A Super Bird: White-winged Scoter at Gloucester Harbor

Three species of scoters frequent the coast of eastern North America: Surf, Black, and White-winged Scoter. Of these three, the first two are very easy to spot in the mid-Atlantic states while the third is relatively uncommon. Because of that, I was pleased to see several White-winged Scoters during my trip to Massachusetts. We found the species for our Superbowl of Birding checklist and saw them at multiple stops. Best of all, one passed very close to Jodrey State Fish Pier while we were standing and watching birds on Sunday morning. It was close enough to get a good look at the white wing patch that inspires its name and the hints of a white marking around the eye.

White-winged Scoters breed in freshwater wetlands in northwestern North America, but spend their winters in coastal waters along both eastern and western North America. Like other bay and sea ducks, White-winged Scoters feed primarily by diving and capturing prey underwater. They dive to the bottom, grab something, and then consume it on the way up. Their food consists of mollusks, crustaceans, and insects. On their winter territories, they mainly eat mollusks, especially rock clams and blue mussels. (Here are a White-winged Scoter eating a clump of mussels and a Surf Scoter eating some kind of mollusk.)

Aside from being a species I do not normally see, this bird was just fun to watch. Here is a video of the White-winged Scoter swimming and diving.

Loose Feathers #276

Common Eider in Gloucester Harbor (photo by me)

Birds and birding news

• The American Bird Conservancy estimates that building out wind power to 20% of the nation's electricity would kill about 1 million birds per year by 2030. The Department of Interior plans to release guidelines about the siting and operation of wind farms soon.
• Most parrots favor one side of their body over the other – they prefer to use the right eye and right foot or the left eye and left foot. Some species favor the left foot almost exclusively.
• A San Francisco area woman has turned her home into a private aviary to breed endangered tropical birds to reintroduction into the wild.
• Scientists are tagging Red-breasted Geese to determine what factors are causing their decline. There are only about 40,000 of the geese left, making this the most endangered goose species.
• Researchers are trying to determine why New Caledonian Crows display so much more intelligence than other species, and even other corvids. Observations of their behavior suggest that a toolmaking culture is passed down from adults to their offspring, who learn by watching adults.
• A new study found that pigeons navigate via olfaction, primarily with their right nostril.
• The former Ponderlodge golf course in Cape May (also known as Villas WMA or Cox Hall Creek WMA) will undergo habitat restoration. The buildings will be demolished, paved walkways will be removed, and the former fairways will be seeded with appropriate plantings. A focus will be on creating forest habitat for Red-shouldered Hawks and Barred Owls.
• A harsh winter drove a lot of unusual birds into Britain's gardens just in time for the RSPB's Big Garden Birdwatch. This year's sightings included large flocks of Bohemian Waxwings, the largest invasion in several decades.
• A Red-tailed Hawk that crashed into a window at Johns Hopkins University has recovered and will be released back into the wild soon. The collision broke the window but not any of the hawk's bones.
• A rock formation in Denali National Park produced the fossil footprints of two previously undiscovered prehistoric bird species. Many of the other fossil tracks in the rock formations match bird species that have also been found farther south in Asia or North America, suggesting that there were migration patterns during the Cretaceous similar to those today.

Birds in the blogosphere

• Biological Ramblings: Gulls, Part 1
• Sibley Guides: Is the Brown Creeper more than one species?
• Tails of Birding: Birds of America
• The Birder's Library: A Look Ahead in 2011
• Sleeping with the Fishes: Self-Help for Seabirds: How to manage your time and outcompete your neighbors for maximum survival
• NeuroDojo: Ptarmigans on ptreadmills
• ABA Blog: Go global with the new eBird taxonomy

Oil spills

• The administrator of BP's victim compensation fund for the Gulf oil spill believes that the Gulf will have recovered by 2012.
• Scientists evaluating the Gulf's recovery are concerned about a lack of data to understand how marine populations are doing.

