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Waterfowl Galore

1/30/2013

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Yesterday after hearing that the female Redhead (duck) that had been frequenting Jamaica Pond had moved to nearby Leverett, I decided to check it out before we went food-shopping. We walked around Jamaica Pond first to get a walk in and then drove over to Leverett. Jamaica Pond was mostly frozen (though I doubt it is anymore with temps in the upper 50's). There were two small open patches of water. One held two Mute Swans and thirty or so Mallards, the other held forty American Coots and the usual gulls (Ring-billed, Herring, and Great Black-backed). Nothing much else interesting there other than a perched Red-tailed Hawk.
Ring-necked Duck ♂ (Aythya collaris)
Ring-necked Duck ♂ (Aythya collaris)
Leverett Pond, Brookline, MA 
Arriving at Leverett, the Ring-necked Ducks were quite obvious as they usually are, swimming and diving in the open, intricately designed black and white. A quick scan revealed the female Redhead swimming with them, a much rounder and redder head, and pale not contrasting sides distinguished her from the female Ring-necks. Four Common Mergansers were also a nice surprise swimming on the far side of the pond next to the ice. The Ring-necked Ducks were relatively confiding when I crouched by the edge and stayed put. The Redhead was simply chilling, floating back and forth, preening, and occasionally simply drifting with closed eyes.
Ring-necked Duck ♀ (Aythya collaris) (leucistic)
Ring-necked Duck ♀ (leucistic) (Aythya collaris)
Leverett Pond, Brookline, MA 
Yet another interesting bird was a leucistic female Ring-necked Duck. Leucism is kind of like a less extreme version of albinism. A leucistic bird usually has an excess of white or abnormally pale feathers but never pink extremities and red eyes as a true albino would have. The bird pictured above simply has an unusual smattering of white feathers on its head.
Redhead ♀ (Aythya americana)
Redhead ♀ (Aythya americana)
Leverett Pond, Brookline, MA 

To continue the theme of ducks we took a walk today at Pope John Paul II Park in Boston. Two Canvasbacks were present, likely half of the four that have been floating about in the Neponset in that general area. Other birds seen were two Red-tailed Hawks, Red-breasted Mergansers, Common Goldeneye, Bufflehead, American Black Ducks, many Canada Geese, two Great Blue Herons, and a smattering of American Tree Sparrows.
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A Closer Look

1/28/2013

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Below is a slideshow of recent photos taken in the Blue Hills Reservation. Many of them are of the surprising diversity of textures and colors in bark, moss, mushrooms, and water.
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Winter Specialties

1/28/2013

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A week ago I had the chance to view and photograph a variety of birds in northeastern Massachusetts. Many of these birds are only here in winter and a very few don't show up for years at a time. However, many of the birds I saw and photographed are present every winter in this area such as Common Loon, Horned Grebe, Northern Pintail and all of the winter sea ducks (such as eider, scoters, etc.), Northern Harrier, Rough-legged Hawk, Bald Eagle, Razorbill, and Black-legged Kittiwake. Of those birds, the pintail and the harrier are present year-round.
Then there are the northern finches that are only around in large numbers during certain "irruption" years such as this one when either their food source is scarce in the north or they have had a great breeding year and there isn't enough room for all of them up there. Last week I photographed White-winged Crossbills and Common Redpolls at Salisbury Beach State Reservation. Another bonus at Salisbury was getting close to a Merlin, a small falcon that has a taste for finches. I didn't get any amazing photos, just lots of field-guide type shots. However, since these are my first nice shots of many of these species I'm happy with them.
It was a joy being so close to the finches. As usual if you didn't make any sudden movements they couldn't care less about you. At one point I lay down under a certain pine tree that the finches had chosen for the moment. The redpolls would fly down from the tree to the ground to take advantage of all of the fallen seeds. The wind was strong and so they huddled themselves against the ground; so much so that their legs and feet were practically invisible. They shuffled around, scooting from one pine cone to the next and half of the time were way too close for my lens to focus. I have found that the closer a bird is to me the smaller it looks and this was no exception. Sure, the redpolls looked like small birds if you watched them from a distance. But if there was one crouched on the ground a mere five feet from your head they looked tiny! Coming closer and closer they seemed to shrink. I've noticed the same thing even with herons.
The north end of Plum Island in Newburyport was a great place to see some seabirds up close on Saturday when it wasn't as windy. There were two Common Loons and a Horned Grebe that were so close they were practically on the beach. Even though the light was far from optimal it was still a privilege to be so close to birds that are normally hundreds of feet from the beach. I don't get too many opportunities to photograph seabirds with a 400mm lens.
Getting some good looks at Razorbills was another treat for me. Being auks, they are close relatives of puffins which tend to spend their winters farther out at sea than the Razorbills. There was one easily viewable from the north end of Plum Island, but still too far for pictures. Strikingly colored in blacks and whites they are equipped with a massive thick bill.
On Plum Island even though I didn't get any great photos of them I still had great fun observing Rough-legged Hawks and Northern Harriers with my dad (raptors are his favorites) as they hunted over the fields. The wind was freezing and constant. On the north end of the island it must have been a stiff fifty miles per hour. It was amazing to watch the Rough-legs hovering, not moving an inch. Usually they have to spend quite a bit of energy flapping to keep themselves aloft, but not that day, they simply rode the wind rarely beating their wings.

