Winter "Wonder"land

More like a winter wasteland.

This first pic should give you a feel for the amount of snow that's fallen around here.  This was way in the back of the Sarett pines, no snowplowed or blown snow involved here:

It can be pretty somewhat, here's my riverbottom at about -5 degrees yesterday morning:

I've had more finches at the expanded feeder set-up than the 2.5 years leading up to this year combined.  Yesterday I had 5 siskins (one of them below) and today 7 redpolls.
So much snow has fallen that I think the rodents are safe under the snow.  I drove around the Scottdale plains yesterday on a nice sunny day, which generally are pretty reliable most winters for rough-legged hawks, as well as occasional dark morph redtails, harriers, and short-eared owls, but for the 2nd straight time found exactly 0 raptors.

East meets West, spreadwing style

With Lake Michigan iced over to the horizon I didn't know if I would find any gulls at the landfill today.  Fortunately there were still large numbers of herring gulls (the ring-billed's seemed to be gone).   I found a first cycle glaucous, a 2nd cycle glaucous, and a 1st cycle lesser black-backed, but all of these were flyby's or far away.  The dumping site currently is much closer than usual and without an 8 foot chain link fence, so I decided to work on some spread-wing herring gull images just to see what kind of variability I could find.  I just shot at random, focusing on the densest areas of foraging gulls and clicking when I saw wings go up.

This is a 4th winter bird, aged by the blackish on the primary coverts.  It also has a tiny bit of black on P4 which adults don't generally show.  It also has slightly smaller white tips to the the feathers than a full adult would have.  The overall pattern though, of only P10 having a small-medium sized mirror was the most common one I documented.

Here's a full adult with the same pattern (and another more blurry one in the foreground).  This, per Olsen and Larsson, is the most common pattern of American herring gulls on the west coast.

This bird, however, has a large mirror on P10, as well as medium sized mirror on P9 as well.  This pattern is the typical one found on the East coast.
Based on my (small number of photos), the ratio between the two patterns was about 5:1.

the answer to your prayers

No, it's not the flock of ducks resting in the lee of the pier at Tiscornia beach (can you find the 5 species present?)

No it's not this picture of a winter bird in Michigan in actual sunlight...

It's that I may finally have an answer to the great cackling/canada debate!!!  OK, so there wasn't all that much debate, just mostly rambling half-baked ideas, but, in the the North American Birds that was in the mailbox yesterday (volume 62 no 3 - with a swallow-tailed gull on the cover), was an article titled "Distribution and Identification of Cackling Goose Subspecies," by Steve Mlodinow, et al.  It also includes parvipes Lesser Canada Goose for obvious reasons.

It includes this encouraging statement:  "By our estimate (based on current knowledge), the chances for a solid identification of a lone photographed bird may be as low as 10-20%."  WOW.  Put those cameras away and study the bird - there's a novel concept.  Since a lot is based on comparative size as well as the head shape (which varies with every twist, turn, flexion, or extension), one photo can be very misleading.

I summarized the differences the article describes and put my editorial after each comparison:

Head shape:

    hutchinsii - "short steep forehead," with "somewhat flat crown, peaking slightly toward rear

    parvipes - some have "short steep forehead," with "sloping crown, with rounded rear-crown"

That seems at best moderately helpful as that degree of variation could be seen in a single bird changing its posture.

Bill shape:

     hutchinsii - "long and narrow in profile," often with a drooped tip.  "Culmen never convex"

     parvipes - "long and slender," often with a rather pointed tip. Culmen sometimes convex.

The morphology of the bill tip seems pretty subtle, but I definitely get a sense of it in many of my photos (of both definite cacklers, as well as some of my problem birds).  "Pointed" may be a bit too strong a description looking at the pics in the magazine of parvipes, a person gets that sense more from views that show the whole bird rather than super-zoomed in head shots.  I don't appreciate culmen shape differences at all in the pictures.

Underpart coloration:

     hutchinsii - "almost complete overlap with other taxa."  "Great majority white or whitish breasted

     parvipes - "majority of birds quite white-breasted"

So the underpart color is basically worthless though perhaps the noticeably darker birds are still suspect (if someone is worried about runty interior Canada geese).

Cheek patch:

     hutchinsii - many to most "show a step-off narrowing of the cheek patch at the level of the eye uncommon in other taxa, excepting parvipes."