Environment and biodiversity

• About 85% of the world's oyster reefs have disappeared, largely due to overharvesting.
• Here is a list of the world's top 10 endangered forest ecosystems.
• A new report confirms the severe pollution of Brooklyn's Gowanus Canal and emphasizes the risks to people who eat fish from the canal or come into contact with its water.
• Meanwhile Brooklyn's Gerritsen Creek is the site of a successful tidal marsh restoration.
• A report finds new evidence that cocaine production speeds the destruction of Colombia's rainforests and endangers the region's biodiversity.
• Meteorological conditions in spring and summer may be to blame for the disproportionately high amount of mercury deposited in the Arctic. Sunlight helps transform the gaseous mercury into more reactive (and more dangerous) methylmercury.
• Using crop residues for biofuel instead of conventional tillage would deplete soil carbon and risk additional erosion.

Blog carnivals

• I and the Bird #143
• Festival of the Trees #56 
• Berry Go Round #36

Common Eiders in Gloucester Harbor

As I mentioned in my last post on the Superbowl of Birding, Jodrey State Fish Pier in Gloucester Harbor is an excellent birding location. I highly recommend a stop there if you happen to be in the Cape Ann area during the winter months. The fishing industry based in the harbor attracts numerous sea birds. Some fight for scraps left by the fishing boats and processing plants; others dive for fish and crustaceans in the waters of the harbor. Many of these birds swim very close to the pier, allowing for close study and photography. They come so close, in fact, that their presence was a distraction for me during the Superbowl of Birding.

One bird that I found especially distracting was the Common Eider. This species is not at all uncommon along the Atlantic coast in the winter. One can usually see hundreds of them at Barnegat Light, and there are other places to see them along the mid-Atlantic coast. However, it is uncommon to have such close views of their regal plumage.

The were a lot of eiders in the harbor, but they swam around in small groups of half a dozen or so.

Watching them at close range made it easy to watch them as they preened.

It also gave me the opportunity to see details like the white stripe down the middle of an adult male's crown, something I have not noticed previously.

I will leave you with a video that shows an adult male eider swimming through the harbor. Along the way it passes several other birds, including Great Black-backed Gulls fighting over a fish carcass and an adult Iceland Gull doing its long call. If the embedded video does not work for you, try watching it on Flickr or on YouTube.

Shovelered, or a Return to the Superbowl of Birding

We rose early on Saturday morning in order to be at our starting point for the Superbowl of Birding. We had two goals for the pre-dawn hours: find sleeping water birds and listen for owls. Our first stop, at Flax Pond in Lynn, produced a few hard-to-find waterbirds like American Coot and Ruddy Duck. Unfortunately it did not produce our main target, a Northern Shoveler, even though another team reported the bird on the same pond at the same time, but in a different patch of open water. Our owling was more productive, as three quick stops produced the expected three species of owls – Eastern Screech Owl, Barred Owl, and Great Horned Owl.

After a quick stop at a Dunkin Donuts (our only coffee break of the day), we visited several yards with feeders in quick succession. They produced a variety of landbirds, such as Dark-eyed Junco, American Tree Sparrow, Hairy Woodpecker, and Red-bellied Woodpecker. Unfortunately we missed some birds we hoped to find around the feeders, such as Red-breasted Nuthatch, Pileated Woodpecker, and Red-shouldered Hawk. We also blew a chance to redeem our shoveler miss when a Northern Shoveler flew overhead and only three of the six team members saw and identified it in time.

Our focus then shifted to waterbirds. We made several stops along coastal beaches and coves and found all three species of scoters, Long-tailed Ducks, Common Goldeneye, Bufflehead, Horned and Red-necked Grebes, and Common and Red-throated Loons. We made our way through Gloucester to Jodrey's Fishing Pier, and spotted the Peregrine Falcons on the clock tower along the way. The fishing pier is an excellent birding location because it attracts multiple species of gulls, including Iceland and Glaucous, as well as rarer ones. Many species of seabirds come into the harbor and often linger there, close to the docks. We picked up the expected gulls and ducks. It was hard to pull my eyes away from the fantastic looks at Common Eiders, but in doing so I was rewarded with views of three alcids – Black Guillemot, Thick-billed Murre, and my life Dovekie! Not only was the Dovekie a life bird for Mike and me, but it was also a five-point bird, with a three-point bonus for being the first team to report the species on the competition day. Sadly, it would also be our only five-point bird of the day.

