Mergy Christmas

Deck the county with rarities

 

Buh-buh-buh-buh-buh, buh-buh-buh-bwaah

 

Snowy, gyrfalcon, and ferrugies

 

Buh-buh-buh-buh-buh, buh-buh-buh, bwaah

 

You'll make the trek to Berrien

 

Buh-buh-buh, buh-buh-buh, buh-buh-buh-Bwaah

 

Fail and your list will be carrion

 

Buh-buh-buh-buh-buuh, buh-buh-buh-BWAAH

 

 

winter Birds of Prey

Today was the Berrien Springs CBC which covers St Joe.  Despite windy (and very bright) overnight conditions we had the best night of owling I've been a part of with double digit owls, mostly screech, but also a Great Horned or two.  It was bright enough that we saw probably a third of them fly in or away, the last of which was just as it was getting light.  This pic is hand held at 1/25th of a second (and then post-processed brighter)

I tried the flash which allowed me to push the shutter all the way up to 1/50th.  This was the first time I've had to try to fix red-eye on a bird.

The Snowy irruption has been well documented.  I've yet to run across a close bird (or really that many birds at all; I've driven the Linco/Scottdale/Totzke section several times and seen none there despite others' success).
This one was at New Buffalo sometime last week.

I think on that same trip we had a Red-shouldered tee up nicely along the edge of some random parking lot.

Finally a young Harrier somewhere in the south county plains

Cold, cold cold cold

I haven't had a chance to get out much of late so 5 degree weather this morning was a bit of a shock.  It made for some interesting lighting effects at the beach with very cold dry air getting pushed over the 35 degree lake by brisk South wind.  There was a decent amount of, well, steam is probably the wrong word, rising off the water muting the morning light.

 A group of goldeneye on top and mergs on the bottom.

This loon is about a quarter mile less distant and maybe gives more an impression of the water vapor.

 Continuing the artistic theme, here's a flicker montage that I shot through the kitchen window earlier last week during snow squall,

As well as a bluebird from Warren Woods a couple weeks ago that I probably shouldn't have montaged (though the branch is too thick for it to be a quality portrait).

Ross's ... Geese

We were pretty close to chasing the Iowa Ross's Gull yesterday and if it'd been seen on Thursday we would have.  It wasn't so we didn't.  Ah well.  We found Ross's Geese instead.

They were mixed up in the large Canada Goose flock.  Their body size is less than the young Glaucous Gull in the foreground.  There's one white morph Snow Goose as well.  After not a whole lot of time all the gulls on the berm flushed (we didn't see the responsible raptor), and the white geese followed them (the Canadas were unimpressed).

The Snow is obviously the larger upper left bird.  The bird trailing it associated more with it than with the other 5 when they uncertainly circled the ponds (the flock split a few times).  It seems like it might be just a bit bigger than the other birds and when in the water through the scope may have had a bit less vertical a bill base.

The bottom 5 birds had consistently vertical bill bases.  One is a first year bird with some dusky feathering in the lore and face.

This afternoon I made a few central and north county stops with the highlight being 10 White-fronted Geese at the LMC ponds.  I've actually seen White-fronted on fewer occasions than Ross's in the county.

Here's the other 7, they were segregated at the other end of the pond

Finally a mega-crop record shot of 2 Harlequins in the New Buffalo harbor from yesterday.

The White-fronts were 271 for the county for me, my personal best.  Don't be impressed though, that'll be good for at best second (and quite possibly 3rd) place this year!

Another nemesis down

Strong S winds aren't really what one might predict would bring northern owls south, but who's going to argue with results.

Tim had a Snowy Owl land at Tiscornia this morning, the first one I've had at the park, #249 for Tiscornia for me if my spreadsheet is right.

It just sat there for the 15 minutes I managed before church.  I saw all of 7 species in that time, though the 7th was this Thayer's type gull:

Note the venetian blind primaries, and tail and secondaries darker than the rest of the bird.  There are darker individuals though.

Continuing the theme of sub-par pics of above-average birds, here's the Harlequin Duck that was found earlier in the week in New Buffalo.

Sabine's at last

Sabine's Gull is a bird I've been anticipating for a long time.  I definitely didn't expect it would take nearly a decade over here to see one though.  Their peak time is about 3rd or 4th week of September based on what Indiana gets so they had pretty much passed off the radar for the year.  This morning with decent winds I was mainly just hoping for a Kittiwake or a Harlequin Duck.  Imagine my surprise when this juvenile flew into my binocular view...

Never having seen one before I was surprised by just how great the contrast was between the black leading edge and the white trailing edge, kind of an inverse Bonaparte's pattern.

I've made over 700 visits to Tiscornia, this was my 16th species of gull here.  Eighteen or nineteen have been seen here.  You can just make the bird out about 5-600 yards from the overlook flying right, towards the lighthouse.

Closer to a Gos

Credit to Warren Whaley on this bird.  I nearly became the sacrificial birder when need for sleep wore out over my hopes for new birds after a few hours at Tiscornia.  Warren, Tim, Mike Mahler and I were up on the dune talking when Warren pointed to a hawk coasting by already on top of us as I was waiting for a break in the conversation to leave.  My naked eye impression based on large size, broad wings, and heavily marked underparts was of a Rough-legged.  Then my eyes focused on an immature accipiter and I automatically said "Coop."  At least 2 of the other 3 said after raising their bins, "Gos."  I honestly thought they were joking and didn't bring the camera to bear until it was well past.  If I'd looked closer I'd probably have seen the strong eyestripe, pale upperwing coverts, amidst any number of other things, but on no sleep I failed that test (not the first time that's happened).  Oh well.

The secondaries are very broad yet the wingtips are pointed.  The tail is broad.  You can get a vague sense of the checkering of the upperwing on the 2nd to left image, a sense of the pale upperwing coverts (sort of similar to what Redtails and sometimes red-shoulders show) on the 2nd from the right.  I think this is only the 6th Gos I've ever seen and the 2nd closest.  I think I have a little better feel for the bird now though.
I tried a few spots to the south trying to intercept it again but didn't find it.

Rhoda and I later walked the breakwall at New Buffalo looking for Purple Sandpiper.  We didn't see any but a couple times medium-sized calidrid sandpipers did flush, the much more common Dunlin.  Two at the very end were fairly cooperative.

This bird was noticeably larger than the other, I'm presuming adult vs first winter (but I suppose it could be a sex difference as well)

 

The other was slightly shorter billed, noticeably lighter in weight and with less retained rufous in the scapulars

I actually should get out again tomorrow (2 days in a row!), having scored 2 yearbirds (the other being Tundra Swan ironically at 2 different locations), perhaps I can build on the momentum.