Oh the Pandemic!

Oh, the Pandemic! In reviewing this blog, I find that I posted a lot during the spring migration of 2020. There were good birds, and I figured I didn't need to wear a mask outside birding, right? The rest of 2020 was a big flop as far as birding and blogging went. We had a big debate about having the whole family (all ten of them) for Christmas. Mostly I just sat in the chair vegetating for months. It's hard to keep track of time when you go nowhere and do nothing.  

The annual Great Backyard Bird Count was scheduled for Saturday, February 13. Louisville Audubon Society partners with Creasey Mahan Nature Preserve for this event, and we decided (in a Zoom board meeting) that we could still do it, by eliminating the part inside and asking everyone to wear masks on the bird walk. However, as the date approached, the weather forecast was terrible, predicting low temperatures in the single digits or teens, so we decided to cancel it for that date. Instead, we used our Facebook page to encourage everyone to participate on their own, posting photos of common winter birds. I was amazed at the reception - more people than normally view that page on FB. Guess they likd my photos.

However, that Saturday, the 13th, was the beginning of our big winter storms. Kentucky wasn't hit as much as Texas, and we didn't lose power at our house (thank heavens!) I would wake up in the night worrying about what to do if the power went out. You can put lighted candles under terracotta pots to help heat a room, but do we have any pots? Looking back at a calendar, the storms and cold only lasted a little over a week. If you asked me how long it was, I would have said about three weeks! We started with a layer of ice, then about 2 inches of snow. Once the roads were cleared it dropped another 2 inches of snow. Dick was brave and went to the YMCA for yoga when he could, and tried to get me to the Mall to walk whenever he could persuade me (not much that is). By the 21st, temperatures started rising above freezing, and life resumed it's regular patterns. Some friends continued to bird throughout this cold-snap, posting beautiful photos. I don't see how they did it. Oh, we finally got reservations for our COVID vaccines on March 2. That was a source of anxiety too. We'll start making some travel plans for later this year. Sigh!

Great Asian Whatever Goose!

It's funny how accustomed I have become to cold weather this year. Through long practice, of course. If the sun is out, I'm game for another birding trip. Most of the ice from last week's storm has melted away, but the grass at Long Run Park shone in the sun.

Canada Geese are familiar to all birders. They hardly seem to migrate any more, and just live here in Kentucky all year long. Mallard ducks are they same. They are the most common duck you are likely to see, so are often overlooked as "just another Mallard."

Today I had a real thrill though. A friend found American Wigeon at Long Run Park in Eastern Jefferson County, so I drove out this morning to look for it too. The lake is popular with fishermen during the summer, but was frozen today, except for one small circle kept open by the population of Mallards and domestic white ducks swimming around. One bird was different though. My hopes started to rise. Could it possibly be some kind of exotic goose, far, far away from its normal range? After all, there's been a lot of that going on this winter. Could I be the one to find some rare bird for the first time?

Look at its markings...A black vertical bar across the eye. A white forehead, and chinstrap larger than the Canada goose. A big white area in front of the wings. Oh MY! Maybe it's a Great Asian Whatever Goose, blown in from Siberia! I tramp through the crusty snow with scope, binoculars and camera, trying to capture a clear image of it among the ducks snoozing with their heads tucked under their wings. I check the birding apps in my phone. Nothing there resembles this bird, but the apps only carry North American birds, so I'm not too disappointed. I call my friends, and they look up world-wide geese, again finding nothing that looks like mine. "Could it be some kind of hybrid?" they suggest gently. When I get home, I send the photos to Brainard, my authority on everything avian, for confirmation, then start searching in Google for "geese of the world." There doesn't seem to be as many geese species in the world as I expected, and none of them looked like mine. Uh-oh. Maybe the big butt on this one really comes from a domestic goose!

The Jeff Overlook, just across the river, has always been home to hybrid Mallards. I call them Tuxedo ducks, since they usually have black/dark everywhere except on the breast, and look like they are wearing a tux with a white shirt and tie. But here is a nicely mottled black and white one as well.

And this one just merged dark Mallard feathers with white domestic feathers to produce a gray duck! Mallards are very tolerant birds, apparently, and will mate with anything that quacks, at least in this area of the river.

Ah! The latest news is that the adult male Long-tail duck, which actually has a long tail, was sighted at Ashland Park this afternoon. So guess where I'm going tomorrow! Wish me luck!

