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 :)

Birds, birds, and more birds Part II

Here's post #2. Some of these are pictures I took down at Montrose Harbor. Due to the fact that I don't feel like rearranging the pictures, this post might be a little schizophrenic. These are 2 male Goldeneyes down in the Harbor: Here he's diving (they are, after all, diving ducks)

These are 2 Common Mergansers. They and the Goldeneyes are very shy. Every time I would walk even remotely close to the water (and still a good 50 yards away from them) they would swim away.

Here's a flock of Mergansers out at the end of the Pier. It was very treacherous even just getting this picture. Later you will see why.

Here are the Canadian Geese nibbling on the edge of the ice. It was really funny sounding. It sounded like very quiet chattering.

Here's a view of the skyline from Montrose Point.

If you look closely, you will see that the pier is one big ice slick, which is why I didn't go any further out to look a the Mergansers.

A picture of the wall of the pier, covered in ice.

The cutest picture ever:

Duck tracks in the snow! :)

So all of the above was from a walk around Montrose Point in early January.

The weekend of MLK day, I was down at Indy for the weekend and Mom and I went on a hike at Eagle Creek. I swore to her that we'd only be there for a half an hour. We were there for 3. But it was worth it. We saw 21 different species including one I've always wanted to see - the Pileated Woodpecker (Woody Woodpecker's species). He was absolutely, drop-dead gorgeous. The red on his head is scarlet and he's a very large bird, probably 12 inches or so. I couldn't stop talking about him afterwards.

We also saw one of the pair of wintering Bald Eagles. We had been at the new nature center and as they were shutting it, one of the volunteers gave us some pointers on when and where to find them. We found the tree that they roost in, but they weren't there. But he told us that when all the Coots got off the ice and huddled together in the water in the middle of the lake (the only spot thawed) to look for him. So I saw the Coots do that and the Eagle just swooped down and kept trying to pick one of them off for dinner. Just FYI, he went hungry that night.

We also saw a Northern Mockingbird, Tufted Titmouse, Hairy Woodpecker, possible Broad-Winged Hawk, White-Breasted Nuthatch, American Cardinal (male and female), American Tree Sparrow, American Blue Jay (male and female), Black-Capped Chickadee, Mute Swan, American Coot, American Mallard, Common Goldeneye, Dark-Eyed Junco (new one for me), Red-Tailed Hawk, possible Belted Kingfisher (but only a glance, not enough to count him on my life-list) and apparently some other things that I can't think of.

Then I went tonight to Montrose Harbor and saw 8 Mute Swans (4 adults and 4 juveniles) in the Harbor. I'd seen the Mute Swan at Eagle Creek, but a fellow birder identified him for me, so I was happy to identify these myself. Also, I saw the most vividly red cardinal. That means he's finished molting and has his spring plumage. Yay spring!!! Also, last week Mom saw her neighborhood Cooper's Hawk with me outside her house again (actually down the street). I think I will name her Mabel. You thought I was going to name her Cooper, didn't you? And lastly, I've seen American Kestrels, but usually see them in flight, backlit, or puffed up. I saw one driving the other day that was probably a male because he had the most vivid coloring and he was TINY. So cool. I also saw tons and tons and tons of Horned Larks on Hwy 40 west of Indy. Those things are fearless. They always waited until I almost hit them to fly away. I knew they were horned larks because I parked for a second and they landed next to my car and I saw their little mustaches. :) Ok, that's all. Sorry it was so boring :(

Birds, birds, and more birds Part I

So I kind of stopped the bird posts because I couldn't type so well with a broken finger, but the finger is doing very well and I'm back to full-speed, so I'm going to try and catch up on my posts.

Before Christmas I had quite a few experiences that I meant to blog about and just kind of never got around to. One day I walked out of my apartment to go to work and as luck would have it, I was running early that morning. So I walked out of the gate and I see a large bird swoop into the tree right next to me. I look up, and it was a hawk. So I chanced it and ran into my apartment to get my binoculars. When I came out he was still there, but I only saw him through the binoculars for a few seconds before he flew away. Still, I distinctly saw a gray cap and kind of slender body. I did the research that night and decided that he was a Cooper's Hawk, but I wasn't sure. Then, the next day I went down to Montrose Harbor to look for him (because I figured if he was at my doorstep, he was from the Harbor) and I ran into another birder who told me he'd seen a Cooper's in the park. I walked around for a while and flushed him out twice, although I didn't get a good look at him. So that was ridiculously exciting for me to have him right out on my street, like he came to see me in particular! :) I told mom that since I had given up birding for the winter (or so I thought), the birds decided to come see me instead.

