Home
January 11, 1998
|
x |
x |
n |
The sun is out, brilliantly, for the first time in at least 6 days. It's too good a day to pass up doing at least a little something outdoors no matter how sick we are. I think I'm getting Nancy's mysterious fever disease but not the mysterious sprained ankle. Anyway, we had a nice brunch at Rue de l'Espoir and headed for the cove to see what we could see. Unlike previous expeditions, I had no intention of looking for the reported Eurasian widgeon. I just wanted to be surrounded by birds on a nice day. We even brought bread to feed the swans and Igor. The gulls got a lot of it. They catch it in midair as I throw it toward the swans. Some of the more aggressive swans grab it right out of my hand. Anyway, once we were out of bread, I started with my usual obsessive counting of each species, while Nancy sat in a lawn chair soaking up the sun and enjoying the ever changing show the birds put on. I crossed the street to see how many Canada geese were over there given that the golf course was actually being used for golf today. I started scanning with binoculars, then went back across the street to the car to get my scope so I could look at some common goldeneyes. As I scanned for the goldeneyes, I saw a widgeon whose "baldpate" looked cream colored instead of white, and whose head was kind of a cinnamon color instead of greenish like the widgeons I normally see there. Could it be? His beak looks a little bluer. I ran back across the street to get my bird book out of the car. Looked it up. Looked at the bird again. Looked at the book again. Whoops of joy rose involuntarily from my throat. Nancy looked over to see what I was so excited about. It's the Eurasian widgeon! Finally. By then I was on a roll, I kept scanning for other birds of interest, and resumed my counting with the gulls - whom I hate to count because just when I'm halfway through they fly someplace else and I can't tell if I've counted them yet. At low tide they congregate on the mud, so their legs are particularly visible, and on this sunny day, it's easy to see any differences from the usual. I spied a small gull that looked like a Bonaparte's in winter plumage but then I noticed it's beak was red. Red legs, dark red beak, white head with black smudge ... common black headed gull in winter plumage! Cool. I kept scanning and spotted another one. That was all. Once last year I saw five of them in with a flock of Bonaparte's gulls but these were just the two, hanging out with ring billed gulls. The list:
| |
|
x |
x |
|
|