Cold Weather Consequences

White-winged Scoter

It's been a long cold winter, much worse than last year, and we have weeks to go before we can expect any permanent change. For us, it means days off school for the children, and dangerous driving conditions for the rest of us. But as long as we have power, we can endure and life goes on pretty much like always. I try to keep the feeders filled in my backyard, although it's hard to keep up with the ravenous appetites of the Starlings who seem to be my most frequent visitors.

 

Last week when the sun was out, I went birding for Snow Buntings, and mentioned to a friend that I'd like to add the Long-tailed duck to my life list. This morning, when we got home from church, I found a message from him that the ducks were at Ashland Park near the Falls of the Ohio in Indiana right then. I quickly changed into warm birding clothes and sped across the river (using the bridge, of course). Well, I "saw" two Long-tail ducks waaay out in the middle of the river. Using another person's good Swarovski scope, I saw some white on their heads, but mostly, they were just duck-shaped blobs to me. Think I'll keep looking before adding this one to my life list.

 

Common Goldeneye

The Common Goldeneyes were a little closer to shore, and I had a good time watching them. The light wasn't very good though, and they look gray in this photo instead of the shining white of a live bird on the water. I think this guy is practicing some moves on his girlfriend.



White-winged Scoter

This winter we have been seeing White-winged Scoters on the river. Today I ran into Brainard Palmer-Ball, the top birder I know. I remember birders getting really excited to see one of these in previous years, and I asked Brainard, "Aren't these supposed to be rare birds?" He replied that until this year, he'd only seen 3 White-winged Scoters around here in his long birding career. Yet this month, he and another birder counted 116 of them in one day!

 

Surf Scoter (orange bill)

He said he was heading upstream a few miles to see if he could find a Surf Scoter again, so I went that way too. After finding a place to park, and carefully crossing River Road in traffic, I tramped through the snow following a group of scoters as they floated downstream. Brainard said the Surf Scoter has white on the back of his head and an orange bill. Sure enough, there was ONE Surf Scoter floating with all the others. LIFE BIRD!

 

 

When I got home, I started doing some research. Isn't the Internet wonderful? If I'd tried to do something like this 20 years ago at the library, I never would have found this much information! Scoters and the Long-tails all breed far, far to the north, and winter along the coasts, or around the Great Lakes. These are all diving birds, rather than dabblers like Mallards. Rarely diving in water that exceeds 30 feet deep, Surf Scoters forage in the zone of breaking waves, and habitually dive through foaming wave crests. Hundreds of thousands winter in the coastal waters off British Columbia alone, and 200,000 scoters could consume about 43 tons of mussel meat daily.  So what in the world are they doing on the Ohio River?

 

 

Google to the rescue again. Are the Great Lakes freezing in 2014? Yes indeed! Look at this satellite photo of the Great Lakes. In fact, the Great Lakes may set a record for ice cover this year. Lake Superior is 92 percent frozen on the surface, breaking a 20-year-old record of 91 percent set on Feb. 5, 1994. So that may partly explain why we are getting so many unusual water birds this winter around here. When the water froze, and their food sources disappeared, they just took off and headed south looking for open water, and the Ohio River was the first open water they found.

Snow Birding

Today, the sun shined for the first time in about a week, so I decided to leave the house for some adventure, since it's supposed to snow again tonight. Sigh. My dishwasher died, so first I headed out to order a new one. Then we had reports of Snow Buntings nearby, and possibly a Long-tailed duck about an hour away. It's time to bundle up and go birding! The ice damaged many trees, but they are so glisten-y when the sun shines on them, the drive was very enjoyable. This evening, I am surrounded by field guides, trying to identify these winter birds which I usually see only once a year.



Horned Larks and Lapland Longspurs in Flight

The field on Chamberlin Lane is still farm country, although I wouldn't give it long to survive in that state. It is winter home for mixed flocks of Snow Buntings, Lapland Larkspurs, and Horned Larks, along with a few Savannah Sparrows. Every time a car drove by, every bird in the field took off, flashing their white wing undersides as they circled around and landed again. You see, the birders brought offerings of corn and seed to encourage them to land where we could see them easily.



American Kestrel

Even when there were no cars, however, the birds were nervous and flighty, taking off for no apparent reason. No, they wouldn't have been spooked by the Turkey Vulture that glided over. Must be a raptor somewhere, reasoned one of our more experienced birding friends. Sure enough, perusing the nearby branches, we discovered a male American Kestrel on the hunt. He left for better opportunities, and the smaller birds settled down to feed.