Iceland Gull (Larus glaucoides)
Iceland Gull (Larus glaucloides)

Yesterday I had the chance to visit Deer Island in Boston harbor. Like so many other "islands" it's not actually an island as it is connected to the mainland. At some points the smell of sewage was quite evident as the island is the location of the Deer Island Treatment Plant, but overall it was worth it as I got to see both of my target species: Barrow's Goldeneye, and Iceland Gull. For some reason the island is a huge draw for Iceland Gulls with more in one place than I've heard of anywhere else in the area. I saw five and I wasn't even looking at all the gulls. They are beautiful, pale, northern gulls easily distinguished from the others by their white or otherwise very pale wing-tips. They are between the sizes of Ring-billed and Herring Gulls and have very rounded heads which distinguishes them from the much larger (and also pale-winged and much rarer here) Glaucous Gull which has a more flattened, angular head shape.
The Barrow's Goldeneye was in the same area other people have seen it and was associating with Common Goldeneye.
www.flickr.com
Salisbury and Plum Island Flickr set.
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A New Year and a Northern Lapwing

1/3/2013

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It's fun starting the new year with new bird sightings, and acting as if every bird species is a species you've never seen before. The first bird I saw was a Blue Jay in the backyard on the morning of the 1st. The most recent bird being a Merlin perched on a large pine across the street yesterday evening. Between that first Blue Jay and the Merlin are fifty five other species that I saw yesterday and the day before to start off 2013 with a respectable bulk. 
The most exciting bird of those fifty seven species was the Northern Lapwing in Bridgewater. The strong easterly winds across the Atlantic that were responsible for pushing hurricane Sandy into New Jersey most likely transported the twelve Lapwings that were reported across the east coast from Europe. They showed up in Newfoundland, Nova Scotia, Maine, Massachusetts, New York, and New Jersey. Massachusetts however, seemed to be the center-point with at least five birds showing up along the coast in typical Killdeer habitat (though after most of the Killdeer had departed).

The Bridgewater bird was discovered on November 11 in a field of corn stubble off of Summer street behind the Old Colony Correctional Center. When I watched it, on January 1, it had a small section of grass and mud at the edge of the snow-covered field that it was patrolling. It even pulled an earthworm out of the mud at one point. After I watched it for a minute there was no one around and I decided to see if I could get closer. I walked along the edge of the open field in an area where there were some taller weeds. Every few seconds I stopped to see how the bird was reacting to my approach. It wasn't reacting. Every few seconds as it walked back and forth pecking at the mud it would give a glance in my direction, but more than that, nothing. When I finally got relatively close, almost close enough for pictures, I moved out into the open more to get a better view. I was crouch-walking now. Once I was in the open I laid down on the ground. The lapwing was still doing its thing, walking calmly back and forth barely acknowledging my presence. It looked at me, and then as if it had spotted something in the mud, ran a few paces and pecked at the ground. Suddenly, it looked away from me into the distance, took off into the air and shrieked an alarm call. There were a few Northern Harriers in the distance, but they were too far away, something must have spooked it. It wasn't me though, its body language told me that much. It flew a large circle around its small muddy patch and landed for a second where it had taken off from. Still facing away from me it had barely touched the ground when it took off again calling for a second time. I got a couple of butt-shots with its wings open and its orange under-tail coverts very visible. It did another loop and this time landed right in front of me, swooping a few feet over my head as it came in to land. It stayed on the ground this time and finally seemed to acknowledge me before beginning once again to feed. The pictures I show here make it seem alert towards my presence, but I had a bit of works going through my shots to find ones with decent eye-contact.
Picture
Northern Lapwing (Vanellus vanellus)
Summer St. Bridgewater, MA, Jan 1, 2013
Canon EOS 7D - 400mm f5.6
Picture
Northern Lapwing (Vanellus vanellus)
Summer St. Bridgewater, MA, Jan 1, 2013
Canon EOS 7D - 400mm f5.6


The Northern Lapwing wasn't the only bird in the fields that day. Also present were a dark morph Rough-legged Hawk (another lifer for me), and three Northern Harriers.
Later in Plymouth among the usual ducks at Jenney Pond the immature Black-crowned Night-Heron was napping in a tree. The Iceland Gull was at its usual hangout on the town pier, and two Black-bellied Plovers continue among other birds at Ellisville Harbor.
Picture
Black-crowned Night-Heron (Nycticorax nycticorax)
Jenney Mill Pond, Plymouth, MA, Jan 1, 2013
Canon EOS 7D - 400mm f5.6

Picture
Northern Lapwing (Vanellus vanellus)
Summer St. Bridgewater, MA, Jan 1, 2013
Canon EOS 7D - 400mm f5.6


Visit my Flickr page to see these pictures and more bigger.
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