So, then, this morning I walked out of Mom's house to drive back up to Chicago and I hear this very loud squawk, three times. Then again. I thought at first that it was a Blue Jay because it was loud and all that, but Mom has Blue Jays around her all the time and I knew that wasn't right. So I look up, and right in her neighbor's backyard is a hawk up in the tree. So I grabbed my binoculars and looked at him for a nice long while. This time, I'm able to make the identification almost immediately. Then I confirmed with a few field markers. You have to understand that the Sharp-shinned Hawk is a cousin of the Cooper and almost identical, so you have to look at some indicators. First of all, this Cooper was large, which meant it was a female and it's easier to separate from the Sharp-shinned. Male Coopers and Female Sharp-Shinned are sometimes the same size (males are smaller than females), but this was pretty large, so I knew off the bat it was probably a Coopers. I've posted some photos that illustrate some other field markers: the gray cap on his head usually does connect to the gray on his back. but the red goes further around his neck, whereas on a Sharp-Shinned, the gray comes further around his neck to more resemble a hood. So Coopers = cap, Sharp-Shinned = Hood. Also, the Sharpie has a smaller head and less of a neck, more resembling a Kestrel, where it looks like his head has been sat directly on his body. The tail of a Coopers is longer and the individual feathers have a more curved bottom, whereas the feathers of a Sharpie tail are squared off on the ends. Both Coopers and Sharp-Shinned have notches in their tail, although I think it's more pronounced in the Sharpie, and they also both have a terminal band on the end of their tail, but the Coopers is more buffy colored and the Sharpie is white. I also wanted you to notice the orange eye (not all Coopers have orange eyes, but the one I saw this morning did). Finally, the legs on a Coopers are thicker than an Sharpie. Part of the reason I posted the first photo is because he's calling and that's what I saw this morning. According to the books the call of a Coopers is lower and slower than a Sharpie, which is higher-pitched and faster and more resembles chattering. The one I heard this morning was definitely slow.

Ok, on to other experiences.

During Christmas, Nikki and I had the chance to go birding just a little bit in Ritchie Woods on Hague Road in Fishers. It was quite cold and we walked a bit to a clearing and saw absolutely nothing. But as we were getting back in the car, Nikki spotted a woodpecker! I called it as a Downy, but now I'm not sure it wasn't a Hairy (more on that later). We watched it for a while and also some American Tree Sparrows when I heard a distinctive call across the parking lot. As I turned Nikki grabbed my arm because some Sandhill Cranes had flown over the tree line overhead. It was awfully cool! I can't remember EVER seeing Cranes before in my life and I've seen them migrating once in Chicago and once in Indy (not counting going to Jasper-Pulaski). Then Nikki went back to the car and I sussed out the Brown Creeper that had been making all the noise earlier. On our way to lunch we also saw a Northern Mockingbird that I made her turn the car around to identify. Then, in the parking lot of Don Pablos as we were going in I looked up in the sky and saw a hawk. She was still in the process of getting out so I yelled at her "Nikki get the binoculars! GET THE BINOCULARS!!" (You kind of had to be there) I looked at him first and he was white with black tips to his wings. Nikki also saw that he had a gray contrasting head along with some other field markers that I can't remember now (sorry Nikki, please feel free to share in comments!) I brought the field guide with me into the restaurant and we identified it as a male Northern Harrier. Strangely, on the car ride over I had been explaining to her that I have a mental top ten list of birds I really want to see and I had mentioned the Northern Harrier! So Yay!! Apparently she saw another one later that week as well.

Building a Snowman!!

Alternate Christmas Eve

Since Nikki, Tyler, and Leah weren't home by Christmas, we decided that the 26th would be Christmas and the 25th was Christmas Eve. But here are some shots from that day.