Coming Out of the Funk

Wow, what a depressing winter huh? Considering the last few posts, you would have thought that there was no hope for good birding. Well that changed over the weekend when I went along with a gang of other crazy birders to Nova Scotia and Prince Edward Island. You read that right.. 7 of us rented a van and DROVE to Canada for the WEEKEND to look for birds.  Our target birds were rare visitors from Europe that ended up in North America and others that are northern specialties. We scored big time!

We left my house at 1 PM on Friday, met the rest of the group in north Jersey at 4 PM and headed north. We took turns driving and ended up in Nova Scotia at 7 AM. We were almost immediately rewarded with our first target bird - Spruce Grouse. This Dapper Dan was sitting next to the snow covered road like he was waiting for us to arrive. He allowed us to oooh and aaaah and snap photos for 10 minutes. We left him, not the other way around.

Spruce Grouse

Here is a close up of his face. Interesting to see that his chin feathers look like a beard.

Spruce Grouse

Off we went to a little town of Apple something in search of a European vagrant that has spent weeks in someone's yard.

Fieldfare

Fieldfare reminds me of our Robin but has different markings. We found the house and the bird easily.  The homeowner saw the 15 passenger van pull up and came out to greet us. Nice guy. He made us sign a book. I was number 125 to view the bird.   Here are numbers 118 - 125. A mottlie crew for sure. Ken and Lisa, Alyssa, me in the front. Brandon, the homeowner Blain, Larry and Deidra behind us. Fun stuff.

Northern Bird Gang

We also saw a few other favorites like these Snow Buntings which we usually see on open ground like fields or the beach. None of us can remember ever seeing them in trees like this.

Snow Buntings

 A flock of Evening Grosbeaks were also there. I cannot resist taking photos of this bird. Here is one that is cropped pretty tight. you can see that distinctive eyebrow.

Evening Grosbeak - male

Here is a wider zoom. You can see the difference between male and female.

Evening Grosbeaks

Larry had our route all mapped out and pointed us to our next target - Mew Gull in Dartmouth.  We showed up at the little town lake and had great views of ducks and other gulls but no Mew Gulls. Luckily a local guy came along and told us that the gulls were (where else) at the shopping center parking lot. We drove over and found our quarry easily. Unfortunately for me, something went wrong when I tried to download the photos and I lost photos of the gull and ducks. Suffice to say that they were awesome :-)

It was just about lunchtime so we grabbed a sandwich and headed north past Halifax to a little golf course where a Eurasian Kestral has been hanging out. This is a small falcon that looks similar to our Kestral. I saw one in Scotland last summer. Click here to see that post. My photos from Scotland and Nova Scotia are equally pathetic. Here is the Nova Scotia bird perched in a pine tree. By the time we showed up, the wind was howling which made photos difficult.

Eurasian Kestrel

With all targets checked off of our list, we headed out to Prince Edward Island to find a nice hot meal and hotel for the night. Mind you, we had all been up for over 24 hours by this point.  Signs like this were all over the highway - "Lookout for giant moose eating cars". Ee-gads.

Once in PEI, we had a great meal and settled down for the night. The next morning, we headed out to find grouse but struck out on all counts. Finding grouse in any condition is tough but with 5 feet of snow on the ground it is impossible.

Snow Bank

 Most of the group opted to give up much to the dismay of a few others who wanted to keep looking. I had to be at work on Monday morning, so wanted to get home as fast as possible. We had 13 hour drive ahead of us. 13 hours of hard driving straight south. Of course, birders are wired to scan trees at all times in hopes of finding something good. We do this while driving all of the time. Deirdre yelled "Barred Owl!" and the van came to a screeching halt on the shoulder of I-95 in Maine. We made a few illegal u-turns and sure enough, she was right. This beauty sat there in broad daylight! This is full frame photo - no cropping.

Barred Owl

This is how close we were to the owl. Alyssa and I did a "selfie" through the van window.

Selfie with Barred Owl

That capped off a great trip!  Here is a map of our travel - 2000 miles in less than 3 days. Crazy!

Lake Superior

We finally made it to Duluth yesterday and got to see Lake Superior. We met up with the group leader at the hotel (Days Inn - don't ask) and headed out to the harbor on the lake to see some gulls and ducks.  Thayer's Gull is a cute gull that some birders think is just a form of Iceland Gull but it counts as another species. Thayer's Gull is one of the "white winged" gulls. You can see that that the wings don't have any black on them.

