Spring Birding Begins! - Ducks and Geese

With temperatures heading high into the 50s today, we headed down to the Wells Lake causeway west of Faribault and saw hundreds of greater white-fronted geese as well as many common mergansers and some redheads and coots (in addition to gulls and oodles of mallards and Canada geese). The large lake has already opened up enough that all of these were hundreds of yards away and a strain to see, even through binoculars and spotting scope, so there may have been other species that we couldn't identify.

In contrast, at the Superior Drive pond in Northfield, which now has a lot of open water as well, we got some lovely views of several lesser scaup, a diving duck that is usually one of the first migrating ducks I've recorded over the past few springs (here are other posts I've written about scaup -- in the exceptionally warm spring of 2012, on March 7 the ice was almost completely out on that pond and I counted 42 scaup). Lesser scaup moving through our area are on their way to summer breeding grounds in the northern plains of Canada after wintering in the southern states, along the Gulf Coast, or maybe in Mexico.

Look at that beautiful blue beak, golden eye, and dark head shining purple in the sun.

Ice Forming on a Frigid Morning

Saturday was the Christmas Bird Count in our area, and wouldn't you know it would be the most frigid morning we've had this whole mild December -- only about 10 F. as we set out around 8:00. One bright side was seeing some fascinating ice formations along the creek near Dennison, where we always stop in hopes of seeing birds, but rarely see any even when there is open water. This time we saw a couple of goldfinches. 

Click on any of the photos below to see them larger. They were taken from quite some distance so they are not all crystal clear, but you can see what a variety of patterns and structures were to be seen.

I haven't studied ice formation much, but there is some basic background in this Britannica article. 

The only ducks we saw all morning were a group of 14 mallards splashing vigorously in a small area of open water in the middle of the pond south of Superior Drive. Man, that looks cold.

Rereading Laura Ingalls Wilder - as a Birder

I happily read Laura Ingalls Wilder's "Little House" series at least a couple of times as a kid and again as my children got to suitable ages. Recently, having encouraged Dave to read them since he never had, I picked them up again myself.

I find myself reading the story of this sturdy, closely knit pioneer family's travels and travails in the last quarter of the 19th century with new eyes -- the eyes of a birdwatcher, aspiring naturalist and conservationist who newly understands the role that grasslands have played in the North American circle of life and the sad fact that we have been plowing up more and more of them -- starting in the very times of which she wrote -- until native grasslands are almost gone from huge areas of the U.S. landscape.

Though Wilder, with the help of her daughter Rose Wilder Lane, wrote these books decades after the times she describes, they are as close to a contemporary eyewitness perspective on the pioneer experience in those places and times as we have in our popular literature. While the focus of the stories is on family life, she captures a wonderful amount of detail of the world they inhabited.

1939 edition of By the Shores of Silver Lake,
illustrations by Helen Sewell and Mildred Boyle
Photo credit: Bramblewood Fashion blog

Here is one passage, so evocative of the land and its wealth of bird life. Imagine yourself in Dakota Territory in about 1880, newly arrived in a railroad shanty town where your father has taken a temporary job as shopkeeper while your family looks for an ideal homesteading site. Almost 13 years old, you are exploring the lakeshore with your sisters on a summer afternoon:

Laura and Mary and Carrie walked slowly along on the green shore by the rippling silver-blue water, toward the wild Big Slough. The grasses were warm and soft to their feet. The wind blew their flapping skirts tight against their bare legs and ruffled Laura's hair. Mary's sunbonnet and Carrie's were tied firmly under their chins, but Laura swung hers by its strings. Millions of rustling grass-blades made one murmuring sound, and thousands of wild ducks and geese and herons and cranes and pelicans were talking sharply and brassily in the wind.

All those birds were feeding among the grasses of the sloughs. They rose on flapping wings and settled again, crying news to each other and talking among themselves among the grasses, and eating busily of grass roots and tender water plants and little fishes. 

The lake shore went lower and lower toward Big Slough, until really there was no shore. The lake melted into the slough, making small ponds surrounded by the harsh, rank slough grass that stood five and six feet tall. Little ponds glimmered between the grasses and on the water the wild birds were thick.

As Laura and Carrie pushed into the slough grasses, suddenly harsh wings ripped upward and round eyes glittered; the whole air exploded in a noise of squawking, quacking, quonking. Flattening their webbed feet under their tails, ducks and geese sped over the grass-tops and curved down to the next pond. ...

