More Water Birds

I recently posted a series of waterfowl and wading bird shots, but there are still other water birds passing through right now. One of those groups are the Grebes. The grebes have different shaped bills than ducks, and instead of having truly webbed feet, the individual toes are webbed. Occasionally Horned and Red-necked Grebes pass through, but by far the most common is the Pied-billed Grebe. Smaller than any duck, it spends a lot of time diving. The all brown bird is best recognized by the ring on the bill.

Dark gray back, black head, and bright white bill make the American Coot easy to spot. They look like a chicken when swimming fast. Their green legs and feet are similar to Grebes, but they are very uncomfortable walking on land. Coots are related to Moorhens and Gallinules.

Considered garbage pickers by some, Herring Gulls are big fish eaters. They won't hesitate to pick at a dead carcass either. Adult Herring Gulls have a red-orange spot on the lower bill. Young birds will tap this spot when they want to be fed. Immatures will have a black spot on the bill similar to Ring-billed gulls.

Ring-billed Gulls have plumage similar to Herring Gulls, but they retain the black ring as adults.

Black-backed Gulls (Greater & Lesser), are larger than the previous two. Their dark black wings offset with the white front and back make this easy to spot among other birds. Just don't call it a Bald Eagle. I never see them down here, but they are not uncommon along Lake Erie.

In contrast, Bonaparte's Gulls are very small. Drab in winter appearance, the key feature is the dark spot behind the eye, seen in the upper photo. In breeding plumage the adults will acquire a black head. Another important field mark in flight is a bright white streak on the edge of the wings.

Ya the pic is bad, but I have no other. Thank goodness spring is arriving so I can stop scanning old slides!  So which gull is it? Actually it isn't a gull at all -segue- it's a tern. Terns have longer, narrower wings than gulls, often held at an angle, or boomerang like. Terns have deeper forked tails than gulls.
The bill is much fatter and shorter on this species than most. An appropriate name? Gull-billed Tern. This is found along the Atlantic coast.

Here's one of the largest species, the Caspian Tern. Easy to recognize by the blood red bill that it often points downward.

This series of slides contain a number of various species. Draw your attention to the center of each photo. This is a Forster's Tern. In winter plumage it has a dark sash through the eye, and a black bill. In breeding plumage the head will contain more black and the bill will be orange and black. Hope its eyeliner and mascara doesn't run when wet.

Can you spot them all? Forster's Tern in the middle, mature and immature Herring Gulls throughout, big Caspian Terns on the right and left, and what I believe is a small Common Tern on the left side of the beach. All of these, and many others mentioned above are passing through Lake Logan State Park right now. That place is a hot birding stopover.

Back to south Florida. I was lucky enough to find this, the smallest of all the species. The Least Tern stands only 8 inches, and is rare to endangered throughout its range. Just the size will give it away, but look for the black streak along the wing edges, or the white patch in front of the eye. Their nesting habitat has been destroyed by beach front development. A former student working down there tells me they are now acting like Killdeers, taking to nesting of the roofs of Walmart.

This post was finished over the weekend, but I hadn't put it up yet. Today fellow faculty member Mark Puhl stopped by my office to show me pictures from his trip to Florida over break. Never being too proud to share other peoples work, I'll end with some excellent shots of a few other birds.

Nice pic of an adult Ring-billed Gull, looking for a hand out no doubt.

Black-headed gull, white eye ring, and red bill is the common Laughing Gull. You'll just have to experience being around them to understand where the name comes from.

These are Royal Terns. Similar in size to Caspian Terns, their bills are bright orange rather than red. Dig the spiked hairdo. The black behind the head will cover the entire cap during breeding season.

One of my favorites, the Black Skimmer. It has a shorter upper bill. The longer lower bill is dragged across the surface of the water in flight. When a fish hits the bill, it snaps it closed.

Nice!  4 Royal Terns, behind them are 4 Sandwich Terns. They have the black bills with the yellow tip. In the far back is a Forster's Tern. Changing to breeding plumage, the black dash through the eye now includes more black on the head. The black bill is turning to orange and black.

Creatures new to science

Just saw a great post by Jim McCormac at Ohio Birds & Biodiversity, and thought I should put up a few of my own. Especially noticeable is the date of posting.

This was collected in the south near a naval base. Still unclassified, the locals call it the Periscope Fly.

Also unknown is this guy, believed to be a larvae or immature grub. We do know it comes from California.

It's one thing not to be able to narrow something down to an order, but scientists are not even sure what class to put this in. It was collected in northern Ohio at the Davis-Besse Nuclear Plant.

Waterfowl Migration

Waterfowl have been migrating in March and will continue to pass through in April. One of the few species that stays in our area to nest is the common Mallard, or in some places known as Farmus domesticus. Like that name?

It's a half hour before sunrise, can you identify all these ducks? Better wait for the sun to come up. This is a collection of old slides I scanned for identification in the field. No pretty shots, mostly distant pictures that require looking at key features to figure them out.

Wood Ducks also nest in our region. As a cavity nester, the establishment of duck boxes, has allowed this species numbers to rebound.

