A sample appears to be creating this summer time, of birds with actually putting faces. First there was the Lesser Floor-Cuckoo, a species I had lengthy wished to see. The proper views it gave us made the wait properly worthwhile. I wrote about this encounter a month in the past.
The next week, I lastly received some nice photographs of a male Ruddy Duck with its implausible reproductive blue invoice. I had already had dozens of encounters with the species, a number of with males of their summer time finery. However by no means earlier than had I managed pictures that left me totally happy.
And now, simply final week, I received to see one other duck with a implausible face. My spouse and I needed to make a lightning logistics journey to California, and the place the seafaring Surf Scoter is kind of widespread. I had seen these geese on two earlier journeys, however each occasions, they had been driving the, you guessed it, surf. The fixed motion of the waves, and harsh glare mirrored off the water, meant that my photographs 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 often called Redwood Shores, which confirmed some promise on the eBird map.
Radio Highway, as it’s recognized, 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 shocking 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, corresponding to a single Black-necked Stilt, Snowy Egrets, Black-crowned Herons, and Black Phoebes, fall inside a variety of average 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 12 months in downtown Morelia.)
However the principle attraction for this journey was a single Surf Scoter, fortunately, a male. Because the Bay has little or no in waves, and this duck was very patiently working his approach alongside the shore, I lastly received a very good take a look at its face. And what a face it’s!
My photographs would have been higher if I had my heavy “residence” digital camera, with its 600 mm lens. My used mirrorless digital camera can most likely take photographs of comparable high quality, however it’s one sophisticated piece of equipment. I nonetheless have a lot to find out about its use. However these photographs are an actual enhancements on my earlier makes an attempt, and I really feel fortunate to have them.
Because it does not likely benefit a separate publish, I’ll end off right here with an encounter two days later, at Moss Seashore, on the Pacific aspect of the San Francisco Peninsula. Right here my spouse and I got here throughout 18 Black-bellied Plovers, all chilling (pun meant) on the rocky seaside. I contemplate myself fortunate if I see one or two of those plovers every year in Mexico. So for me it was thrilling to see a complete 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.
Autor Paul Lewis