Honestly, I have a lot of photos where large interior Canadas show the except same shape of cheek patch as a hutchinsii cackler so I don't think this is helpful even to separate a cackling from a dwarf Canada and am surprised they italicized it as being all that important.  I don't appreciate the differences between the different subspecies of cacklers in their photos either.

Gular stripe (the narrow black line sometimes present in the midline of the throat bisecting the white patch, best seen with the bird feeding facing away from the observer):

     hutchinsii - about 25% show a gular stripe

     parvipes - less than 1% show a gular stripe (except some dark populations from Alaska)

This is interesting.  I've never paid any attention to this detail, but these data would suggest that while a bird without a gular stripe could be either species, a bird with a gular stripe is at least 25x more likely to be a Cackling goose on that feature alone.  Interestingly at least 2 of my problem birds show at least a partial gular stripe in my photos.  Of course just to be contrary, one of their photos of parvipes has a gular stripe.

Wing covert pattern

      hutchinsii - feathers darken distally with a pale terminal band.  Some with duller pattern.

      parvipes - "similar to hutchinsii"

Well, this would explain a good deal of my problems.  Per these authors, this is not a useful feature.

Behaviour

  hutchinsii - "Neck held down at angle when feeding, with little or no loop"

parvipes - displays a "distinct loop in neck as feeds" due to longer neck

I think this must refer to when the bill is actually in the grass as I have a couple pictures of cackling geese with a nice loop in the neck as they're looking down

SO to summarize, the exact head and bill shape is the most useful.  The color of the under- and upper-parts are essentially worthless.  The presence of a gular stripe makes the bird very likely a hutchinsii Richardson's Cackling (though most won't show this feature).  Of my various problem birds, most I now believe are indeed cackling, though I still have a couple I'm not completely convinced on (though these tend to be some of the lower quality photos).

Lastly, anyone actually staying with this entire post likely had no problem with the 5 ducks in the first photo, but just in case the photo quality didn't allow them to pop out (it was still cloudy then and snowing slightly), common goldeneye and bufflehead should be obvious.  A drake common merganser is visible in the middle of the photo about 1/3 of the way down (and a female about 1/3 of the way down all the way on the right, also one just to the drake's left).  Scaup are scattered here and there (which are almost universally greaters on Lake Michigan in winter) and there are a few red-breasted mergs high in the background as well as on the upper left.  A WW scoter was in the flock but I don't believe is in the photo.

    

    

Aging and sexing a kestrel, take 2

Well, in my last post I commented on not being entirely sure about aging and sexing this bird since Sibley shows females as having whitish napes (rather than the buff of this bird) despite female-type wings and flanks.

Now being the proud owner of the Wheeler hawk guide, the correct conclusion would appear to be that it is an adult female.  First year birds of either sex have the "correct" wing color; this isn't a species where all young birds look like females for their first year or so.  It's apparently an adult because of the buffy nape, juveniles show whitish here (the whitish shown on the bird captioned female in Sibley).  

Random fact of the day gleaned from Wheeler:  the black "fake eyes" on the back of the head are apparently called 'ocelli.'

pic #5000

If I hadn't been lazy, I could lead this post with a nice pic of a barred owl.  Unfortunately, I didn't carry the scope into the stretch of conifers I decided to walk in Riverside park after I didn't last long along the beach.  Since the 2 birds I thought I could find, long-eared or saw-whet owl, do not generally flush unless discovered by corvids (as opposed to great-horned which always flushes except when being mobbed) I figured I could always come back on the off chance I found an owl.  I was surprised when the large shape that flew out turned out to be a barred owl when it landed in the nearby deciduous forest since I'd never heard one in the park despite a fair amount of owling there.

I spent a little bit of time driving the Scottdale plains, finding only a few kestrels, including this bird which didn't fly when I turned around.  Light conditions were pretty rough with a lot of "heat" waves in the gusting wind so I just blasted away hoping probability would eventually leave me a useable image.  Somewhere in that series my camera fired image #5000.  I shudder to think how much that would cost if it were on film...

I'm not completely sure of the age and sex of this bird, I still need to get the Pyle guide that covers the first half of birds (or the Wheeler hawk book).  Based on the Sibley illustration the head pattern would suggest that this is a male since he doesn't show as much blue on the crown or as much buffy on the nape in his depiction of an adult female.  The flank and wing coloration is female-type so perhaps this is a first-winter male.  I guess I'm going to have to stop at more kestrels...