The soft, cool mud sucked around her ankles as she stood, and before her the little ponds glimmered among the tall grasses. She wanted to go on and on, into the slough among the wild birds, but she could not leave Mary and Carrie. So she turned back with them to the hard, higher prairie where waist-high grasses were nodding and bending in the wind, and the short, curly buffalo grass grew in patches.

Along the edge of the slough they picked flaming red tiger lilies, and on higher ground they gathered long branching stems of purple buffalo bean pods. Grasshoppers flew up like spray before their feet in the grasses. All kinds of little birds fluttered and flew and twittered balancing in the wind on the tall, bending grass stems, and prairie hens scuttled everywhere. 

A few weeks later, it's autumn:

The weather grew colder and the sky was full of wings and great birds flying. From East to West, from North to South, and as far up into the blue sky as eyes could see, were birds and birds and birds sailing on beating wings.

 At evening down they came endlessly from the sky, sliding down long slopes of air to rest on the water of Silver Lake.

There were great, gray geese. There were smaller, snow-white brant that looked like snow at the water's edge. There were ducks of many kinds, the large mallards with a shimmering of purple and green on their wings, the redheads, the bluebills, the canvasbacks, and teals and many others whose names Pa did not know. There were herons, and pelicans, and cranes. There were little mud-hens, and the small hell-divers [grebes -- I had to look that one up!] that peppered the water thickly with their little black bodies. When a shot cracked, hell-divers up-ended and vanished quicker than winking. They went far down in the water and stayed there a long time.

At sunset the whole large lake was covered with birds speaking in every kind of bird's voice to each other before they went to sleep for a night of rest on their long journey from north to south. The winter was driving them; the winter was coming behind them from the north.

-- By the Shores of Silver Lake, by Laura Ingalls Wilder  (c) 1939, renewed 1967.

Wilder's writing puts you right there -- hearing the sounds of thousands of birds, and feeling the wind against your bare legs and the warm grass and soft mud under your bare feet. I'll leave you with those passages, for now, but I may be back with more. Though the books reflect some historical views on Native Americans by European settlers (held noticeably less by the main character, Laura, than by certain others around her) that can be disturbing from a modern perspective, they are well worth reading at any age.

Western Grebes, North Dakota 2014

Ring-necked Duck vs. Scaup

In a recent post I showed a rather indistinct photo of what we concluded was a ring-necked duck (or two). Here is a better shot I got yesterday that provides a nice comparison between the ring-necked duck and a scaup, which appear quite similar at a glance, with dark heads, breasts, and tails, lighter flanks, and bluish/grayish bills.

The duck in the foreground is the ring-necked duck. According to Sibley (Field Guide to Eastern Birds, 2003), the black back and the white "spur" on the side (just behind the base of the neck) are distinctive, as is the white outline on the bill. As I mentioned in the earlier post, the sharp angle to the head is also diagnostic. As Sibley puts it, this duck is "best identified by tall head with sharp peak on rear crown." (The white marking on the bill also tempts one to call this a "ring-billed" duck -- a good sign that actually it is a ring-necked duck. Go figure.)

The duck to the rear is a scaup. It lacks the field marks of the ring-necked duck that I noted above, and has white flanks and a gray back, in contrast to the ring-necked duck's gray flanks and black back. The greater and lesser scaup are very similar. I'm guessing this is a lesser scaup, based on the fairly tall head, which is the main way of distinguishing it from the greater scaup, which has a larger, more rounded head. However, from this angle it's difficult to say for sure. The lesser scaup is also the more likely species to be found here, as they winter all across the southern tier of the U.S. as well as on the coasts, while the greater scaup is said to prefer salt water and winters mainly on the coasts, as well as some smaller inland areas in the south, from eastern Texas through Arkansas. See the comparative range maps: lesser scaup vs. greater scaup. This is also borne out in Minnesota eBird records for the two: lesser scaup vs. greater scaup.

Today we saw our first northern shovelers of the season (boldly colored ducks with enormous bills), and a belted kingfisher. I am keeping a 2014 bird list (also available from the page links at the top of the blog). We've often kept records of what we've seen, but this is the first time in a while we've started a numbered list early in the season, and I'm hoping to keep it going throughout the year. We're up to 34 species so far, and with spring migration really getting started, that should keep going up pretty steadily.

Happy birding!

More Hooded Mergansers

I can't get enough of these diving ducks. They are so striking-looking, yet somehow comical in the intensity of the yellow eye, the sharpness of the bill, and the startling, quasi-alien appearance of their crests, which they can raise and lower.