Moving on from the pier, we explored the rest of Cape Ann. At Eastern Point, we dipped on Wild Turkey and the moribund Common Murre found by another team, but we did see an adult Iceland Gull and the Purple Sandpipers that we had hoped to find. The Elk's Club at Bass Rocks produced an adult male King Eider, a bird that Corey initially described as a Guillemot with an orange bill. Loblolly Cove produced my life Barrow's Goldeneye, a bird we had missed last year. The neighborhood nearby featured a large flock of American Robins, as well as smaller numbers of other songbirds, including Cedar Waxwings and a Gray Catbird. Granite Pier had a raft of Harlequin Ducks. Unfortunately the rest of us could not find the Northern Gannets that Christopher spotted (see Corey's video for this moment). Andrews Point was less productive than last year, but we still found an immature male King Eider and a Razorbill. Unfortunately we did not see Black-legged Kittiwake, one of my favorite sightings from last year's run.

One more stop at the fishing pier produced a Glaucous Gull, and then we hit the road to explore the northern end of Essex County. Along the way we were supposed to look for a Turkey Vulture, but we were not able to spot one. What we did spot was a large flock of songbirds in one of the farm fields. Stopping and getting out of the van, we found that the vast majority were Horned Larks (140 by my count). Among them were a Snow Bunting and a Lapland Longspur. The latter was my third life bird of the day.

In the afternoon, we drove around Newburyport and Salisbury to look for birds that we had missed earlier in the day. We quickly found Common Mergansers and Bald Eagles along the Merrimac River. A visit to Salisbury Beach State Reservation produced an "Ipswich" Savannah Sparrow and a distant Northern Shrike, but we had a big miss when only three of us saw a Merlin flying low along the water. Suburban neighborhoods continued to be productive for songbirds, as we found a large flock of Red-winged Blackbirds and Brown-headed Cowbirds at the Old Eastern Marsh Trail on the north side of the Merrimac. The same area produced a Sharp-shinned Hawk, our second accipiter of the day.

Last year we had to race through Plum Island because we had run late at earlier stops, and as a result we missed some good birds that had been seen there. So this year we made sure to schedule plenty of time. However, our results were not much better. The only bird species we added in an hour on the island was Hermit Thrush; we did not even pick up Yellow-rumped Warbler or Golden-crowned Kinglet despite searching thoroughly for them. Rough-legged Hawks and Northern Harriers were nowhere to be seen.

We closed out the day with 73 species and 142 points. These were the best totals yet for the Bloggerhead Kingbirds, but they were not enough to win the Superbowl or any of the lesser achievements. We did not even win any of the 43 door prizes offered at the post-Superbowl social event. Despite not winning, the six of us had a lot of fun together, which is the most important thing.

Corey has a post at 10,000 Birds with more photos and video of the day.

Crossbills!

As I said yesterday, I will have some posts up soon about the Superbowl of Birding and the rest of my weekend with the Bloggerhead Kingbirds. But first, I want to write about some follow-up birding. Yesterday, I went down to Long Branch with my mother and sister to look for crossbills at Seven Presidents Park. Both crossbill species have been reported there almost daily since shortly after New Year's. When we arrived, we found a few other birders present already, some walking around and others driving back and forth across the park. As we walked around looking for the crossbills, we saw some other birds, including three Horned Larks that were running around the parking lot.

A few others located two Red Crossbills in a pine tree on the northwest corner of the largest parking lot. The crossbills were feeding on the tree's abundant cone crop. One appeared to be an adult male and the other an immature male. They moved slowly around the tree and tended to stay in one spot to pick seeds out of a single cone or group of cones. This made it easy to find them with the camera, though proper focus was still tricky. I heard one give its flight call, but I am not sure I could match it to a known call type.

The White-winged Crossbills were harder to find, even though there were more of them present in the park. It took a few walks back and forth across the park, plus a snack break, for us to find them near the maintenance garage. A flock of about a dozen were foraging actively, flitting around from branch to branch and even chasing each other. Even though they were moving faster than the Red Crossbills did, photographing them was still easy because it took them some effort to open a cone and pry out a seed. The trees where the White-winged Crossbills foraged were full of other birds as well. They included some Red-breasted Nuthatches, Dark-eyed Juncos, Song Sparrows, and at least one Red Crossbill.

The Red Crossbill was a life bird for me, and both crossbills were life birds for my sister and mother.

If you can get to Long Branch, it is definitely worth a trip to Seven Presidents Park to see these crossbills. The birds are pretty easy to find, and they are very cooperative for watching and photography.