Happy Duck Dance!

Long-tailed Duck

Are there birders out there who go it absolutely alone? If so, they must be very, very good, or very, very frustrated. If it weren't for my birder friends, and their postings of bird findings on the BirdKY email list, I would have a hard time finding many cool birds. Yesterday, one of them posted about birds at a location I've not been to before, which ends up being about an hour up the Ohio River from Louisville. So this morning, I stopped for coffee, and headed upstream.

Bald Eagle Nest

I ran into him when I arrived, and he was amazed. "Where did all the gulls go?" We did find the Red-necked Grebes, but did not get a good picture of the female which was the only close bird. I stopped at the restaurant to use the Ladies' Room, still wearing my binoculars. A man at the bar asked if I'd seen the Bald Eagle that sometimes perches in a sycamore tree by the marina across the road. I thought that would be a good place for one too, but no, he hadn't shown up today. It's always interesting that binoculars or a spotting scope can prompt complete strangers to start conversations about birds. Even though they usually are not birders themselves, their interactions with birds seem to be important to them. However, as I started back towards Louisville, taking a scenic road along the river west of Carollton, KY, I did see a large blob of sticks in a bare tree. Fortunately, there was no traffic as I slowed to a crawl. OMG! There's a white blob in the dark blob! It's an Eagle nest, and she's sitting on it!  I parked in the middle of the next small road, and carefully ran across to take some photos of her. A quick email to Kentucky's avian biologist in Frankfort confirmed that they know about this nest. It would have been cool though, to find a new one.

Common Merganser

After winding along more rural roads, I finally arrived at Reformatory Lake. The last time I went there, everything was frozen and covered with snow. Hundreds of geese stood on the ice, or swam in the small open pools. Today, very little snow is left, and the geese honked constantly as they grazed in fields on the other side. The Common Mergansers still swam around though. I have seen all three mergansers this winter - Hooded, Red-breasted, and Common. A hat-trick for me!

Common Goldeneye

Back at the Ohio River, and apprehensively watching the traffic standing in line to cross the bridge on I-65, I found my friend, Eddie the Birder. He counted 16-18 Long-tail Ducks waay out in the middle of the river, and again, I shook my head, unable to confidently identify them. This Common Golden-eye was no problem though. Have you noticed how most of the winter ducks, etc., are combinations of black, white and gray?

Eddie advised me to go upstream a bit to the Big Four Bridge. This bridge carried trains for many years, and has recently been converted to a pedestrian bridge, with great success to my surprise. Anyway, Eddie said he's seen some of these much sought after ducks close to the Indiana shore, just under the bridge. OK, I'll give it a try.

Indeed, how could anyone be a birder without the help of other birders? At last, with the help of my friends, I dance the Happy Duck Dance, and publish my photos of this rare (around here anyway) duck. When I got home, an email was waiting from another friend to go see the Woodcocks' mating display. Thank goodness it's tomorrow evening!

Long-tail Ducks

With long-term ice all over the country, it seems, many sea ducks which would normally not come to the Ohio Valley have decided this isn't a bad place to spend the winter after all. At least the river hasn't frozen. It's been a birder's bonanza! The reports started weeks and weeks ago about Long-tail ducks being found on the Ohio River near downtown Louisville. When I realized this was not the brown and white duck I visualized (the Pintail), I started making trips to the river on a regular basis, whenever the sun came out. But, no luck for me. A friend went back in the late afternoon one day and said she saw it clearly.

On Monday morning, my friend Del called to say 8-9 of them had been sighted, so I hopped right in the car, morning toast in hand! Fortunately, I found Brainard when I arrived. He found the ducks as little specks with white heads in the middle of the river. With his assistance, I got some good looks with the spotting scope, but they were way too far away for any photos. I confess to borrowing these nice ones from the Internet.

 

Why would they be so hard to find? We've had a bit of a warm spell the last week or so, and all our snow has melted, along with quite a bit from upstream, apparently. The water levels are very high, and white caps form from wind and current. Most of the dark specks are logs and debris floating downstream. Do you see any ducks in this photo? Look very closely in the lower left, near the tree. You see what we are up against? From this point on the Indiana shore, it is about a mile across to the Kentucky side where the canal for barges comes out.The water is much calmer there, and it's a good place for birding.

The ducks swam along in a line, or rather they floated quickly down towards the dam. One by one, they dove down into the water looking for mussels. The Corps of Engineers only has to keep the navigation channel at nine feet deep, so it's not as deep as you would think here. These Long-tails can dive up to 30 feet. All four gates on the dam are completely out of the water, to keep the logs from jamming up. When the ducks got too close to the dam, they would take flight and go back upstream a bit, to start the process all over. I'll probably keep looking for them, just to see if I can get a photo of my own, but at least I've added them to my Life List!