Snow Bunting

One guide commented that the term "bunting" was borrowed from British usage and applied to completely unrelated birds in America. Thus, they say, we have a Lark Bunting, which may be related to the Snow Bunting, while the more colorful buntings have little in common with these emberizine buntings. In Britain, our Lapland Longspur is known as the Lapland Bunting. Is it any reason we get confused?



Lapland Longspurs

I'm still working on making sure I can tell the Lapland Larkspurs apart from the Savannah Sparrows. I may have it wrong in some of these photos, so if anyone finds a mistake, please let me know. I take lots of extra photos trying to get one that is posed like the birds in the guides.

Mixed Flock - Buntings and Longspurs

Then when they take off, I'm trying to distinguish them from wing and tail markings, from below!



Horned Lark

The little Horned Larks are among my favorites, with their yellow throats and brown mask, to say nothing of the tiny little horns.



Greater Scaup

I explained to Rob, our expert birder friend, that I have never seen a Long-tailed duck. Haven't people been finding them somewhere this winter? Yes, he replied, down along the river would be the best place to try. So we met him on the Indiana side of the Ohio River, to look for ducks. Again, I have to review these wintering ducks, since I don't see them on a regular basis. The bird app on my phone is wonderful, but a little hard to read in bright sunshine. I need to study up on families, since Scaup and Scoter don't come up when I search under "duck." The Hooded Mergansers, Buffleheads and Goldeneyes looked great through Rob's scope, but were too far away for a good photo.



White-winged Scoter

I always wonder how all these birds got their names. Some are descriptive (very helpful), some are named after early ornithologists (not too helpful), while others have names with no meaning to me whatsoever. Scaup and Scoter? What's that all about? Names aside, we saw some beautiful White-winged Scoters. Look at the white "commas" around this guy's eyes, and his crooked bill.



White-winged Scoter

And if you think the "white-winged" part of his name means that little white stripe, think again.



White-winged Scoter Diving

Three of them would swim at a pretty fast pace against the current, then just as I focused, two of them disappeared under water. Rob says it's a good sign that these diving birds are staying on the river- must be enough food for them. But they eat molluscs - what are they eating here in the river? I know there are some molluscs here, but I thought they were all little bitty, at least from the shells found at he Falls of the Ohio. Of course, the river doesn't freeze, and the current and water levels were high today.



Red-breasted Merganser

One lonely Red-breasted Merganser swam by, with his punk hairdo, white neck ring and pointy bill. The field guide says they winter along the shore, all around the country, but prefer shallow, sheltered salt water. Maybe he blew in with the last winter storm. That's what fun about birding on the Ohio River. We get lots of species which don't belong here, but look on the river as a port in the storm.  However, I did not find the Long-tail. Maybe the next time the sun comes out...

January Miscellany

What with the holidays and all, I haven't done much concentrated birding in the last few weeks. Especially since the weather seems to descend on us regularly! But, if the sun is shining I like to take a walk with my camera to see what's around. I can't resist photos of Turkey Vultures, but you probably knew that already.

At Creasey Mahan I followed a pair of Pileated Woodpeckers around for half and hour one afternoon. They sounded like jackhammers pounding on the trees. If I caught a glimpse of one, it quickly moved to the other side of the tree or behind some branches. This little Downy Woodpecker was much more cooperative, and MUCH quieter!

The Kentucky Bird List emails have talked about Rough Legged Hawks in many places, including our own landfill, something I don't recall seeing before. Our friend Ryan Ankeny's Landfill Birdblog keeps up with them. Ryan has wonderful photos of a dark phase Rough Legged you should see. He works as a biologist at the landfill, so has great opportunities.

We saw this bird, and followed it around for a while trying for a good look at it, hoping it was something other than a Red Tailed Hawk. From the back, it has a stripped tail like a juvenile Red Tail. But from the front, it lacks a belly band of any sort, just spots.

I was hoping it might be a female Harrier, but on the few short flights it took did not see the white rump of a Harrier. Is there a facial disk, or is that just my wishful thinking? What do you think it is? I've also asked Ryan and will let you know his verdict.

Around home, the little Dark-eyed Junco was the first bird of the new year for me.

Our Carolina Wren loves eating peanuts from the feeder. I found some leftover zickdough and put it out. The Starlings descended on it right away, but our Mockingbird chased them off.