Weekend birding

This weekend was classic March in Iowa - 62F on Friday, then dropping to mid-30s and low 40s through Monday.  It even snowed overnight Sunday!

I was able to get out several times this weekend, with the goal of catching the different waterfowl as they moved through.  I was also hoping to pick up my first killdeer and turkey vulture of the year.  Picking out the different waterfowl species usually means breaking out the scope, so I will apologize in advance for my photos.  I haven't yet bought a digiscoping case for my iPhone, so I had to take photos the old fashioned way - holding my iPhone directly up to the eyepiece and moving it around until I could get the birds in view.  It's not perfect, but it's free :)

Friday I intended to bird my way around the east side of Saylorville Lake.  It was such a nice day that the place was very busy - people fishing, highschoolers goofing around, people with their dogs off-leash, motorcycles - not ideal birding conditions.  But I found a few quieter corners, like the overflow/spillway ponds where I found this Hooded Merganser (left) and Bufflehead (right, 2013 year bird #44), both males:

I also heard a Killdeer fly over, making it year bird #43.

Saturday I decided to head south to Maffitt Reservoir.  When I first arrived, all I could find were large flocks of Mallards - not really the duck diversity I was hoping for.  But knowing it's migration time, I was patient.  Most of the Mallards moved out and some new birds moved in:

First came the mergansers - I counted 18 Red-breasted, plus this single female Common.  The Red-breasteds were a lifer for me (and year bird #45).

Then 2 little ducks swam up and sat on the ice a little ways away from the Mallards - a pair of Green-winged Teals (female on left, male on right, 2013 #46).  Note the white stripe on the body (in front of the wing and below the head) and the yellowish patch on the rump on the male.  After a bit, the male wandered off into the flock of Mallards, making for a great comparison in body size:

The male teal is 4th from the right (5th if you click on the photo to see it full-sized).  Then I noticed the 3 birds furthest to the right weren't Mallards.  Notice the whitish patch on their bellies?  I repositioned the scope to get a better look:

While I was doing that, they repositioned themselves as well.  I could definitely tell I had both males and females.  They had yellow legs, a white wing patch, and the males had a dark patch on the end of their tails - Gadwalls (another lifer and year bird #47)!  I've been chasing Gadwalls around the Des Moines area for the last month or so, always just missing them.  They were on the clean-up list I made for myself at the beginning of the year.  Clean-up meaning species that are pretty regular Iowa visitors or inhabitants that I could reasonably expect to see this year (and that I feel I should already be on my life list but aren't).  After spending years doing mostly woodland and forest bird surveys I find my life list is weak on certain bird groups because I just didn't pay much attention to them before - namely the groups of birds that closely associate with water like ducks, gulls, and sandpipers.  So this year my goal is to "clean up" my list of those groups.  And I'm off to a great start, adding 3 duck species so far. :)

While I was at Maffitt, my fiance Mr Pescador texted me that he'd seen a Turkey Vulture at Lake Ahquabi (where he was fishing).  I have to admit, we get a little competitive with the birding and I didn't want him to be the only one to see a TUVU that day.  Even scanning every flying speck I could find produced no vultures.  And finally I had to pack it in and head home to get ready for a work meeting in the afternoon.  But luck and the birds were on my side that day, because on the way home a TUVU soared right over my car.  That's why I love birding - no matter where you are, there are always birds around.  And sometimes you'll drive all over the place looking for a bird only to have it land or fly right in front of you after you'd given up.

The many shades of junco

Dark-eyed Juncos can be found almost everywhere in the continental US (at least in winter).  When these birds show up in fall it is a sign that winter is around the corner.  And I have to admit, while I like juncos I'm always a little disappointed to find my first one in the fall.  As a person who dreads the cold temperatures and frozen landscape of winter, these little birds tell me it's time to get out the warm clothes and bundle up (I get cold when temperatures go below 60F, so from November to April each year I'm a human popsicle).

Friday at Walnut Woods I was able to get a photo of a few plumage variations in juncos.  However, when identifying juncos always look for a white belly, pinkish beak, and a white edge on both sides of their tail (best seen when they're flying).

 This brown version of the slate-colored race has almost no white on her belly.

 Both of these (above and below) show the more traditional plumage of the slate-colored race.

Even though their arrival means winter is coming, I find it hard to hold a grudge against these pint-sized little birds.  They're just so fun to watch and I love their twittering "kew" call (listen to it on Cornell's All about Birds site: scroll down to the last one, "Kew calls (slate-colored race)").

Walnut Woods SP

Yesterday I had to go in to work for a meeting, so I stopped by the bird blind at Walnut Woods on my way.  The birds were busy, taking turns at the feeders and chasing each other.  The Northern Cardinals are definitely feeling frisky.  There were many males singing and squabbling over the females.  At one point I counted 7 males sitting in a single bush (which isn't hard when there are no leaves to hide them)!  Speaking of cardinals, Cornell posted an article this week about why male cardinals are so red.

Here, a female picks among the fallen seeds with a White-throated Sparrow.

A few other birds I spotted:

A Tufted Titmouse gleans a peanut out of the feeder.

 A Red-bellied Woodpecker takes its turn.  These birds do actually have red on their belly, but you don't usually see it (unless you're banding one, in which case you take a photo because how often to you get to see their belly?).

 This photo is a great comparison of a Downy (right) and Hairy (left) Woodpecker.  Although they are very similarly marked, Hairy Woodpeckers are larger and have a larger beak to head size ratio.  I kept hoping the Hairy would actually show its beak for a photo but the feeder was just too interesting.

Swans yesterday

I was driving into Des Moines yesterday evening for the weekly Sunday dinner with Mr Pescador's family.  While casually glancing at the geese and crows foraging in the mostly snow-covered fields, I saw something that made me pull over.

Trumpeter swans!  Sorry for the horrible photo quality, all I had with me was my iPhone and I parked on the opposite side of the road so I would disturb the swans as little as possible (requiring me to use the digital zoom).  There were 13 that I counted, but they were pretty hard to pick out of the snow.  It was a mixed-age group, with some still all-gray birds (last year's babies, aka cygnets) hanging out with pure white adults.  I've gotten to hold these guys during releases, and they are an armful.  Luckily they don't usually try to peck you in the face, unlike some other birds I've held.

I haven't gotten out as much as I would like lately, but staying indoors more means I get to spend lots of quality time with my pets.  Animal lover + enrichment training = I like to make my animals' lives interesting.  Yesterday, since there wasn't a lot of activity at my feeders (which the cat loves to watch) I decided to give him some other birds to watch.

Yep, I let my cat watch David Attenborough's Life of Birds.  He laid there and watched the entire second episode, the one about flight!  My birds prefer episode #6 about songs.