Dovekie and More

Dovekie

The reason I traveled up to Provincetown was to visit MacMillan's Pier that juts out into the harbor.  There have been reports of Dovekie's present in the harbor and the last time I had obtained a photograph of the Dovekie was about 30 years ago, on New Year's Day in the picture was taken with slide film (and I don't know where they are).  When we first arrived and searched out the water of the harbor no Dovekie's was seen, but, red-breasted mergansers, common eiders and some horned grebes were present.  So out came the camera and lenses and we started taking pictures of these birds.  At the far right end of the pier a bird was swimming, with my binocular's I ID it: a long-tailed duck, a beautiful male in winter plumage.'s.  Snap, snap, went the shutter and I captured the bird for posterity. 

Long-tailed Duck

We roamed around  photographing the more common species. Suddenly, in the water between two of the docks suddenly appeared two Dovekie's.  Again, snap, snap went the shutter and I now had Dovekie pictures digitally.

Dovekie

When I downloaded the pictures into my computer and was reviewing them, what I had thought initially on the pier was a female red-breasted merganser turned out to be a first-year male red-breasted merganser.  The way to tell the first year-male from a female red-breasted merganser, is that the male red-breasted merganser as a black ring around its eye, while the female red-breasted merganser has a white line under its eye.

First Winter Red-breasted Merganser

Churchill-the finale

As promised here is the final installment from my trip to Churchill Manitoba. Our interactions with the birds were absolutely phenomenal, by moving slow and low even with our group size we were able to get close to the birds. The Lapland Longspurs were present for a few days because there was a north wind holding them from migrating further north. They were hanging around the granary ponds and the railroad tracks up by the granary. The pictures were taken by laying on the ground in between the sets of railroad tracks, at present there were no trains running up to the granary.
Following the same techniques we were able to get close to the common eiders and view the eider sitting on her nest. The same technique was used for the long-tailed ducks.
A Bonaparte skull just sat on her nest and ignored us. The semi--palmated plover was nesting at the tern colony and utilize the "broken-winged display" to keep us away from the nest. The broken winged display is also utilized by killdeer's and some other shorebirds.



The female Willow Ptarmigan in some ways is a prettier bird than the male.
We visited the parasitic Jaeger a number of times and it always put on a great flight display for us. The bird that was flying was on a mound a distance away from the bird that was nesting.
The pine grosbeak and lesser yellowlegs were hard birds to photograph since the sun was right behind them and there was no way of getting a picture with a side lit bird or a front lit bird. Because the lesser yellowlegs was jumping up onto tops of spruces with the sun right behind it, I made the picture a high key.




Churchill "was also the site of the Churchill Rocket Research Range  part of Canadian-American atmospheric research. Its first rocket was launched in 1956, and it continued to host launches for research until closing in 1984. The site of the former rocket range now hosts the Churchill Northern Studies Centre, a facility for Arctic research. " This is a picture of one of the old rocket launch buildings.



Old ship and plane wrecks at Churchill are left where they occurred.
In October and November many people come to Churchill to see the polar bears and they are driven around in tundra buggies.
The easiest way to come to visit Churchill is by air.

Birding Cape Cod

I spent Thursday, March 7 birding quit my good friend Doug. We were finally able to get together to enjoy a day of birding. We started out at Race Point Beach in the Cape Cod National Seashore located in Provincetown Massachusetts. There was a large number of northern gannets flying by plus scooters, eiders and red-breasted mergansers. There was even a humpback whale visible.

Northern Gannett

From Race Point Beach we went to Herring Cove Beach where there were the usual gulls- Herring, ring bill, and great black backed. Seaward there were the same birds present.

flight of see ducks

ring-billed gull

Next we went down to the Beech Forest Trail, where we had a great look at a fox sparrow right at the entrance to the trail. The chickadees and titmouse's kept following us looking for a handout, in fact, when Doug stuck out his hand to point at a bird a chickadee landed on his finger. This is because many people come to the Beech Forest Trail and feed the birds from their hands. Is this a good idea on not you will have to answer for yourself but it does make the birds less afraid.

Black-capped chickadee feeding out of the hand

downy woodpecker

tufted titmouse

fox sparrow

When we completed the Beech Forest Trail, it was getting onto lunch time so we traveled down to the parking lot at McMillan pier in Provincetown. Beside the usual gulls and rock pigeons that are present around the pier, in the water of the harbor were eiders, red-breasted mergansers and long-tailed ducks. Finally I was able to obtain photographs of a male long-tailed duck. The only problem was while I was photographing the long-tailed ducks, Doug identified a rarity, a King Eider, and I missed out in photographing it because it took off and headed out. However, I did also identify it.

Long-tailed duck mail

pair of long-tailed ducks

female red-breasted merganser

After lunch of delicious lobster rolls we traveled down to the Wellfleet Massachusetts Audubon Sanctuary, we bird it mainly around Goose Pond. The interesting finding in the pond was four red-breasted mergansers. Usually these birds are found in salt water but this group was swimming up and down the pond. On the trail there was an eastern chipmunk stuffing its face.

eastern chipmunk with its mouth pouches full

Goose Pond

read-breasted mergansers in a row

So finished another enjoyable day. I am now starting to pack for my trip to Florida to visit with a good friend of mine, who was my roommate on St. Paul Island in the Pribilofs.