Scoters and a Wigeon

I bet, reading the title of this post, you're not even sure if it's going to be a bird post. It is. I went down to North Pond, Fullerton Beach, and Montrose Harbor the last couple of weekends and got to see a lot of "firsts". Wood Ducks, American Wigeon, Surf Scoters, Black Scoter, Scaups, and a Hooded Merganser were all there. I'll post some good pictures of the Scoters from the internet, then I'll post my pictures for all of them. I also saw a Northern Flicker at North Pond which I've seen before, but it makes me hopeful that spring is coming because the last time I saw them was October. I finally downloaded some photo-editing software to my computer, so some of the pictures I've zoomed in digitally, so they're a bit grainy, but the non zoomed-in picture is too far away to be identifiable.

First up, we have a male Surf Scoter. I saw on the message boards that they had seen a pair of these and a female Black Scoter at Fullerton Beach. I didn't see that board post until after I had already been at Fullerton Beach on a miserable day and did not see them. But I saw them today and was very excited about it. I actually let out a little yelp when I saw them which, of course, made them swim away for a little bit. But they came back. I also saw some Common Goldeneyes, male and female, Common Mergansers, male and female, and lots of Gulls as well as the female Black Scoter.


Male Surf Scoter

Male Black Scoter (which I did not see)

Female Black Scoter

So then, the rest of the picture are pictures I took with my little Lumix 10x optical zoom point and shoot. Hopefully soon I will be purchasing a "megazoom" camera of 18x optical zoom. Here are the male and female Surf Scoters:

This is a picture that actually has the female Black Scoter (at top) and both Surf Scoters (lower right) in it as well as some Goldeneyes.

Here are 3 male and 1 female Scaups (Greater, I assume). I like their blue bills and the female has the distinctive white mark at the base of her bill as well. Their heads are actually green, not black.

And now for my favorite, the Wood Ducks. I love them. They make funny noises and they're small and they sit right next to the shore so I can take pictures of them.

Oh, and an ornery goose.

Then I was looking for the Wigeon because I had missed it last weekend and I was determined to find him today. I looked and looked and then all of a sudden, there he is right in front of me. I snapped one shot, turned away, and when I turned back, he was gone. Argh. So I keep scanning the non-frozen part of the pond which is full of mallards (primarily green, brown, and gray) for this Wigeon who is also primarily green, cinnamon brown, and gray, but in a different pattern. At the same time, people come over and feed the birds (which annoys me a lot) and they all scamper up on the bank to eat. So I went over there and looked and looked, and then there he was right in front of me again. So I snapped a few pictures and was done. His colors are actually quite a bit more vibrant than this, it was just getting to be dusk so it's not showing up as much.

American Wigeon:

Then here's the Hooded Merganser that's on the pond as well. He's tiny and very cute. This is a blown up picture here and then I have another one where he has his "hood" all the way up.

He's hiding behind the female mallard there.
Here's the big version of that picture that's a little sharper.

Another Wood Duck picture. This is a pretty good one of the two females. They like to sit on this fallen branch, but if you get too close, they'll hop off into the water and squawk at you. Squawk is really the wrong word for it, it's more of this high pitched, thin sounding call that goes up chromatically in tone.

So all in all, very successful couple of trips with a lot of new ducks seen. I really need to get working on that Life List now :)