Birding with Barbara

Cackling and Canada Geese

My friend Barbara is a really good birder, who knows not only the songs of many, many birds, but their chips and call notes as well, so she's a great resource to have. After the Creasey Mahan GBBC event on Saturday, Barbara and I headed for Reformatory Lake. As you might guess, it is near the state prison. Hundreds of geese keep a good portion of the lake's water open this winter, and we waded through rather deep snow to get as close as possible. The Common Mergansers were beautiful, and the Green-winged Teals looked like little goslings standing close to the large Canada Geese. When several flocks joined the others on the water, we found Cackling Geese, our target for this trip. The newly recognized Cackling Goose is a smaller version of the Canada Goose, and breeds farther northward and westward than does the Canada Goose. Barbara said the trick is not to look at the size of the goose, but the size and shape of the small bill on the Cackling Goose.

Red-breasted Merganser male

Today, the sun was shining, and the urge to bird struck me again, so we headed down I-64 to Lexington, KY, a new spot for me. Reservoir #2 (located with the help of Google) hosted a variety of different waterfowl, including male and female Red-Breasted Mergansers. I love his punk hairdo and red eyes!

Hooded Mergansers, male and female

The tiny Hooded Mergansers didn't have their hoods up today, but quite a few of them swam in the lake. We watched an Eared Grebe come up with a fish, while Great Blue Herons landed on the ice. I think a "murder" of crows were playing hockey on the icy surface, and enjoying themselves immensely!

Mallard male

Mallards stayed close to shore for the most part, except for this fellow who decided to take off for a while...

Ruddy Duck, male

The Ruddy Ducks aren't in breeding colors yet, but we found 10-12 pairs. As soon as you spot one and get the camera focused, it dives under, and there's no predicting where it may surface again. Usually their stubby little tail stands straight up.

Muscovy or hybrid Mallard?

The most obvious character of a Muscovy is the red facial skin.This red skin can be quite bumpy, exaggerated, and frankly, gross, with a knob on top of the bill and lumps all over. Domestic Muscovies can be pure white, all black, or any degree of pied black-and-white. Many hybrid Mallards paddled in Reservoir #4, but I think this one is a Muscovy. I never knew that four good sized lakes could be found within the Lexington city limits. 

Eastern Meadowlark

Many Lexington birders have been taking wonderful photos of a Short-eared Owl at one of the University of KY research farms. I am still on the quest for a good photo of the SEO's face, so for an hour before sunset we drove around the fields of horses, looking for a fence with a dark blob on the top, alas, with no luck. No owls. No harriers. We did find lots of Red-tailed Hawks all day, plus the liquid joy of Eastern Meadowlarks having a song fest. 

 We enjoyed the cotton candy sunset, and treated ourselves to a nice supper, oooing and aahing over our photos and good luck today. There's always another day to look for owls, and we may try our luck for Sandhill Cranes soon, since they are starting to move north - as long as the sun shines!

Ducks in the Desert?

With a map from the rental car company , some directions from a phone call to the Tucson Audubon Society and LOTS of determination, we found the most unlikely place here in Arizona. Part of the challange was overcoming the closure of most exit and entrance ramps on I-10 in downtown Tucson!

The Sweetwater Wetland is a sewer treatment pond, which attracts hundreds of ducks and other birds. I never would have thought of looking for ducks and water fowl in the Arizona desert, but we have always had good luck birding at water treatment ponds. We saw more varieties of ducks here than I normally would see in Kentucky or Indiana. Northern Shovelers were the most common, although we also saw:

American Widgeon, Mallard , Northern Pintail** , American Black Duck , Blue Winged Teal , Cinnamon Teal**, Green Winged Teal , Bufflehead (female) , Ruddy Duck (female)

As the sun set, a noisy flock of Red Winged Blackbirds, Yellow Headed Blackbirds and Brewer's Blackbirds sailed in for the evening and perched like bright yellow flowers.

A family of Harris Hawks lives nearby, and apparently views this territory as their own. We saw one hawk perched on a power pole, then saw it actually fighting (talons extended and everything) with a falcon! How's that for an exciting first day birding!

A bird resembling a Phoebe, but a bit larger, perched on a branch above the water, darting out for a bug and returning to wait for the next one. Turns out to be a Black Phoebe. We also got a quick glimpse of a Gambel's Quail and an Anna's Hummingbird. At first I thought it was a Costa, but closer examination of the field guide changed my mind.

24 species we could identify and 8 new additions to the life list. And there was afternoon, and there was evening of the first day. And it was good...