I'm heading out early today to do some scouting for our Christmas Count area, San Francisco's Lake Merced.
Western Grebe. Or is it? We have Western, Clark's, and those confusing hybrids all in our count area.
So this was my day of scouting Friday. It was nice, but count week doesn't start until Saturday so this was all about getting myself situated. I'm out again today to check things out and this time will at least go toward the official tally. Good - maybe I'll see the Tropical Kingbird who has been hanging out. (missed him Friday!)
There's a bird in here - do you see it?
A Townsend's Warbler, pretty much dead-center. Hard to see in all this stuff.
A Townsend's, but I keep trying to turn it into a Black-throated Green. (East coasters, if you think it is, please tell me why it's not a Townsend's!!)
The bushes are alive with birds, chipping with a dozen different notes but no one eager to make themselves visible. The voices tell you who to look for. That buzzy trill...
... suggests that there's an Anna's Hummingbird in here someplace, and so there is.
I can hear a Marsh Wren, even if I can't photograph it:
The coots hide in the reeds, too, but at least they're usually big enough to see. Usually.
On I wander. It's a great area - lots going on, on the land, on the sea (water) and in the air. There's a redtail circling high above. I took photos, but it's literally a pixel.
The Ravens give me more to count. I look up and see three. I look up a moment later and see this. One thing birding teaches you is to always keep your eyes open. (Click here and check the bigger image for an exercise in counting a kettle.)
Our count area has a few specialty species - the rails (sora and Virginia), the great tailed grackles. I'm out at dawn for the rails and get them by ear. The grackles we can get by ear too - just walk until it sound like you've entered a video game, and there you will find grackles. This wire, by the Concrete Bridge, is often a good place to look for grackles among the pigeons.
Except often, the pigeons are not pigeons. They are Mew Gulls.
This wire is an ongoing lesson in "Always Look". (I'm guilty of not doing that - ask matching mole about my snowy vs great egret ID.) Anyway - at this location, the blackbirds can be grackles (or tricolored blackbirds) and the pigeons can be Mew Gulls and the hawks can be anything.
I continue my walk and hit the tangle near the floating dock.
Yes, there's a bird there too - and Orange-crowned Warbler.
(There was also a song sparrow and a hermit thrush, but I'll be damned if I can find them in any of the photos.)
One of these things is not like the others, but in the world of waterfowl, that seems to be OK.
A month or so ago, I wrote about passerine banding. One of the big things in that whole process is skulling, to determine age. At Lake Merced, sculling is a big thing but it's a whole 'nother world.
Hoping your Christmas Count was wonderful (or will be).