Thayer's Gull

Thayer's Gull

Here is another white winged gull - Glaucous Gull. This one reminds you of a Ring-billed Gull, only whiter.

Glaucous Gull

OK. I admit that these are not the most interesting birds but they are interesting to birders. Here is another bird that isn't very sexy to look at - Common Eider.  I love these birds. They winter off of the New Jersey coast so we get to see them floating around in the surf for a few months each year. They nest up in Maine and we got to see that a few years ago when we went to Hog Island. Why do we care about this one ( a drab female)?  Because you are looking at the first Common Eider to show up in Minnesota since 1959!  All of the birders who saw the last one are dead now. This is pretty rare.

Common Eider

These 2 lighthouses mark the channel.

Lighthouse

Lighthouse

We also saw 6 Snowy Owls. This one was perched behind a nursing home near the airport. We had to maneuver past the smoking nurses aids to get this photo. Cough, cough.

Snowy Owl

More to come. We went out for more birds today which will be posted tomorrow.

Gulls and Eagles

This is the time of year when unusual gulls show up and cause the birders to go crazy chasing them. Frankly, these unusual gulls look almost identical to the other "regular" gulls that we see all summer long but for birders, they are a treat. 4 gull species look very similar to most people: 

Laughing Gull is the most common gull at the shore in summer - they have a black head and make that laughing call. Their head turns white in winter except for a little smudge of black here and there. They winter down south in Florida.

Bonaparte's Gull is the most common gull in winter. They also have a black head in summer, but we rarely see that since they spend their summers far north of here. We see them with white heads and a few "dots" of black.

Black-headed Gull as the name suggests has a black head too. We rarely see these gulls except during their northbound migration. They winter far south of us and nest far north. 

Little Gull also has a black head in summer and, as the name suggests, is smaller than the other gulls.  It is even more rare than Black-headed Gull in migration. Birders go nuts over this gull (truth be told, it is cute). 

Black-headed and Little Gull were both seen in Cumberland County earlier this week so I went down after work in an attempt to photograph them. The Black-headed Gulls were reported to actually have the black head which would be good for the photo. In typical fashion, I showed up 5 minutes too late to see the Little Gull. It had already flown away. Sigh.  But I did get a few photos of Black-headed Gull.

Black-headed Gull

The only way to tell this gull apart from Bonaparte's and Laughing is by the dark tips under the wings and the red feet. Are you kidding me? It's not that easy to see those features when you are looking at a hundred gulls but somehow these birders do it. I got pretty good at spotting this guy since he had the black head and black wing tips.  Here is another photo that shows 3 species together. Can you tell which is which? I just gave you the field marks for Black-headed gull so that one should stand out. The other 2 species are Bonaparte's and Laughing. 

Black-headed, Bonaparte's and Laughing Gulls

While I was patiently waiting to see if the Little Gull would return, the resident Bald Eagles got off of their nest to chase a Cormorant that had a big fish. Eagles are notoriously lazy hunters. They would rather grab a free meal from a Cormorant than find a fish on their own.  I snapped a few shots and noticed something odd about one of the eagles. You'll need to zoom in to see it.

Bald Eagle with deformed beak

Check out the top of the bill - it is totally deformed. I sent out a note to the Jersey Birds list and was told that this is probably an injury caused by a fight with another eagle. Wow, don't mess with eagles!

Hanging Out and Seeing Red

It feels pretty good being a casual birder again. After chasing birds all year last year, it was nice to have a day to bird for the sheer sake of watching birds. Lori and I came down to the shore this morning in no big rush to do the kind of birding that we used to do back in the day - you know, just hanging out and seeing whatever there is to see. Well, it paid off big time for Lori. She got 4 life birds and had a nap too!

All of the birds that she got for lifers were colored - 3 red ones and 1 black.  The first lifer came at the marina behind the Lobster House - Red-necked Grebe. These birds have invaded our area this year even more than the Snowy Owls. They are literally everywhere that has fresh water without ice. We have some on the Schuylkill River in Philly, in the back bays of Wildwood, and even on the little ponds in the Villas. In fact, we saw 7 of them today. Here are a few photos. The first is a close encounter that we had at Cox Hall Creek. You can see that this bird is molting into breeding plumage by the red on the neck. 

Red-necked Grebe - Villas NJ

Here are a group of 3 Red-necked Grebes on a little retention pond that the locals call "Lake" Champlain because it is on Champlain Road in the Villas. It is remarkable to have 3 grebes hanging out so close together on a tiny pond.  I caught one of them in the middle of his afternoon bath.

