We’ve had a long stretch of gray days and with icy trails and muddy back roads, one can long for warmer climes. Then, out on a chilly walk, you get a look at a neat bird, it could be a Chickadee or Blue Jay, and your attitude is adjusted. Such it was this morning when this Hooded Merganser, just tooling down our river, brightened my day.
Life sort of got in the way of blogging but I’ve been back lugging my camera with me the last few days. But first, here’s an iPhone shot – an American Tree Sparrow – through the kitchen window.
Several days ago, I came across this Cooper’s Hawk – at the limit of my SX70 Canon’s range.
Backyard birds like these Mourning Doves continue to delight us.
These Mallards are taking advantage of the still-open river out back.
This morning, I came across these Hoodies who were heading upstream. The morning light resulted in some interesting images.
Season’s Greetings and hopes for a more sane, more peaceful world in 2024.
After yesterday’s encounter with the Great Egret, I vowed to carry my camera every jaunt. Here are a few shots from this morning, when mosquitos seem to outnumber birds.
One of today’s objectives was to relearn how to blog and handle photos on my iPad in preparation for traveling without the laptop. The last time was from Spain in 2021. We’re planning to head back in six weeks.
Today, I spent some time watching two female Hooded Mergansers along the Winooski River. One was sitting on the ice shelf while the other was fishing in the river with chunks of ice passing by. The air temperature was about 10 degrees F and even though I was sitting in the truck, shooting out the window, it looked cold. I kept wondering about the merg on the ice, just huddled there all puffed up and tucked in. Here’s what she looked like:
When I got home, I happened across a Facebook post by an author, Mary Holland, whose work I really like. I wrote about her book, Naturally Curious, last Fall. Here’s what she wrote:
On a cold, winter day, why would any bird choose to sit down on ice? While feathers are excellent insulators, the legs and feet of most birds lack this protective covering. Because of this, legs and feet are a major source of heat loss for birds. Physical adaptations to this loss of heat include constricted blood vessels in a bird’s feet, as well as the proximity of arteries and veins to each other which aids the transfer of heat. Birds exhibit behavioral adaptations as well, such as ducks and gulls standing on one leg and tucking the other among breast feathers, reducing by half the amount of unfeathered limb surface area exposed. By sitting down and covering both legs, even on ice, heat loss from limbs is minimized. If you observe closely, you will see many of the ground-feeding finches such as sparrows and redpolls also occasionally drop down and cover their legs and feet with their breast feathers for a few seconds.
So, I got my answer pretty fast. Meanwhile, here’s a couple of shots of the exercising merganser fishing successfully. I didn’t see her share it!
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Being a grandfather who got into birding late in life, it’s a treat to see at least two of my grandchildren become fledgling birders. Our oldest, Mac, was up from Massachusetts with his mom for Thanksgiving. He caught the birding bug during a a birder camp this summer at North Branch Nature Center. He and Jen have done a few outings at home and this afternoon, Mac and I went out for a short trip.
One of the things I’m learning about youth birding is that attention spans are different with kids — in fact the leaders at camp this summer interspersed many games with the kids which were as popular as the birding. Short outings, especially if the birding is spotty, work well.
We went up to Berlin Pond. During the drive, I was looking for birds in the trees while Mac played some game on his iPhone. I decided to chill out – we’d bird when we got there.
I had been there doing a little scouting this morning but many of the waterfowl had headed out this afternoon. Even so, it was great. We could see Hooded Mergansers as we parked the truck and we watched them through binoculars and the scope. What’s not to like about a Hoodie? I brought out the camera and fitted it on the scope and took a few shots.
Mac was intrigued — he’d never seen digiscoping before. I had him get on a group on American Black Ducks and set the camera on for him. He fired off a few shots and loved it. His shot is better than mine — what can I say?
We trudged down to where I had hoped to see some geese but aside from a Bufflehead, it was rather empty. He didn’t care, the Hoodies had made the day. A small flight of Canada Geese came right over us as we walked back to the truck to sort of complete the outing. Half an hour or so, six species, but a great outing. Mac lives right near Parker River Wildlife Refuge and I look forward to many future outings with him.
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A visit this morning to nearby Berlin Pond revealed a few Hooded Mergansers, one of my favorite birds, and a raft of Black Scoters out in the middle of the pond. Hoodies are fun the watch — the males look so dressed up and important, especially with their crest up. The females often look like they’ve had a bad hair day with the rusty crest fluffed up. I’m still figuring out which camera to use digiscoping but here’s some shots I took of them:
I’m going to experiment again with my Canon 60D for digiscoping and see if that results in sharper images. We’ll see if that helps with clarity — although I think that it just takes more practice and better camera settings to match conditions. Nice challenge for this Fall.