Day 31: Northern Shoveler

The Northern Shoveler is a common duck in North America and can be seen during winter in the eastern parts of Maryland. We've seen quite a few on our recent weekend excursions.

The large bill of a Northern Shoveler makes them unmistakable. It's made to strain small crustaceans from the water, and shovelers feed by holding their bills in the water while swimming, straining out their food by constantly dabbling.

A breeding male Northern Shoveler has a dark green head, white chest, and brown belly. The female, like many female ducks, is a drab dull brown color. It looks pretty similar to a female Mallard duck, but you can easily tell the difference by the bills.

Day 30: Red-winged Blackbird

Red-winged Blackbirds are found throughout most of North and Central America. Evidently, some scientists claim that it is the most abundant and well studied bird in North America.

The Red-winged Blackbird is sexually dimorphic. Male birds are all black with a red shoulder and yellow ring bar. Females are a dirty dark brown color. Open, grassy areas, wetlands, and marshes are all preferred habitat for the Red-winged Blackbird.

Groups of Red-winged Blackbirds can cause a lot of destruction to important crops like corn, sunflower, and rice. Quite a bit of time, effort, and money have been spent attempting to control blackbird roosts and to reduce crop damage; as a result, humans are now one of the major sources of adult mortality in this species.

Day 29 Bonus: Trip to Maryland's Eastern Shore

Our first stop of the day was at the Ocean City inlet. I was so excited to start shooting with the new lens!

 Gulls lined up at the Ocean City inlet

 

Since we didn't see everything we had hoped to see at the inlet in the morning (I really want to see Harlequin Ducks, but so far haven't been so lucky), we decided to stop back again a little later in the day, this time with our lunch. We ate with the windows down in the parking lot, soaking up the cool ocean breeze. Some gulls came and landed by our car, obviously wanting a handout, but we just laughed it off. When we came back to our car a little later, it was clear we had pissed off the wrong gull...

Oh yes, only our car got splattered. Evil gulls...

Crazy guys trying to surf at the inlet

We saw a lot of cool birds and animals on our trip. More ponies:

We also saw a red fox in a field! It was a little too far away to get really good pictures, but it was still awesome. It looked like it was hunting something.

Day 29: Razorbill

During our trip to the eastern shore yesterday, we made two visits to the Ocean City inlet. This is normally a great spot to see different sea birds and gulls. On our second visit, I was snapping away photos at various birds when I heard Jared shout. I looked up and saw he was pointing to a new bird in the water - a Razorbill!

The Razorbill is an interesting looking bird, with white underparts, a black head, neck, back, and a thick, blunt black bill. Most of the world's population breeds in Iceland, but during the winter, Razorbills move to ice-free coastal waters, with the largest numbers found in the outer Bay of Fundy and the Gulf of Maine. They occur regularly in winter south to New York and New Jersey. To see one right off of the shore in Maryland is a great find!

We watched the Razorbill in the water for a few minutes until a boat came through. Once the boat had gone past, the Razorbill was nowhere to be seen. Though the light was bad, I was still lucky to snap a couple of photos.

Day 28: Prairie Warbler

We had an incredibly fun day birding the eastern shore of Maryland! This was the first day that I got to test out our new camera lens, and it was a big success. I can't wait to share all of the great photos that I got during the next few weeks! Tomorrow, I'll probably do a bonus post with some tidbits from our trip. Tonight, I'm pretty tuckered out, so just one post. It's a good one, though, and I think I'll let the photos do the talking.

On Assateague this morning, we heard that fellow birder Rob Ostrowski had seen a Prairie Warbler. We decided to take a look and were lucky to find the beautiful male Prairie Warbler. Though the Prairie Warbler is common in Maryland during the breeding season, it normally spends the winter in the most southern U.S. and the Caribbean. According to eBird (a site we use to keep track of the birds that we see), this was the northern most January sighting of a Prairie Warbler ever.

The warbler hung around for a good ten minutes, flitting around in some trees and bushes, finally landing on the ground right in front of us. You can also see him gulping down a little green bug. Such a cute and colorful bird...enjoy the photos!

 

Day 27: Carolina Wren

The Carolina Wren is a common species of wren that can be found in the eastern parts of the U.S. (from Texas to Florida and up to the northeastern states).

Carolina Wrens are fairly small, with a copper brown back, buffy colored underparts, and a distinct white eye-stripe. Males and females have identical plumage, but males are sometimes slightly heavier and have longer bills, wings, and legs.

We come in contact with Carolina Wrens fairly often in our backyard, and we often hear them before we see them. They have a loud and varied selection of songs and calls, most notably a song that sounds like "teakettle-teakettle-teakettle." When a Carolina Wren gets agitated or alarmed, it has a very harsh and loud scolding call.

This little guy certainly liked the suet feeder we put up, and we were able to get some decent photos.

Kind of a sad thing, but I read that Carolina Wrens are sensitive to cold weather. Since they don't migrate (they stay in one territory), populations can significantly decrease after a tough winter. They must have taken a hit in our area when we had the blizzards a few years ago. Thankfully, enough survived that we still see them regularly!

Day 26: American Oystercatcher

This weekend, we're planning another trip to the eastern shore of Maryland, so hopefully I will have some more great material for you once we get back! More good news...we also decided to purchase a nice camera lens this week. I'm sure there will be a learning curve, but I'm really hoping that it will help improve the quality of my pics over time. I definitely need to buff up though, because the damn thing is heavy!

