Birds I'm Watching: Lake Ralphine/Spring Lake

Took a walk around lake Ralphine and Spring Lake today, in Santa Rosa. Saw 40 bird species: Downy woodpecker, Nuttal's woodpecker, acorn woodpecker, turkey vulture, crows, lesser goldfinch, house finch, ruby-crowned kinglet, northern flicker, robin, Western meadowlark, ring-billed gull, coots (22), common moorhen (2), scrub jay, oak titmouse, chestnut-backed chickadee, yellow-rumped warbler, great egret, snowy egret, spotted towhee, California towhee, fox sparrow, golden-crowned sparrow, white-crowned sparrow, song sparrow, marsh wren, Bewick's wren, belted kingfisher, Great blue heron, Canada geese, mallards, buffleheads (10), greater scaup (6), common merganser (27 on Lake Ralphine), pied-billed grebe, a spotted sandpiper, a red-shouldered hawk, an Osprey eating a fish up in a tree, and a pair of common goldeneyes.

The photos are of a male (top) and female common merganser. These birds show striking sexual dimorphism--strictly speaking, sexual dichromatism.

Birds I'm Watching: Lake Ralphine ducks

Today, for the first time since coming back to the United States, I took a pair of binoculars and a bird book out to Lake Ralphine and Spring Lake, the former is the small lakes in Howarth Park here in Santa Rosa. I saw quite a lot in a leisurely hour-long walk around the lake. The common mergansers I noticed there a couple of weeks ago were still around. I saw eight females and three males. There was a lone male bufflehead diving for remarkably long spells. I saw the usual cormorants, mallards, canada geese, and other geese--the half-tame year-round residents, but I also saw a common moorhen, which is a first sighting for me. There was a pair of coots on the water as well. In the trees I saw a couple of yellow-rumped warblers and a large bird that looked like a night heron, but it was colored oddly--mostly white with yellow legs and a bluish-grey head and back. I'm not sure exactly what it was. There was another heron-like bird on the far side of Spring Lake that I couldn't identify either, but this one was mostly brown.

More intriguing was an odd duck on Lake Ralphine, that had characteristics of a mallard (the distinctive curls in the tail feathers) but was otherwise quite different. It had a strikingly iridescent teal green head with small flecks of white. Its bill was a yellow-greenish gray, not yellow. Its back was the same greenish color as its head, but darker. It had a white throat and breast, but was otherwise a medium to dark brownish grey. It had no neck ring and no brown on the breast. There is nothing in the bird book that makes sense. Someone I talked with suggested it might be a mutt, and that seems to make sense. Apparently the mallards interbreed with domestic ducks that hang out on the lake.

In other bird news, three cormorants flew over the house this morning, which is quite unusual. Yesterday, driving on Llano Road past the water treatment plant, I saw two American white pelicans, which is a fairly rare sighting--only the second time I've seen these birds here in Sonoma county. The pelicans I've seen at the coast are mostly brown pelicans. 

Along the trail I found a beautiful little stand of gold-backed ferns (coming up through a thicket of poison oak) and a group of western shooting stars in bloom (top photo).

Birds I'm Watching: Common Merganser

Took a bike ride around Spring Lake today with my son. There were many ducks and geese on the water--and many, many people out as well. Of the ducks I was able to identify one that is a new sighting for me, the common merganser. One of these days, I'll get out to Spring Lake with a bird book, a pair of binoculars, and some time. Actually, chances are good that I've seen this bird before, but this is the first time I've seen it clearly and taken the time to identify it. Interesting that the males and females have such different plumage. I initially assumed these were two different species.