It has a green head like a Mallard. Mallards are light underneath and have a rusty breast (see above). Those colors are reversed in the Northern Shoveler. The shoulders are colored a rich blue.

Up close the key feature on the Shoveler is of course the extra large bill.

The green dash through the eyes, the pinkish-orange sides, and the white mohawk distinguishes the American Wigeon, once known as the Baldpate. Those are females on the right.

The males have pin like feathers on the tail, how about Pintail for a name. These are very sleek looking ducks.

Besides the tail, look for an all brown head with a white streak running from the neck to the side of the head.

Ya? And I'm supposed to recognize this?  Long narrow wings, boomerang shaped. Pintails in flight.

Blue-winged Teal, so where is the blue? It's only visible in flight, besides, you don't need it. The white crescent moon shape in the face, and the white rump patch are all you need. The female, like all females are drab. So when there are lots of ducks around, how do you identify them? Up close they're easy, but when mixed with others, the "cheaters" way is to simply look at who the females follow around.  Most ducks have paired up by the time they reach us.

Here's a slide of two males in flight I was able to dig up after all.

All the dark ducks on the left with the greenish-yellow bills are Black Ducks. Everything we've seen so far are Dabblers or surface ducks. Let's look at some divers. In the middle with the multicolored bill is the Ring-neck Duck. The white gash on the side is an important field mark. The neck ring is never visible. In fact a better name for this should have been 'ring-billed duck'.

Buffleheads. These little "butterballs" are one of my favorite species. Very small in size, the female sports a little white circle on the face. The contrasting black and white pattern of the males is almost iridescent. If you were to see a duck larger than this, with the same white on the head, it's probably the crest of the Hooded Merganser.

Speaking of mergansers, there are two others besides the Hooded. The American and Red-breasted can be recognized by the primitive saw-tooth bill and spiked head feathers. The females both have a dark neck and breast, but the dark stops abruptly on the chest of the Common, and dissipates gradually to blend in with the breast on the Red-breasted.

This is the Common or American Merganser. Black and white pattern and a rounded, all dark head.

Red-breasted Mergansers have a more mottled or dirty look. The rusty breast is distinct, and the spiked crest separates this from the other species.

Here are the two for comparison.

Goldeneyes are also black and white patterned. The yellow eye is obvious in good sunlight, but it's better to look for the powderpuff white spot below the eye.

Have you noticed a lot of divers are black and white? How is this different than the one above?  Look at the profile first of all. Then notice the face is white and contains a black spot instead below the eye. This is an Oldsquaw. They also have a pointed tail somewhat like that of a Pintail. Lake Erie is a good place to spot them, as I never see them on shallow bodies of water.

That thing in the middle? But it's just a brown dot!!  Like I said earlier, you don't need close pictures for identifying these. Look how the butt seems cut off. This little duck often holds its "stiff-tail" up in the air. The bill is blue, and 2/3rd's of the face is white. This is a Ruddy Duck.

Middle left is a Redhead. Light brown back, two-toned bill, short neck, rounded head. Canvasbacks by nature have a more light gray back, longer neck, black bill, and a squared off or choppy look to the head.  The other ducks are Scaup. Greater and Lesser Scaup are hard to tell apart from a distance. Looking for green versus purple head is not reliable.

This is a Lesser Scaup. When head color doesn't work, look at the wings. Notice the bright white in the secondaries, and how the primaries turn dark. If this were a Greater Scaup, the white would continue through the whole wing.

Same goes for female Scaup, otherwise I can't tell them apart. What makes it a female scaup?  I always think they look like someone poured white glue around the base of the bill.

Sky Carp, I mean Canada Goose. Well they are waterfowl, had to include them, even though they are now classified as "nuisance wildlife". I think we all understand why. They have found a year round food source, so they don't need to migrate, and they breed like rabbits. They have caused broken arms and legs for people riding bike paths. They will bite and defend their nest aggressively, even if it's outside a residential office building. Do I even need to mention the amount of what they leave behind in our parks, beaches, and golf courses. Oh well, don't forget, they taste good!  It's the only way to control the population. You can't capture and relocate them. Their homing instinct will allow them to fly right back to the same location.

Hey it's a two headed Canada Goose!  Don't call them Canadian Geese, Canada doesn't own them.

Sticking its head where it doesn't belong!  Okay, so I'm having some fun.

Ducks, Geese, and Swans make up the true waterfowl group. In Ohio the Tundra and Trumpeter Swans are magnificent sightings. These are the ones with black bills. Unfortunately we in education have tried to explain the orange billed Mute Swan is an exotic species not welcome in the wild. They will chase out our native species. I have known people who will protect Mute Swans, and ecologists be damned. Some people think state parks and other such areas are their personal petting zoo. I suspect they went to the Walt Disney school of wildlife management. (Sarcasm intended).

Well another example of how some slides just won't scan very well. Can you still recognize five species in the picture? Ring-neck, Wigeon, Black Duck, Mallard, Shoveler.

Since so many species nest north of Ohio, get out and enjoy them while they are passing through. Too bad I didn't have a wide angle lens. Both in the air and on the water, biologists estimated we were looking at 25,000-30,000 ducks here at one time. Birding is fun.