Maffitt Reservoir Sunday

We've had quite variable weather in April so far - rain and snow, and temperatures ranging from the 70s to the 30s.  This past Sunday was mild - scattered rain showers and temps in the 50s - so Mr Pescador and I spent a little time out at Maffitt Reservoir.  There were lots of waterfowl on the lake - Northern Shovelers, Hooded Mergansers, Gadwalls, Lesser Scaup, Mallards, Ring-necked Ducks, Bufflehead, Ruddy Ducks (I love these tiny divers :) ), and of course Canada Geese.  I'm struggling with scaup right now - I suspect I've seen Greater Scaup at some point this year (because I've seen a lot of scaup) but I probably need to have someone point out the differences to me when we're looking at them in person.  I keep studying my field guides and I'm familiar with the field marks that separate the 2 species, but they're pretty subtle differences (at least on paper).  Plus my cheap Barska spotting scope, as much as I love it, gets darker the more I try to zoom in.  So when I try to get really close looks at head and bill shapes, it gets too dark for me to see very clearly.  I guess it's time to start saving up for a new scope.  My Barska is great at 20x, so if it's a species I'm familiar with I can use them to view and ID birds from afar.  But if I need to use them for gulls, shorebirds (sandpipers and plovers), or fall warblers (when they've lost their colorful breeding plumage) my scope falls short.  But enough about that, onto the birds!

The sparrows are really starting to show up - Song, Vesper, and Field Sparrows were all singing.  I also spotted a Lark Sparrow lurking in a tree.  And when I drove down to the fishing pier on the east shore, a Common Loon and some feisty American Coots were there to keep me company.

The coots were diving down and bringing aquatic plants up to the surface to eat.  They were all taking turns doing the diving and trying to steal from each other.

Dive!  And then when a coot successfully brings something to the surface, its efforts are rewarded by some good old kleptoparasitism:

Kleptoparasitism is a long, complicated word that basically describes a behavior where one animal will harass another (who has food) in an attempt to get them to drop some or all of that food.  If successful, the one doing the stealing gets the benefit of a meal without having to spend all that energy catching/collecting that food.

My year list is now to 83 species - not bad considering my back injury!