Red-necked Grebes - Lake Champlain

The other "red" bird that we saw today was Redhead. There were 18 of them on the lake at Cox Hall Creek last month but 17 of them have flown the coop. This guy decided to hand out with a Coot.They were acting like best friends in the middle of the lake. Where ever one would go, the other would follow. 

Redhead and Coot

The third "red" bird for Lori was the Eurasian Wigeon which has red on the head. The American Wigeon has green on the head. They were hanging out together in the marsh but too far away for a photo opp. You can see a photo of this bird in a post from last month.  

Lori's 4th lifer of the day was Black-headed Gull. There have been a few hanging around Miami Ave in the Villas this month. This is pretty normal for March since they are starting to migrate north.  This is not as sexy as the others. Kind of boring in fact. It looks alot like a Bonaparte's Gull (and frankly, every other gull if you are not a birder) but a lifer nonetheless. It was hanging out with Forster's Terns on the sandbar. 

Black-headed Gull

Although it wasn't a lifer, the other notable bird for the day was this Horned Grebe. It is still in basic plumage (ie, no horns yet) but still a great find. It was very close to the shore of Sunset Lake. I love the bright red eye!

Horned Grebe - Sunset Lake

We ended the day at dinner with friends. The restaurant was loud, the service was slow and the food was mediocre but it was nice to hang out with friends.  I guess there are 2 themes to this post - Red and Hanging Out! We will take it easy again tomorrow and see whatever shows up. 

Little Gull

Patty and I headed to north Jersey yesterday after work in search of a Black-headed Gull which has been seen at the Raritan Bay for the past 2 weeks. In order to get to the mud flats, we had to cross railroad tracks and walk through a dumping ground out to the beach. We arrived to find 2 other birders looking through a scope at the gulls, so we knew we were in the right place.  As soon as we approached, I was reprimanded by one of the birders for bringing the dog with me - "If you want to make friends with birders, don't bring a dog with you" - nice way to meet someone.  Anyway, I explained that Roxy has never scared a bird away, blah, blah, blah. He warmed up after a few minutes and viola - showed us an adult Little Gull which is a life bird for me.

I know that it isn't much to look at for non-birders, but I think it's adorable.  It is so short that it waddles when it walks along the mud flat.

Little Gull

ID for this gull is relatively easy for good birders like the guy who pointed it out to us. The first indicator is that it is well, little - not as tall as the Bonaparte's gull which is shown in the photo below.  Other obvious field marks are that the wing tips are not black like Bonaparte's and the wing is dark underneath - both of which you can see in the photo below.  When the wing is folded, the wing tips appear to be serrated which can be seen in the photo above.

Little Gull (left) and  Bonaparte's gull (right)

The same guy who scolded me about bringing a dog to the beach is shown in the photo below walking right up to the gull. For the most part, the gulls didn't seem to mind him mozying up to them (they didn't mind the dog at all either). The gull eventually flew but not before I snapped this photo of Patty freezing her hands off on the beach.  I never got a very good photo of the gull since I was standing back up on the beach so as not to scare off the gulls with the dog.

Looking for Little Gull

We never did get to see our target bird which was Black-headed Gull, but hopefully I'll get to see one this weekend at a closer location. 

While we were up in north Jersey, we decided to go to Carteret to see a Monk Parakeet.  The Monk Parakeets have colonized in this town and build big bushy nests on the telephone poles right in the center of town. Here is one sitting on the wire looking at the crazy ladies on the sidewalk.

Monk Parakeet

San Francisco So Far

I have been tethered to my computer and cell phone for the past few days here at the conference however, we did manage to take a quick ride on a cable car down to Fisherman's Wharf.  Of course, I was the only tourist there with a big-ass camera lens taking photos of the seagulls that were begging for french fries!  Oh well, that's what makes me a nerd.

Here is a photo of Western Gull posing on a piling.  This is a big bird.

Western Gull

My coworker also spotted this Anna's Hummingbird right outside of the famous Ghiradelli Chocolate store.  The second photo really shows how brilliant red the throat and face feathers get when just a little bit of sun shines on it.

Anna's Humminbird

We are trying to get a tour of Alcatraz for tomorrow but tickets are sold out.  Who would have thought that I would ever have trouble getting INTO a prison?  Go figure.

Alcatraz