county lifer!

It's actually been over 2 years since I've seen a county lifer, so I was pretty excited to hear that Mary Jo had found a Barrow's Goldeneye between the piers a couple days ago.  This was a bird that I did not expect it to take over a decade to find in Berrien, but we'll see how the next 10 years goes.

The bird was distant and not easy to photograph during a light snow storm.

I didn't see any sign of hybridization, the crescent seemed nice and narrow, the head large, with a vertical forehead and elongated ruff at the back of the head, nice geometric white squares in the extensively black upperparts, and of course the spur dropping down from the back between the breast and the side panels.

And who knows, maybe a King Eider will drop in next!