Since I'm sick of having to post photos taken in the ever-present winter overcast, here's a late summer adult male from Rocky Mountain Nat'l Park about 2 years ago:

Hedwig lives ... possibly

A couple days ago I chased a snowy owl originally found in the South county on New Year's.  We didn't have long to look between nappy-time and when I had to go to work.  Fortunately Ginger (while driving) spotted the bird (200 yards off the road on MY side of the car) in fairly short order.

I was able to help Hazel look at it through the scope.  "Do you see the owl Hazel?"

"I SEE it.  I see the Ow-wel."  

"It has a tail!"

I guess most of the random pictures of owls that she's seen in different books, cards, etc. are heavily cropped head-and-shoulders shots and so the fact it had a tail came as a bit of a surprise.

I went back yesterday on a bright sunny day hoping for much better photo ops but couldn't find the bird anywhere.  The pattern for snowy owls in Berrien seems to be of birds that are found and linger for a few days, but then disappear, either moving on, or succumbing to the winter (and/or aspergillosis, a lung fungus that they are reportedly particularly susceptible to).

I've certainly seen more heavily marked birds so I would guess that this is either a young male, or maybe an adult female.  My spanking new Pyle guide offers a lot of criteria for aging, though spends an inordinate amount of time using patterns of the central tail feather to gauge the age for many/most birds.  That may be very effective in the hand, but the book isn't as useful in the field as I'd hoped.  It also suggests for snowy owl that the pattern of black across the scapulars in terms of whether the bars are complete or interrupted is helpful.  

At any rate, a week into the year that's 2 pretty decent birds, ones I've encountered only once before in the county.  (My lifer snowy owl about 10 years ago was the first bird that Ginger and I chased together.  I managed that time to lock her out of the car while I was sneaking behind a row of farm wagons to get somewhat closer to the bird, somehow the relationship survived... ).

Year of the Crossbill!

A happy new year to all.  In the past (as many birders probably do), I've termed (at least before I find a good bird that I actually remember) the first bird I see in a year (or the first one I see with Ginger) as the bird of the year.  However, after probably 7 of the last 8 years have been either the year of the junco, screech owl, or goldfinch it seems that this is a tradition that's about worn itself out (not that I remember what I coined the year for more than a week or so).  Today I spent a couple hours looking through about 1000 ducks at various points on Lake Michigan, finding all 3 scoters, redhead, and long-tailed duck, but no big ticket items.  I also walked a subdivision that in the past has produced crossbills, when what should fly past the window when I get home but a bright pink bird with black wings and bright wingbars.  It didn't have to land for a sure ID, but land it did, right on the porch rail:

It's a crappy pic, but shows the ID at any rate.  Hannah had the opportunity to learn a "new" phrase when it appeared (she also heard it as the frigatebird approached during the summer), but I think that at 18 months she didn't quite pick up on it fortunately (though she repeats an awful lot of single words).

Thanks to a new feeder from my sister-in-law with a nice squirrel baffle and Allen Chartier's on-line pic of using slinkies as squirrel baffles on the shepherds crook feeder stands (pic below), I've been able to considerably expand my feeders and feed more than just fox squirrels, gray squirrels, and raccoons.  The crossbill was the first big pay-off, and appeared within days!  (I'm anticipating a green-tailed towhee any day now...)

I haven't quite figured out my goals for the year.  In 2005 I did a Washtenaw big year, in 2006 I moved so didn't do any real listing, in 2007 I was learning Berrien and coat-tailed behind Tim to a pretty good number for the year though didn't approach it as a Big Year.  Last year I did a Bigby year on the bike (which I will NOT repeat any time soon).  At some point I'd like to significantly improve my Berrien township lists, but I don' t think that will be a major goal.  I think I'm going to wait until both girls are in some degree of school to really go after a Big Year in Berrien when there'll be more time to work to find all the uncommon but regular stuff (like glassing field after brushy field for shrikes today instead of looking for rarities in the duck flocks).  It'd be nice to find something chase-able, the 3 review birds I've located in my first 2 1/2 years here have been 5 minute wonders on the beaches.  Eventually I'm going to break down and acquire a nice SLR and go back to focusing more on photography than listing.  Anyway, I have 27 birds for the Berrien year I'm "not" really working on...