my best avocet pic yet

Some time last week I didn't get to the count until the very end and Tim spotted an Avocet landing on Jean Klock.  I wasn't initially going to try for a closer view but did ultimately, I'm glad I did.

I was surprised it still had some rustiness to the head as I figured it'd be all gray at this point.

A couple days ago a relatively slow morning became a little more exciting when a young Parasitic Jaeger flew past low, gained elevation, then busted into the gull flock on Silver before continuing on south

Finally a young Piping Plover pic from a month ago that I never got around to posting

1000 trips to Tiscornia

1000. Give or take a few (with one documented by Satellite imagery).  But 1000 is what my spreadsheet says.  Of course Tim's number is probably at least quadruple that.

It was a pleasant morning, highlighted by a flyby Parasitic Jaeger that I think Josh Kamp picked up.  It was fairly close as far as jaegers go.

 They aren't great portraits, but you can get a sense of the overall warm coloration of the bird (wrong for anything but Parasitic), the tail projection, and the bill length (too long for Long-tailed), among other features.  The next pic shows pale terminal edging to the primaries which Olsen and Larsson state is diagnostic for Parasitic when present.

Jaegers are one of the hallmark birds of Tiscornia, so it felt right to have one this morning.  I've seen the other 2 species but never photographed them definitively enough for the committee.

An immature Great Black-backed Gull has been hanging out for about a week as well, fairly early for them here.

I've photographed 16 species of gulls at Tiscornia, highlighted by singleton Glaucous-winged, Black-headed and Sabine's (a bird I would have predicted I'd have had more frequently), Little Gull and Kittiwake a little over half the years, and Franklins and Laughing most years.  I probably had a Black-tailed once in February several years ago but it was too distant to be certain of.

Sanderling is surely the most common shorebird at Tiscornia, one that's quite rare any distance inland.

I'm missing a few odd ones since there isn't any mudflat.  Solitary Sandpiper has the opposite water preferences from a sanderling; I've never seen one at Tiscornia.  All 3 phalaropes are on the list though.  Upland is another that Tim's had several times and others have had at least once that I still need.

Warblers are moving; there's a few brushy corners that have had good birds over the years.  We had a Chat once in the tangle this Magnolia was in.

I've had 26 warblers at Tiscornia.  Blue-winged is probably the most common one missing.

All told I've had 254 species at Tiscornia.  The commonest one missing?  Probably Hairy Woodpecker; they just don't seem to explore outside the forest the way Pileated will.  I would have predicted I would have had White-fronted Goose (I have it from New Buff harbor), and that an eider or Barrow's Goldeneye would be on the list, but I guess maybe I'll have to go back once or twice more.  Or a thousand times.

Pomarine irony

I think I've submitted 3 rare jaegers (2 poms and a longtail) to the MBRC over the last few years and have gone 0 for 3 with either no or very distant pics.  So when I eBirded 2 Parasitics from New Buffalo a few days ago I had to smile when Adam asked me why I'd eliminated Pomarine for one of the birds.

The first bird was a first year that I didn't get great photos of.  It was very windy and the bird looked fairly heavy with its primaries held fairly tightly for the most part and wasn't particularly warm in color.  I actually thought this bird had a very good chance of being a Pomarine.  Eventually it came close enough for the camera to pick up some projecting tail points

 

 

Not too much later Andrew picked up another jaeger, this one an adult.  It cut tantalizingly across the harbor and I abandoned the scope for the camera.

I didn't think the dark in the face came down very far and it certainly doesn't have much of a breast band so I chalked it up as a Parasitic without thinking too much about it (more irony after I tried really hard to turn the Parasitic into a Pomarine).  If I'd stayed with it a little longer in the scope I might have noticed the two tone bill.  Oh well.  A not so solid pic of the pale-ish bill base.

The bird kept coming north.  Crops through the camera show a pretty long bill with the suggestion of a thicker gony angle.

As it quarters away another angle at the broad tail projection...

I've never found counting pale primary shafts to be that useful, but if you're so inclined the left image may help.  You do get a sense of the face mask coming lower on the face from this angle than the initial view in the harbor.