Below is a cluster of hoodies from the larger group of 30-40 that has been hanging around on the Superior Drive pond. Note a mallard taking off at left. (Click on the photo to see it much larger.)

The Ducks are Here

On Sunday morning the pond south of Superior Drive in Northfield was still largely ice-covered. Later that day and the next, the temperatures reached well into the 50s, and at some point the ice went out. We heard reports of swans there on Tuesday and headed over there after work. No swans were to be seen, but there were 14 common mergansers, two dozen hooded mergansers (plus another four on the north pond), some short-necked Canada geese, a few mallards and a gull. There was also another pair of ducks we couldn't quite be sure of through the binoculars, but after the fact, based on my photos, we were able to be fairly sure they were ring-necked ducks.

Male Common Merganser - so handsome; larger than a Mallard

Female Common Merganser

Hooded Mergansers

Probably these are Ring-necked Ducks (note sharp slope of head)

This is one of my favorite times in the birding year, enjoying the great variety of migrating ducks that appear as soon as the ponds open up. 

Red-breasted Mergansers

Late this afternoon half a dozen male red-breasted mergansers were on Northfield's Superior Drive pond, keeping company with several pairs of hooded mergansers.

We haven't often seen these here. In late April 2011 we saw a lone female red-breasted merganser on the same pond, and I noted that I'd only seen them before up in Grand Marais, where we'd seen a mother with ducklings in August 2008.

Mergansers are diving ducks that eat mainly fish.

(Click on photo to see it larger)

Above, a male hooded merganser is flanked by five red-breasted mergansers -- note their considerably larger size than the small hoodie, as well as their bold, dark, fluffy-crested heads. An American coot is in the foreground -- a duck-like bird that is actually more closely related to rails and moorhens than to ducks. I last wrote about coots on April 4, 2012, after we saw large numbers of them at Lake Byllesby.

This pond was still almost entirely iced over as recently as Friday evening. Yesterday's warming temperatures and the afternoon's rain, followed by sun today, cleared out the ice in a hurry. Some remains, but the pond is largely ice-free today.

We also saw several yellowlegs, probably lesser yellowlegs, on the far edge of the pond that is to the south of the large pond. These, along with some recent killdeer, have been our first shorebirds of the season.

Dozens of ring-billed gulls were on the remaining ice on the large pond that lies between Jefferson Parkway and Superior Drive. Many of them were tearing at hunks of fish that we presumed had been dead in the water.

Mergansers and Herons on Ice

Dave and I had heard that the ice was starting to open up at Wells Lake just outside of Faribault, which often offers good early-season views of migratory ducks, geese and swans, so we headed down there after this morning's rain had finished. We didn't see large numbers of birds, but we had a great view of a couple of dozen common mergansers, a small number of hooded mergansers, three double-crested cormorants overhead, a couple of coots, as well as some mallards, Canada geese and a few gulls. Several times groups of mergansers took off and circled overhead, looking pure white with black heads -- an impressive sight. With an overcast sky and the sun (what there was of it) behind us, the light was beautiful. You can see in the photos below how it lit up the white bodies of the male mergansers.

Common Mergansers (3 males, 2 females) and a pair of Mallards

Common Mergansers and Mallards

Hooded Mergansers (2 male, 1 female)

While we were in Faribault we stopped by Slevin Park, near the mill, and caught sight of four, soon joined by another three, great blue herons that were lined up on the ice like statues. It was quite a startling sight.

It looks as if we're going back near or below freezing for the next several days, but soon this ice should open up for the season.

The Forgotten Art of Spring

Here's the pond that I call the Superior Drive pond, which has become our favorite spring duck-watching pond in Northfield. Last year on March 7, I reported that the pond was almost ice-free and occupied by more than 40 scaup, several hooded mergansers and the usual mallards and Canada geese; of course, we had unprecedented warmth as the month went on and were starting to care for our bluebird boxes by the end of the month.

In 2011 we were seeing ducks in mid-March, and that felt early.  In 2010 I didn't mention ducks until a mid-April outing to Lake Byllesby, but noted that the snow in front of our house was almost gone on March 17. In 2009, I first discovered the Superior Drive pond in early April, thanks to the urgent promptings of a friend who lives there, who said I must come to see all the ducks.

I do look forward to spring!

