Crystalline Commons and a fishy Crow

With my group's additional contract, I've been working more hours this month than I ever have so I haven't been getting out a whole lot.

The bitter cold that's set in had nicely frosted the riverbottom this morning and the backlit iced limbs motivated me to target some of the feeder birds given the nice backgrounds.

With most of the overlooks frozen over I took a drive past Forest Lawn landfill about a week ago. There weren't many gulls, but I was surprised to see a (silent) crow a size smaller than all the other ones in the flock since my assumption is that the Forest Lawn Fish Crows would draw back down the Mississippi like the Illinois ones do (or to the Atlantic coast if somehow they're colonists from western New York)

A closer look, though, showed a bird that wasn't very glossy, though the lighting wasn't good. The bill looked pretty normal too (though there's probably some overlap in the bill).

I held on the bird until it flew..

... which shows p9 to be about the same length as P5 giving it a broad winged look, below is a file montage of an American in flight with the same proportions.

That can be compared with my only spreadwing Fish Crow shot, note the appearance of much pointier wings given that p5 (and probably p6 too) is much shorter in the smaller species:

A bunch of Rex Ryans

Turkeys, that is.
This flock has been in the northern Scottdale area and were getting blown about as they attempted to claw down to the corn stubble with feathers fluffed up for warmth.

I spent a few hours, mainly in the pines at Sarett, but some time below the nature center where this Tree Sparrow perched up.

In the dark overcast I had to shoot at half my normal shutter speed between heartbeats.

A brief bit of sun a few mornings ago at Tiscornia made for some nice light, but the birds were south of the piers and weren't really coming over for decent shots. These goldeneye weren't really at an ideal angle but they were the best I managed.

Thayer's flight shots at last

Since the day I took my first shots with the camera at the end of the pier I've been looking forward to getting flight shots of an adult Thayer's. Tim had seen a Thayer's in the last day or so at Tiscornia and he again picked it up at rest on the South Pier. We walked out the North Pier to try to get some shots. Aided by a loaf of bread, the gulls obliged.
About 20% of Kumlien's Iceland Gulls will have a dark eye, but they shouldn't have as nearly black of wingtips as this bird has. There's a very tiny black mark on P5 which most Thayer's will have (though 20% lack) which Kumlien's generally lacks. From what I can tell in Howell and Dunn and Olsen and Larssen many Thayer's will show just very slightly more black along the leading edge of P9 that connects the black of the tip with the black of the remainder of the feather which this bird just just barely does. I can't tell if P10 is older than the other feathers or if it's maybe just a little more faded since it's the most exposed with the bird at rest.

Just as the bird made its closest approach it checked up and stalled, probably considering a piece of bread. I would have totally over-exposed it if it kept going into the light though anyway.

A female Long-tailed Duck would forage pretty close to the pier at times.

This was the first Surf Scoter I've seen in at least a month if my memory serves, maybe longer. It's certainly the first adult male in a while. I've seen a few adult male White-winged lately, but the Blacks have all been female or first winter male types.

And for the year list, the Western Grebe made another pass by the pier while we were up on the dune, but headed severaly hundred yards out subsequently.

New Year's Birding

New Year's birding kicked off with a Coop mantling over some prey item in a neighborhood yard. I made a quick U-turn and its mate flew past as well.

Tiscornia was relatively quiet. This flock of pintail flew south.

The last couple of days have been warm with south winds, a couple years ago a large number of Pintail were observed going back north in such conditions at a similar time of year, these were probably correcting themselves.

This Pine Warbler has been hanging out in the Sarett pines with a group of chickadees for the winter so far.

A few years ago I had one in December which the seasonal compiler for North American Birds apparently found un-convincing. From a year-listing standpoint this was probably the best bird of the day.

This is probably the same Snow Goose we had on the CBC, again in the periphery of a large Canada flock in the Scottdale plains area.

A drake Hooded Merg was displaying for 4 females in the New Buffalo harbor.

It would sometimes chase away male Mallards. With the backlighting you can see how much of the head is feathers.

A black-and-white CBC

Today was the Berrien Springs CBC which just barely includes Tiscornia Beach.

The Western Grebe continued. It hung around the end of the pier all day, finally allowing some decent pics. Remember, the bill is the most important ID feature. Clark's Grebe in any season has a bright yellow bill without the dusky dark edging on the upper and lower edges. Also note how low the dark coloration is below the eye.
This Long-tailed Duck was around yesterday too. It made a few passes around the pier,

getting on top of us fairly quickly each time. This was a snapped off shot with the focus kicking in on the 2nd frame, remarkably fast for a flight shot. Here's a female coming in for a landing...

Continuing the theme of black-and-white birds, here's the Western with a Horned Grebe. I shot some HD video with my wife's latest toy, a point-and-shoot type video camera that she got for the kids' Christmas program during which I had to work. The video is here.

This is a combo of birds that can't be common many places in the east:Red-throated Loons are write-up birds for Michigan CBC's, but they're common in southern Lake Michigan in winter. There were at least 8 swimming in the river outflow, joined here again by the grebe.

We had four Bald Eagles appear to the north, two of them continued past while two others circled back north. The eagles seem to universally cut behind the dunes rather than following the beach over the piers.

Finally, not the rarest of birds, but 3 Mute Swans that flew past yesterday made a nicely composed photo at least:

Just in case you're thinking about heading out the pier to try to see some of the birds up close, note the 2-4 inches of ice caking every surface...

Cooper Socks

It was a black-and-white theme at Tiscornia this morning with both a drake Long-tailed Duck and the Western Grebe appearing at the end of the pier. The grebe didn't stay long. Up the beach a Glaucous Gull joined a Great Black-backed. The two heavyweights hung out somewhat, re-settling within feet of each other when the flock circled farther up the beach.

Some Great Black-backed's can have fairly dark eyes, vaguely recalling Western Gull. Just for the sake of argument, Western would typically show a very heavy gony angle, and less of a white tip at the ends of P9 and P10.

In the afternoon the kids didn't want to take a nap so I took them out to look for shrikes expecting them to quickly fall asleep in the back seats. As anyone who has gone looking for shrikes could predict, I didn't find one. I did however find this Red-shouldered Hawk.

Some Juncos and Tree Sparrows were flying out of the little thicket which brought questions from Hazel and I explained that the little birds were probably worried that it was a Cooper's Hawk. Hazel then asked what a Cooper Sock was. This led to about 10 minutes of high comedy for the girls as they decided they were wearing Cooper's and Red-shouldered Socks.

Closing the book on Tiscornia

With this morning's lakewatch both Tim and I ran out of reasonably expectable year birds at Tiscornia, Tim with the flyby Harlequin Duck and for me a distant Western Grebe.
The grebe swam past out beyond the breakers. I tried walking down the pier to get within a quarter mile of it but made too slow of progress on the ice-covered pier to cut it off.

The beards of icycles hanging off the slack cables made a nice effect, but not one that bodes well for the workers to recover their scaffolding, though perhaps the sheets of ice will hold itself up to some extent.

We'll see what the rest of the month brings, any year birds at Tiscornia now will be pretty good birds since Western Grebe was my most "likely" remaining bird there and it's on the review list.

Prior posts on Western vs Clark's grebe ID are here and here.