Thursday Morning Birding

It is Thursday morning, the day that Doug and I usually go out birding and I do some photography.  This morning, the weather was overcast cloudy with some drizzle.  Our plan for the day was to meet at my house and then travel into Middleborough, Massachusetts to bird around Cumberland Fields, which is an IBA (Important Bird Area).  Our first stop on the way to the Cumberland fields was Oliver Mills Park.  The area was loaded with gulls mainly Great-Back Gulls, and Herring Gulls along with Great Blue Heron's, who were there to feed on the migrating Herring.


Around the edge of the Cumberland fields, there was a group of Wild Turkeys foraging, and what was interesting, it was a group of 3 males without any females. Walking the fields one of the most interesting sites was the large number of black birds that were present, sitting in the trees and flying around and making a huge racket, that had to be over 1000 blackbirds present. 

Most of the  passerines that we observed were extremely skittish and did not stay still long enough to obtain pictures.  A flight of 3 great blue Heron's flew overhead and gave an opportunity to photograph them.  The area, which is usually its wet was almost dried up and, except for Killdeers there were no other shorebirds present.
Our next location was the pond at Jenney's Mill in Plymouth.  The mute swans were already nesting. There were 4-5 Great Blue Herons present, including one in beautiful breeding plumage.  Also present at scattered throughout the pond were Double-crested Cormorant, who were displaying their dark nuptial crests which gave them their name. Some of the subspecies will have white nuptial crests.  The male Ring-neck Duck that has been present during the winter was still present, and also developing breeding plumage. Also present was the Lesser Black-backed Gull, who has been a regular winter visitor, and it's plumage has changed into the summer plumage. A magnolia tree was coming into full-bloom.






Finally at the parking lot on the harbor at the boat ramp, the Iceland Gull was still present, and allowing great views of it.

Lesser Black-backed Gull and a American Eel

American Eel Anguilla rostrata  is an interesting fish.  It lives most of its life in fresh in brackish waters and returns to the ocean for spawning.  The American eel is included in the diet of fish-eating birds and mammals.  Gulls have been known to prey on the eels .

Caught it

Coming ashore

I observed a Lesser Black-backed Gull fishing for and catching an eel at Jenney's Pond in Plymouth, Massachusetts.  It took the gull a few attempts to capture the eel .  The eel in length was almost as long as the gull.  It brought it onto the ice and then started to try to eat the eel.  However, the slime coat from the eel seem to be too much for this gull.  At one point, it had to stop and go rinse it's mouth out to get rid of of the slime.  Again, the gull tried to eat the eel, but finally gave up and flew away.  A Ringed-billed gull came over, looked at the eel and left.

I guess I have to lift it

Flying In

Hard to eat

Tough

Slimey

I still cannot bite through the skin

Have Clean my mouth of the slime

Thats better

Well I will return again to the eel

Trying Again

Forget It I am Gone

A Day of Travel and Photography

From my first blog over the new year.  It is a description of a day of traveling, birding and photography.  I met my friend, Kathleen, a fellow birder and photographer at Starbucks, and then we left For Duxbury Beach.  We arrived at the beach at about 7:40 AM and slowly started the drive down toward Gurnet.  The skies was filled with clouds, so light was poor.  Half-full way between the 2nd and 3rd crossover, there was a white object on the fence.  It was the snowy owl.  We pulled to the side of the road and photographed the owl from inside and just outside the car.  Because of the poor light, we needed to bump the ISO high in order to capture the photographs..  I was at first, using my 500 mm lens, supporting it on the window with a Puffin Pad. I then lent my lens to Kathleen to utilize, since her long lens was too slow to get a sharp picture.  I then utilize my Sigma 300 mm f 2 .8 lens, which allowed me to capture the owl when it spread its wings, prior to flight. After the owl flew back down the beach, we traveled up to the beginning of Gurnet to see if we could find any other owls.  However, there were none and so we slowly started backtracking down the road.  On the beach side of the High Pines in a dead tree, we again found the owl and were able to get some photographs of it, prior to it jumping lower and behind the branches.  We then cross over onto the beach and looked down at the High Pine area with the binoculars and we could see the owl.  So we went back to the car and drove to the crossover and in four-wheel drive slowly drove down the beach to the owl, but because of the Sun's position, Kathleen could only obtain a back lit subject.

After leaving Duxbury Beach, we traveled down to Plymouth Harbor to see if we could locate, the Iceland Gull.  As we are driving into the parking lot, my SUV was attacked by a large flock of rock pigeons they landed on the car and peering in the front window.  They were looking for food.  We were able to locate the Iceland gull and it posed for us.  This was a life bird for Kathleen.

We finished the morning at Jenney' Pond, where we photographed the Lesser Black-Backed Gull,

a female Hooded Merganser and I obtained some flight shots of a Belted Kingfisher. That finished the morning and we returned back to home.

In the late afternoon, my son and I travel down to Sachuest National  Wildlife Refuge in Middletown, Rhode Island, hoping to obtain photographs of raptors and hopefully Short-Eared Owls.  However, neither raptors or owls appeared, but the deer started slowly coming out of the woods to feed in the meadow. I obtained a picture of a nice buck in the golden light. 

 

 

 

 

The afternoon finished off with a gorgeous sunset.

Jenny's Pond in Plymouth

Despite the temperature being in the 30s, the Sun was shining and there was no wind, so I went down to Plymouth, Massachusetts to do some photography. I went to Jenny's pond, where there was a good variety of ducks, including gad walls, hooded mergansers and buffleheads.

Gadwall - male

Gadwall female

Mallard playing  "peek-a-boo"

Bufflehead

Hooded Merganser and Bufflehead

Hooded Merganser

 
Also, there was the perennial lesser Black-backed gull present..

This photograph helps show the differences between the lesser black-backed gull and the greater black-backed gull. The head is streaked, the legs are yellow and the back is more of a dark gray.

Lesser Black-backed Gull