One thing that will keep this spring particularly interesting is that I will be taking the Minnesota Master Naturalist Program covering the Big Woods/Big River ecosystem, which is being offered at the Carleton Arboretum starting April 1. It's five hours a week for six weeks, plus two all-day Saturday field days. It's been a long time since I sat regularly in a classroom, but I am truly excited to expand my knowledge about our local geology, flora and fauna, water, land history and more, taught by local teaching biologists and other experts who really know this area.

From the Master Naturalist program website:

The mission of the Minnesota Master Naturalist Program is to promote awareness, understanding, and stewardship of Minnesota’s natural environment by developing a corps of well-informed citizens dedicated to conservation education and service within their communities.

Any adult who is curious and enjoys learning about the natural world, shares that knowledge with others, and supports conservation can be a Minnesota Master Naturalist Volunteer. [That's so me!] If you enjoy hiking, bird watching, following tracks, or identifying wildflowers, you'll love being a Minnesota Master Naturalist Volunteer. Minnesota Master Naturalist Volunteers are a motivated group of fun and interesting people: teachers, retired professionals, nature guides, hunters, eco-tour operators, farmers, and...YOU!

The Minnesota Master Naturalist Program is a joint effort of the University of Minnesota Extension and the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources.

I hope the course will help me bring new perspectives to Penelopedia, and I expect I will share some of my learning here as the program goes on.

Yellowlegs

Greater (or Lesser?) Yellowlegs at Lake Byllesby

This is not a bird whose name's origin you have to guess at. Those are extremely yellow legs. 

I'm not positive whether this is a greater or a lesser yellowlegs. Does the bill look to you as if it is longer than the width of the head, and slightly upturned? It does to me, which would make it a greater yellowlegs. But the differences are subtle and the distinction can be difficult to make.

I was at Lake Byllesby with binoculars and spotting scope again last evening, hoping I might catch one of the shorebird rarities that have been popping up in migration. I had planned to be elsewhere, but I'd been indoors all day, and when it came down to it, I needed fresh air and quiet water and solitude. 

I saw at least 80 pelicans on their favorite sandbar far out into the lake; I saw perhaps 40 or 50 each of green-winged teal and blue-winged teal, and some sprinklings of northern shovelers, coots and mallards. I saw several groups of shorebirds -- I think some lesser and some greater yellowlegs (I think I heard both calls), plus a small group of pectoral sandpipers. I saw two bald eagles overhead and the resident great horned owl on her nest. 

No rarities this time, but spending the last hour of light on the edge of the lake -- the cool air echoing and rippling with the piercing calls of yellowlegs, the honking of geese and even the peculiar bark of a pelican -- was pleasure enough.

Swan on Northfield Pond

I stopped by the Superior Drive pond around midday today and was greeted by a fantastic new arrival: a lone swan, surrounded by ring-necked ducks. This was my first sighting of a swan on this pond.

Telling tundra swans from trumpeter swans is tricky, but based on guidance from the Sibley Guides website, I think this is a tundra swan. The narrow line of black connecting the black bill to the eye, and the U-shape of the line connecting one eye to the other, seem to confirm the identification; the connection is thicker and more V-shaped in the trumpeter swan.

I was pretty sure I'd been seeing a large group of lesser scaup at the pond during my previous visits, but certainly today they were ring-neckeds (the tall head with the strong angle at the back, and the very noticeable pale ring near the tip of the bill are key indicators).

Tundra swan with female ring-necked ducks

Ring-necked ducks (male)

We came back less than an hour later and saw the swan still there, but as I was pulling out my phone to alert a friend who lives nearby, it flew away. It's a good reminder that during migration (and really at any time) birds can come and go, so it doesn't hurt to check a good spot more than once a day if you have the chance. You never know what you might see.

Bald Eagle on Ice, 11 Herons and Many Ducks

We've been hearing amazing reports of ducks and geese at open water on Wells Lake, just west of Faribault, for the past week or two. Dave went down there on Thursday while I was at work, and estimates he saw 750 greater white-fronted geese, as well as many different kinds of ducks and some loons. So this morning we drove down there to see what we could see. There was a great deal more open water than there had been just two days earlier, so the waterfowl we saw were far more spread out and for the most part were many dozens of yards away from us.