Today, I have a really cool bird for you, the American Oystercatcher. This is a very conspicuous looking bird; if you happen to see one, it's really hard to miss. Two races live in coastal salt marshes and sand beaches in North America, the eastern race (which we've seen in Georgia and Maryland) along the eastern shore of the U.S., and the western race along the Pacific coast of Mexico.

American Oystercatchers through the scope in Maryland

The American Oystercatcher is one of the few birds to specialize on bivalve mollusks living in saltwater, and they are completely restricted to marine habitats. They have a black and white body and a long, thick orange beak, which helps them pry open the mollusks.
 
Recently, we saw some in Maryland from a distance, and used the scope to get some blurry photos. When we lived in Georgia, we saw them a few times on Jekyll Island on the Georgia coast.

 American Oystercatchers in Georgia

Full disclosure, some of these photos we did not take this year, but several years ago in Georgia. As long as I see the bird this year and we've taken a photo of it at some point, I'm okay with using the best photos that we have. Because better photos = awesome.

Day 25: Ring-billed Gull

The Ring-billed Gull is probably the most common gull in North America. They're common along the Maryland coast during the winter and frequent beaches, dumps, and parking lots where they can scavenge for food. In some areas, they are considered more of a pest.

During the breeding season, they stay tend to stay more inland, near rivers or lakes in Canada and the northern U.S. In the winter, they migrate south to the Gulf of Mexico, the Atlantic, or the Pacific coasts.

An adult Ring-billed Gull has a white head, neck, and underparts, as well as a short yellow bill with a dark ring. Its back and wings are light gray, and its legs are yellow. It takes three years for the Ring-billed Gull to reach its full breeding plumage, and its appearance changes with each fall molt.

Fun fact: Ring-billed Gull populations were nearly destroyed in the late 19th century, due to hunting and human development. They have significantly rebounded since then, with an estimated 3-4 million birds in North America today.

Day 24: Northern Pintail

A few weekends ago while we were visiting Maryland's eastern shore, we saw some beautiful Northern Pintail ducks in a neighborhood lake. The Northern Pintail's name is derived from the male's two long black tail feathers, which look like a single pin or twig.

Northern Pintails breed in the northern ranges of Europe, Asia, and North America and each winter migrate south. In North America, they are among the earliest nesting ducks, beginning soon after the ice melts in many northern areas.

Breeding males are handsome birds, with chocolate colored heads and gray, brown, and black patterns on the back and sides. They have a thin white stripe running from the back of the head down the neck to the white bottom torso. Females are duller, as is the norm, with drab brown feathers. We saw both males and females on our trip.

Here's a better photo of a male and female (not ours):

Source

Day 23: Downy Woodpecker

Today, I'll be highlighting a smaller relative of the Hairy Woodpecker--the Downy Woodpecker. The Downy Woodpecker is the smallest species of woodpecker in North America and can be found year-round throughout much of the continent. We see them all the time in our backyard and hiking throughout Maryland. In the winter, they will roost in tree cavities.

As I mentioned yesterday, the plumage of the Downy Woodpecker looks very similar to the larger Hairy Woodpecker. The Downy, however, has a shorter bill relative to the size of its head and black spots on its white tail feathers (which the Hairy lacks).

Adult male Downy Woodpeckers have a red patch on the back of the head, while females have no red (the bird at our feeder was a male).

Fun fact: Diet and foraging techniques tend to vary depending on the sex of the Downy. Males tend to forage more on smaller branches, while females feed more on larger branches and trunks of trees.

Day 22: Hairy Woodpecker

Woodpeckers are some of my favorite species of birds. We have quite a few species here in Maryland. One of the more common woodpeckers is the Hairy Woodpecker, which is found throughout much of North America.

The bird we had at our feeder today was a female (it had no red on its crown). The male Hairy Woodpecker has a narrow red patch or two smaller patches of red on the back of its crown.

The Hairy Woodpecker looks very similar to the Downy Woodpecker, which is another common feeder bird (I'll post about the Downy tomorrow). To me, it's still pretty difficult to tell the two species apart, though Jared is really good at it now. The Hairy Woodpecker is slightly larger than the Downy, has a heavier and longer bill, and usually lacks black markings on its outer tail-feathers. Here's a quick comparison I put together (both of them were at our suet feeder today):

Pretty hard to tell, right? I definitely need some more practice.

In addition to frequenting feeders, Hairy Woodpeckers forage for insects on trees. They also eat fruits, berries, nuts, and sometimes tree sap.

Day 21: White-breasted Nuthatch

White-breasted Nuthatches are adorable and interesting birds. We have several that frequent our backyard. Sometimes they perch on a windowsill, appearing to watch us attentively through the glass, while other times they perform bird acrobatics by shimmying up a vertical brick wall. Jared and I are always entertained when one lands on our porch and enjoy watching their antics.

Chilling on our porch wall

Blink!

I've seen several White-breasted Nuthatches this year already and have taken a few decent photos. Today, we attracted one to our porch by putting up a suet feeder (a cage that holds a bird seed cake...the cakes come in all different "flavors" for the birds, so I'm sure it's a tasty treat).

White-breasted Nuthatches often forage for insects on trunks and branches, and they have the cool ability to move head-first down trees. If you ever see a little bird that seems to be scaling up or down a tree trunk, there's a good chance it is a type of nuthatch.

White-breasted Nuthatches are stocky birds with a blue-grey back and a white face and belly. They have a black cap and a brownish lower belly. They are found year-round throughout much of the U.S.

Caught in the act! Trying to break in our kitchen window...