Another view of the mask, as well as breast-heavy gestault.

The bird accelerated up to attack a Ring-billed exposing the spread tail as it flared after its target.

I count 10 tail feathers though it's possible some of the outer tail feathers are folded over each other.  There should be 12.  Given that the bird has projecting central rects with the tail folded I think we can trust that the central feathers are included here (and given the gap in the tail on the leftmost image I wonder if it's the bilateral 2nd tail feathers that are missing).  It'd be nice if the RBGU was in the same posture as the jaeger to compare the wingspan better.

One last view of the mask extending onto the malar.

I've been having bigtime computer problems for a week and am using an old one without photoshop.  It will be interesting to see if the two-tone bill comes out more when I can lighten some of the broadside views.





Distant parasitic

I know, I know, is there any other kind...

A young Parasitic Jaeger sporadically harassed the local gulls and terns yesterday morning at Tiscornia.  It would land on the water disappearing from sight and then re-appear to strafe passing birds.

Here's a gif of it chasing the gull.

It was distant enough that it was hard to get the warm tones to come out in the pics, you'll have to trust me they were there reasonably.  Only parasitic routinely has warm tones.

The wing bases are too wide for Long-tailed in addition.

 I thought  I could get a hint of a decent white patch in the upperwing which is a pretty good mark for young parasitic, though I'm not sure how a person would really discriminate between a solid patch and prominent shaft markings at distance.

You can just get a (vague) sense of protruding tail points in this pic if you imagine hard enough.

It's probably too early to really hope for Pomarine.  If the pier was open a person could have gotten reasonable pics of this bird.  I haven't been able to commit in my mind to walking all the way out South Pier, but I suppose there's a first for everything...

Lakewatching is fun again

just probably not today.

It's that time of year, most of the days I've been out over the last month I've had a year bird.  Of course part of that is that I've gotten out less this year than just about any year since I've lived here.

Two Franklin's Gulls landed on Silver last week.

All of these first 3 pics are of the first year bird (the pic below is a montage of the same bird).

This is a montage of the adult

The adult has some white between the black wingtips and the dark gray upperwing. 

This is a full adult Parasitic Jaeger from a couple days ago, the first jaeger I've seen in Michigan with full tail extensions.

The tail extensions doubled the length of the tail.  Long-tailed would have a smaller bill, less of a breast band and would lack an underwing white flash if fully adult.

not the Holland jaeger

Here's another bird that pre-dated the blog, a dark dull young Parasitic that was originally called a Pomarine from 2007.

When jaegers are perched their bills can look pretty small

Parasitic per the books is the most likely to have pale outer chevrons to the folded primaries.  The undertail coverts are a lot warmer colored than the rest of the bird.  The shape of the tail projections are the key to the ID. 

Here's a sense of the underwing.  This bird has more of a hooded effect than I remembered.

Parasitic Portrait

I had fairly high hopes for today, not least of which was that I could actually go birding.  The first North winds in some time were considerably less than predicted and though I ended with exactly zero yearbirds, the most interactive Parasitic Jaeger we've had yet more than made up for it.  Most of the jaegers that go by are a couple or several hundred yards out.  Sometimes (like last post) one will cut by maybe a hundred yards away.  This one did considerably better, attacking the gulls at the end of the pier.  We were impressed.

It has longer tail extensions than does the average juvie Parasitic and honestly seems to have somewhat broader wingbases than does the average one, but both may be a function of having a sweet look.

The bird went into full attack mode a few times, mainly targeting the Ring-billeds though it did tail-chase a Bonaparte's well out as well.  The jaeger would seem to try to match the wingbeats of the target, perhaps gaining additional aerodynamic advantage.  The Ring-billed is craning its neck down to look at the jaeger.  I thought it was interesting they've both turned their heads the same way as they lean into their turn.

Proof that turnabout is fair play, a young Herring Gull seemed to take umbrage at the jaeger harassing its Ring-billeds.  Only it gets to harass the Ringbills.

