I tried to go birding at Jones Beach yesterday in between Christmas festivities, and had to make it a very short walk with little time between everything. We came up empty handed on what we would have liked to have found, so I was determined to make today a good birding day.
A check of the weather put a damper on my plans (pun intended), so I kept it local with Prospect and Bush Terminal Parks. I wasn't disappointed, enjoy the sights...
|
As per the alerts of eBird and the various birding groups I creep around, 2 of the 3 snow geese remain at the upper pool. |
|
Both birds are immature, this ones face is stained from feeding among the mud an reeds, something that commonly happens when your plumage is white and you feed on vegetation. |
|
These birds are "white morph" snow geese- as opposed to the "blue morph" that has a darker grey body. Once these two birds are mature they will be white as snow, with black primary feathers. |
|
A little bit of bickering isn't unheard of, especially when you are among a pond of 150+ Canada Geese. |
|
At Bush Terminal Park, I came to find what I was looking for... one of these gulls is not like the other ones... lacking the typical black wing-tips, this white-winged gull is a (edited) Iceland gull. |
|
The plumage of this gull suggests it is a juvenile. As an adult they would still have white wing tips. |
|
Among a motley crew of herring, great black baked gulls, and a cormorant... can you find him? |
|
There were quite a few gadwall present, many were very active, vocalizing and displaying. |
|
A male on the left displays, white another male vocalizes and the females assesses. |
|
The male associating closest to the female doesn't seem to care for the other male. |
|
On the other side of the park, bufflehead, lesser scaup, and ruddy ducks gathered (as well as a few more gadwall). The buffleheads are so small, but their ego always seems far larger. |
When I departed from Bush Terminal Park, the drops of rain began to fall and I returned home. While not as perfect a day as yesterday, weather-wise, I'm pretty happy with the overall turnout of avian things. I also got to try out my new binoculars, some 10x42's, thanks to my parents who support my addiction.
I hope everyone had a really great holiday weekend, and can cram in some last minute birding before 2016 is up!
No comments:
Post a Comment