A sample appears to be growing this summer season, of birds with actually hanging faces. First there was the Lesser Floor-Cuckoo, a species I had lengthy needed to see. The right views it gave us made the wait effectively worthwhile. I wrote about this encounter a month in the past.
The next week, I lastly obtained some nice pictures of a male Ruddy Duck with its improbable reproductive blue invoice. I had already had dozens of encounters with the species, just a few with males of their summer season finery. However by no means earlier than had I managed pictures that left me totally happy.
And now, simply final week, I obtained to see one other duck with a improbable face. My spouse and I needed to make a lightning logistics journey to California, and the place the seafaring Surf Scoter is sort of widespread. I had seen these geese on two earlier journeys, however each occasions, they had been using the, you guessed it, surf. The fixed motion of the waves, and harsh glare mirrored off the water, meant that my pictures had been barely adequate for ID functions. Plus, I solely appeared to see them from behind.
However this journey, regardless that I had even much less time to go birding, my outing was to the quiet waters of San Francisco Bay. Particularly, I went to an space referred to as Redwood Shores, which confirmed some promise on the eBird map.
Radio Street, as it’s identified, didn’t really appear to me to be such a birdy place. However I’m nonetheless fairly new at eBird-ing California, and I ended the morning with a stunning 10 new species for the state… Though none of them had been true lifers. Some appear fairly unexplainable to me. Actually? I had not but listed any Californian Rock Pigeons or Home Finches? Others, similar to a single Black-necked Stilt, Snowy Egrets, Black-crowned Herons, and Black Phoebes, fall inside a variety of reasonable curiosity. A distant Osprey, carrying both nesting materials or a really lengthy snake, was a little bit of a thrill. As had been early-arriving Forster’s Terns and a Willet, and a bunch of White-throated Swifts wheeling overhead. (Though I can see White-throated Swifts any day of the yr in downtown Morelia.)
However the primary attraction for this journey was a single Surf Scoter, fortunately, a male. For the reason that Bay has little or no in waves, and this duck was very patiently working his approach alongside the shore, I lastly obtained a very good have a look at its face. And what a face it’s!
My pictures would have been higher if I had my heavy “residence” digital camera, with its 600 mm lens. My used mirrorless digital camera can in all probability take pictures of comparable high quality, however it’s one difficult piece of equipment. I nonetheless have a lot to find out about its use. However these pictures are an actual enhancements on my earlier makes an attempt, and I really feel fortunate to have them.
Because it does not likely advantage a separate publish, I’ll end off right here with an encounter two days later, at Moss Seaside, on the Pacific facet of the San Francisco Peninsula. Right here my spouse and I got here throughout 18 Black-bellied Plovers, all chilling (pun supposed) on the rocky seaside. I take into account myself fortunate if I see one or two of those plovers annually in Mexico. So for me it was thrilling to see an entire crowd of them.
I may need gone nearer to the plovers, if this weren’t a Harbor Seal Resting Space. Which they did, shortly earlier than we left.