Canvasbacks, scaup, redheads and pintails (click to see photo larger)

We saw a great variety of ducks, mostly of the diving category, and mostly at a considerable distance. We were able to get some shots through the spotting scope -- at least good enough to show the great variety present. I recommend either clicking on these photos or right-clicking to open them in a new tab in order to see the greatest detail:

• Common mergansers
• Hooded mergansers
• Redheads
• Canvasbacks
• Northern pintails
• Lesser scaup
• Ring-necked ducks
• Mallards
• Gadwall (at least one)
• Northern shovelers
• American coots (not technically ducks)
• Greater white-fronted geese flew overhead
• Canada geese

Scaup and pintails, mostly

American coots

But wait! There's more! Dozens of the ducks suddenly took to the air in apparent alarm, and we saw a bald eagle glide down and land on the ice. It stayed there for an extended time, during which we did not see it do anything other than stand and look around. These shots through the spotting scope turned out pretty well. I just use a point-and-shoot camera, with no manual focus, so getting it to focus properly on distant birds without good contrast to give the automated functions some assistance can be a real challenge. The high contrast of the eagle against the ice, as well as its size, helped these photos turn out about as well as I could have hoped for.

There was a steady wind blowing, and I like how you can see the wind ruffling the eagle's feathers in this next shot.

So that was exciting -- but wait! There's more! While scanning an area of shore where there were quite a few Canada geese, we realized that behind the geese was by far the largest group of great blue herons I've ever seen. We counted 11; I've never seen more than two or three in fairly close proximity before. There are nine in the photo below -- I've added some arrows to help show the three that were particularly well camouflaged; you'll probably need to click on the photo to see them properly. Dan Tallman posted about seeing 27 great blue herons on the ice at the same location on Wednesday, with a great photo of nine of them. Unbelievable.

Most of the lakes in the region are still ice-covered, but the ones that open up first due to a current provide amazing birdwatching in the early spring as migrating ducks pass through on their way to breeding grounds in the far north. Today the temperature reached the mid-60s F. and several more days of most unseasonably warm temperatures are predicted. If you have a body of water near you that's starting to have open water, check it out!

Spring Ducks Arriving

My favorite spring duck-watching pond south of Superior Drive in the southeast corner of Northfield was close to ice-free today, and I spotted at least 42 scaup, probably lesser scaup, there about an hour ago, along with five hooded mergansers and some mallards and Canada geese.

The scaup are a week ahead of last year's first sightings (and last year's sightings felt early in comparison with preceding years). With the mild, dry winter we've had this year, though, it's no surprise to have open water this early. I have been hearing many reports of migrating ducks and white-fronted geese down at Wells Lake in Faribault in the past week or two, including this week's blog post by Dan Tallman. Last year we saw several white-fronted geese on March 19 at the Superior Drive pond.

I wasn't close enough to get decent photos today, but this photo of a lesser scaup (I believe it's a lesser, anyway) is one I took last year. It's a handsome duck, isn't it, with its blue bill, golden eye, and striking sections of black and white?

Today I also saw my first two American robins of the season, and yesterday my son spotted our first two red-winged blackbirds of the season.

Welcome, spring!

Hundreds of Mallards at Sunset

Just east of Northfield, returning from a walk in the northern leg of the Arb (where we had hoped with luck to spot a great horned owl, and in fact one flew over our heads without warning), we saw a large, swirling flock of birds over a field. They proved to be mallards. They landed in the corn stubble, but soon took to the air again. Soon afterward, skein after skein of geese flew eastward away from a stunning sunset behind them. Who knew there were so many geese and ducks spending the winter here?

Mallards over fields at sunset

Mallards - close to 150 in this crop alone

Carleton College Chapel with geese

Carleton College at sunset

Return of the Dark Brown Ducks

Two years ago I noticed a dark brown duck with a mottled whitish front to its neck hanging out with the local mallards on the river in downtown Northfield. It was suggested to me that it might be a domestic Swedish duck or a cross with one (here's a photo from another source, FowlBlog.com, that looks quite similar). Last summer I saw it again, or another very like it.

A couple of days ago I saw two of them, snoozing on the eastern bank near a lot of mallards (above). They were very sleepy, so I didn't get a shot of one with its head up, but you get the general idea. If you click on the photo, you'll be able to see it much, much larger.

Here are some of the other ducks that were in the vicinity. It was nap time for most.

First Ducklings of 2011

These were the first mallard ducklings we'd seen this year, though I've heard reports of others seeing some a week or so ago. There was a group of two in one pond (of which you only see one, with its mother, below) and a group of eight in the adjacent pond (bottom photo). It's amazing to see how independently they explore and how very quickly they swim back to find mama.