A short break

After going to Tiscornia for most of my birding over the last month and a half or so a trip to Floral was in order.
There were a lot of birds around, mainly WT sparrows and juncos. I was hoping to get something to perch up, a phoebe was the only thing that even partially cooperated. At one point a Coopers flew right past a downy woodpecker which flushed at the last second. I don't think the Coop ever saw it until the downy flew away. I did manage a pine warbler, though couldn't duplicate last year's distant shot of a bird (or two) in a backlit snag. This was definitely a day to score my county lifer clay-colored since there were some groups of chippings moving about, but I ran out of time before having to take one of the girls to a doctor appointment (bloody sawbones).

After lunch I re-checked the beaches hoping that the Franklin's gull from yesterday would turn back up, but no luck. A flock of dabblers did fly by relatively closely, how many can you ID (I count 5, probably 6)?

Here's the same pic numbered:

1. the large size, green head, and pattern make this a drake mallard

2. dark belly and long bill - northern shovelor drake

3. again a long bill and medium size - hen shovelor

4. as with number 2 another drake shovelor

5. larger duck with a very small bright white secondary patch - gadwall drake

6. see number 2

7. small size, short bill, and pale (blue) forewing patch - blue-winged teal

8. another gadwall

9 and 10. again shovelors, based mainly on size in this pic, though the dark belly of 9 is helpful

11. medium size with a white belly contrasting the head/breast/flanks - American Wigeon
12-14. small size, pale forewing patch - more BW teal

15. note that shovelors also have blue forewing patches, though these don't stand out as much as in the BW teal. Female shovelors don't show this however, except for a whitish line at the back edge of the patch - female shovelor

16. Oops. I didn't see this bird when I decided to try to get a photoquiz type photo of the flock. It looks like it's all dark with a white secondary patch. It also appears to be longer (and bulkier) than either the wigeon or the gadwall, which would seem to make it the first white-winged scoter of the fall. (Jon?)

Here's the front as it came in. Cut off in the foreground could possibly be the University of Tiscornia winter campus, stay tuned...

a photo quiz ... and semipalmation

I went down below the house again this morning in my ongoing search for an orange-crowned warbler for the Bigby year.  The last 2 years I've seen them in the fall without really trying, but this year, try as I might, I've been striking out.

Here's an inaugural photo quiz for the blog, we'll explore some of the many facets of bird mis-identification, of which I can be quite the expert.  The theme of this one is "you see what you expect to see:"  I'll post the answer in a couple days.

In the afternoon during naptime I went down to Tiscornia after a black-headed gull disappeared about 30 miles north.  There was no gull movement at all though about 250 scaup went by along with a few dabblers.  A black-bellied plover was on the beach feeding near the pier.
A semi-palmated joined it as well.  I'm not sure where the semi-palmation is, I can't figure out if the little flap of skin visible on the back foot between the inner and central toe is the part that is webbed or not webbed.  [Addendum: having pulled Hayman's Shorebirds off the shelf, I see that semi-palmated refers to the webs being partial rather than only part of the foot being somewhat webbed ... so ... that tiny little flap of skin is indeed the semi-palmation the bird is named for, present between each of the toes.]
Hopefully the north winds tomorrow will bring that gull down to Tiscornia...