to ebird, I am not going to press my luck.

Still seeing the variety of waterfowl makes me happy.  While they don't bring warmer weather with them, they do provide a great amount of color for the season and excellent practice!  So go out there and enjoy some waterfowl!  Watch the DUCKumentary if you haven't yet!  In the end, get outside and go birding!

4 Canvasbacks in the Quinnipiac River

Some Canada Geese Flying Overhead

Couple of Ring-Necked Ducks and Domesticated Greylag Geese

2014 Year List: 105
Notable Year Birds:
Tundra Swan *Life Bird*
Horned Lark
Iceland Gull
Surf Scoter

I like my Mergansers how I like my sweatshirts, Hooded

Waterfowl are truly amazing birds.  They are tough, fast, and adaptable.  Its hard and almost insane to say that anyone one group is preferred to almost any other, but the waterfowl hold a special place in my heart.  This is namely because as I learning to bird, I walked the lakes near my home.  These were home to all sort of waterfowl throughout the year.  Wood Ducks, Common Mergansers, Pied-Billed Grebes, Hooded Mergansers, Mute Swans, Gadwall, Mallards, and more!

As I was learning to identify birds, waterfowl were my loyal companions.  They weren't as flighty as a hummingbird or a kinglet which made working through the ID book easy and a great learning experience.  This made one very appreciative learner and life-long lover of waterfowl.  PBS recently made a documentary about the wonders of waterfowl and I've included the link below.

My question to you all out there is, what is your favorite waterfowl?  Post your answers below and enjoy some pictures of the Hooded Mergansers!

Male and Female Hoodie

Various states of Hooded Merganser

A Hooded Merganser landing in the water

Enjoy PBS Nature's Original DUCKumentary - Link Here

Winter Storm? No More

A quick update on the birding of the day.  I spent most of the day outside birding various sites and different environments and got a good variety of birds.

Site #1 - A Beach/Marsh - Here I saw my first Green-Winged Teal of the Year and heard many Grackles and RW Blackbirds too.  Marshes are pretty good environments for birds as they supply a lot of hiding space and food.  This marsh was behind a couple of warehouses and has seen some migrants and local rarities.  While we are always hoping to find something new.

Site #2 - A freshwater pond - This pond has been the site of various waterfowl lately and I was hoping to see some before all attention passes to the Warbler Migration.  The benefit of this pond was that it also had a 2nd growth forest meaning that lots of cardinals and chickadees were at play!

Site #3 - Another Beach/Saltmarsh/Sandspits - This site is home to a variety of species and is one of the places where I fell in love with birding.  Here I saw more GW Teals, American Wigeons, crows and one of my all-time favorite birds, A Carolina Wren.

As Spring approaches, I am getting more and more ready for migration season.  Studying, reading, training will help make it as productive as possible.  Of course, I would like to spend sometime with friends and family... but maybe they just need their own migration season.

 Red-Tailed Hawk (c) soaring a few feet above me

Carolina Wren (c) singing its heart out!

2013 Year List: 88
Notable Additions
Carolina Wren
American Coot

Red Knots and Redpolls

Too bad you can't call birds over like in the Red Rover game.   Red Rover, Red Rover, Hoary Redpoll, come on over!  It doesn't really work like that.  It doesn't work like that at all.  The search for the Hoary Redpoll began and ended with my feet in the snow.  For a couple of weeks of now, a Hoary Redpoll has been visiting a local feeder.  So, i woke up and headed over.  After an hour and a half of standing in the snow, I had to call it quits.  My feet were cold, my toes were numb and my blood was probably at the early stages of icing.  So without any sign of any more than 2 Common Redpolls at a time, I called it quits and went in search of another bandit.

Beach, wind and shore birds.... lots of shore birds.  What do you do when you are face to face with a single digit wind chill and hundreds of similar looking peeps?  You call it a good day and take out your scope for a good time.  The cold melted away and the wind was stayed with a bounty of chap stick as a looked over Dunlins, Plovers and Turnstones.  The challenge was to judge the legs, beak and coloration all while trying to count the birds!  Sadly, I dipped out the red knot but that doesn't mean I am not going to go out looking for it again... Maybe I'll try the red rover thing with the red knot and redpolls...

The Hoary Redpoll (C) Juho Holmi from Finland

The Red Knot (C) DickDaniels http://carolinabirds.org/

2013 Year List:

62 (138 to go!)

Highlights:

Common Redpoll

Northern Harrier

American Robin

Hooded Merganser

Life List:

256 (44 to go!)

Pelagic Birding

I've been on a boat before, I've seen birds before, I've even seen birds on a boat before.  However most of those boat trips have been trips to see something specific, eagles, swallows, whales, and other such things.  This weekend, the wife and I packed up and headed out to Cape Cod to take part in an 8 hour Pelagic Trip.  The Trip had the potential, for me, to bring a lot of life birds as I rarely get out into the open ocean like this.  But it also gave me the chance to see an even rarer breed... The SEABIRDERS!  They were gung ho about everything we saw and we saw some impressive stuff.  Grey Seals, Humpback Whales, Minke Whales and lots of birds!  We saw 2 Humpbacks make a bubble net rise to feast on their catch and then saw gulls and kittewakes going crazy and even darting into the whales' mouths to eat!  all while being no more than 100 ft from this!  I had to admit that while I am a frequent victim of motion sickness, I managed to sit on the front of the boat of most of the ride and had a ball seeing all the birds.  Kittewakes, Shearwaters, Jaegers and all sorts of auks make me very ready to go out again

The main thing that impressed me, after the spectacular show nature gave us, was the energy of the sea birders.  They were thrilled at every bit of nature that we could get our bins on.  Seals, Whales, didn't matter!  I think I've posted before about the encounter with 2 birders who disregarded the harbor seals sunbathing.  I was upset by their lack of interested in non-avian nature.  This time I was pleased to be surrounded by a good group of nature enthusiasts!  I've included a couple of pictures of the trip below.

 Great Shearwater

 Pomarine Jaeger

 Northern Gannet and Grey Seals

2012 Life List Update

240!