Herring Gull (behind), Ring-billed Gull (in front)

Finally, one less display of how low the bird was,

pseudo-close Parasitic

The days I've been out this week have been s-l-o-w.  We were well into the second round of football talk when this Parasitic materialized in front of us.  It's the closest I've had one at the pier in some time (though we had a fairly close one with the boat a few years ago).

I'd just adjusted the settings on my camera (for gulls or terns) and the much darker jaeger was under-exposed.  I had to do more post-processing with the exposure than I'd like.

It's a pretty typical looking young Parasitic with some warm tones (though they vary a decent amount in terms of light-dark spectrum and degree of warm tones), fairly heavy white flash to the underside of the wing (and an average flash to the upperside).  The bird has typical proportions with medium length hand, somewhat belly heavy and a typical length tail.  Long-tailed's have a longer hand giving  longer thinner wings, and a somewhat longer tail.  While you'll certainly see warmer colored Parasitics (and the underexposure doesn't help), it is certainly warm enough to eliminate Long-tailed just on that point alone.  Some young Parasitics will have an even stronger upperwing flash, per the Olsen and Larsson book a strong upperwing flash when present is virtually diagnostic of Parasitic.  It's too early to start really thinking about Pomarine; they're shorter-handed and lack tail extensions.

Here's a distant shot after I'd adjusted the settings on the camera.  It gives a little better sense of the warmish tones.  You can just see the pointed central tail feathers protruding an inch or so past the end of the tail.

maybe Jaegers taste the same too.

You may remember my father-in-law from perseverative posts regarding goose subspecies.  An avid outdoorsman, he told me, in tongue-in-cheek fashion, that they all tasted the same. 

Horst (here with Hazel about 5 years ago (he was good at avoiding the camera)) passed away last week,;today was the first day in about a week therefore that I'd birded the lakeshore.  It was pretty decent.  In the midst of a good waterfowl movement a jaeger flew into my scope.  The bird flew hard after a gull, cut inland, and then headed back out to sea.  We ran down to the lower lip of the dune but it kept moving out so pics became quite distant.

Pomarine Jaeger is one of the most frequently rejected birds but the shape and proportions of the bird, heaviest in the breast rather than the pot-belly of a parasitic, and the wide wing base with a relatively short hand are evidence for it. 

Most of the shots are fairly wing-on, though the bird banks somewhat in the 3rd from the right still, showing the paler, barred (through the scope) rump that's paler than the nape.

Bufflehead were the other remarkable bird today, usually a flock of a dozen is a decent number, today groups of 30-50 were routine.  Here's an average sized one.

I've got to work the next few days, hopefully this is a year when the November 14th bird sticks around (like the murrelet, not the black-headed gull).

distant Pomarine shots

and I do mean distant.

This jaeger appeared in front of me at Tiscornia attacking a gull. It gave up its press fairly quickly and flew past us. In the scope it was obviously different from the typical Parasitic's we see. It had a cream-colored head, as well as darkly barred axillaries with white ground color, rather than the warm brown that Parasitic typically exhibits. The flanks were much paler than the axillaries; Parasitic's flanks are usually similarly toned to the axillaries.

I started shooting pics, missing it flare its blunt tail for Tim and had my settings all wrong to boot (the sun had just come out), and by the time I had them adjusted properly, the bird was to the light house.

This is a zoom of the above shot. You can get a sense of the dark bill tip on the zoomed in view. They say in Olsen and Larssen that if you can see the dark tip at over 200m then you likely have a Pomarine. The bird's at about 600 yards here. The double white wing flash on the underside is visible here. Parasitics can sometimes have a suggestion of this, but not generally as prominent as here.

Pomarine is supposed to be more belly heavy than Parasitic. It's hard to say for sure on these pics, and honestly half my shots of Parasitic look belly more than breast heavy. The bird is far enough away that the dark brown on whitish barring gets averaged out to just lighter brown in these images...

I doubt these pics are diagnostic, especially given that it's a lighter bird than most juvenile Pomarines are supposed to be. (Here's likely a similar bird from Brandon Holden's site photographed on Lake Ontario). It's easy to forget that a bird at 60x through the scope in nice light is still pretty far away. This is about the 30th jaeger that Tim's had this fall, and somewhere in low double digits for me.