I decided I’d bird. Specifically, I’d duck and gull.
Wasn’t going to, but a Big Year demands it. When I scrutinize my Big Year list thus far, I’m pleased.
Numerically, I won’t reveal where I’m at. I don’t count my chickens. Just my waterfowl, songbirds, raptors, gulls. My tally isn’t bad for February’s end.
Daylight is longer. Weather, warmer. Migration, coming.
Winter is for waterfowl, but its curtain is falling.
I love waterfowl. Frequently used emoji: 🦆. Various contexts. Sometimes a de facto smiley—ducks rouse smiles—or a stand-in for thank you.
Enjoy ducks while they’re here. Figured I’d try a spot near a friend. Drop by, look for ducks. He wasn’t around. I went to a different, reliable spot.
One side of the path boasts ducks. Hooded Mergansers, Red-breasted, Bufflehead, scaup. The other I’ve seen a Belted Kingfisher, Red-winged Blackbirds, Common Loons, Bald Eagles, a Short-eared Owl.
This day there were scaup, gulls dropping shellfish. Turned one way for scaup, the other for gulls. Back and forth. This is pretty great. American Tree Sparrows and Horned Larks too, but few things make me happy as dining gulls.
I wrote previously I wouldn’t be mad if a gull dented my truck’s hood with a clam. Fitting for that truck. Personality courtesy of birds. A gull dropped a clam. I backed into a tree. Got backed into at a wedding.
Leaving the dealer, it was in the rearview. I welled up. C’mon, James. It’s a truck. Conflated that truck with my sense of self. Then it became a source of unhappiness. I traded it in. It had good years, I saw plenty of birds through its windshield. Will share good years with this one, birds aplenty—hopefully no clam dents.
Saw a gull hovering with a clam. NO! Please don’t. It didn’t hear me, wouldn’t have listened regardless.
The gull looked ready to drop its bounty, break it open on my hood. SERIOUSLY DO NOT. It didn’t. I got to watch the simple beauty of a gull in flight.
I replay moments, some I was happy for. I also replay gulls dropping clams and descending to eat—for an audience only of me. Indubitable happiness, every time.
When I was taking pictures of gulls with shellfish, a birder stopped. I was ready to defend the honor of gulls. “Dinner time!” she joked. Another fan of gull antics.
Opposite the gulls were scaup. Greater? Lesser? Let’s just say scaup. If beauty doesn’t require dissection, scaup don’t require definitive ID. They famously flummox birders.
I texted a fellow duck guy a picture. Distant scaup. Lesser? Greater? As explained here, in a helpful, in-depth look at scaup:
The Lesser Scaup has rear peaked head and tends to hold it higher in the water. The area at the back of the head appears more flat. The Greater Scaup has a more rounded front loaded head and is rounded in the rear also.
A few scaup I saw seemed Lesser, listed as rare for the time of year where I was. When in doubt, a bird is the least rare species it can be. Aside from field marks, consider behavior. Do Greater and Lesser Scaup mingle? Per Audubon,
they both form flocks that number in the hundreds or thousands. These giant groups can be seen side by side on the water, but they hardly intermingle.
The groups I see are much smaller, sometimes pairs. Do the same rules apply?
Explained here, the Lesser Scaup “seems to prefer to associate with members of its own species.” But the Cornell Lab says they “mix with other diving ducks,” and Greater “sometimes mix with other diving ducks.”
Does the behavior of larger flocks translate to one or two ducks? Would a single Lesser share a slice of pond with a single Greater? I lean yes—correct me if I’m wrong. Probably best just to heed the advice of that first article: “take the time to look at [the ducks] as individuals.” If there are two ducks, don’t ID one and assume that’s what the other is. You know what they say about assuming.
I sent the same scaup picture to a birder who identified a Lesser I’d called a Greater. A challenge? they joked, knowing my ego was bruised.
Greater Scaup. After being incorrect before, I wanted to rely on sources outside of myself. Merlin Picture ID and Picture Bird agreed. If I had to describe early 2024 in one word, maybe “scaup.”
I hadn’t set a high bar for birding this day. Either scaup, gulls dropping shellfish. I saw what I’d set out for. A benefit of setting an attainable bar.
About the day, I said I wanted to “atone” for humanity’s disregard of gulls and ducks. An extreme way to put it, I was told. It was. I was in a mood.
David Perry addresses undervalued vs. big ticket birds in In The Garden of His Imagination. A birder asks Perry if he’s seen anything “interesting” one day. A wren, Common Goldeneyes. The birder presses: Eagles? Herons? Owls? Perry writes:
I’m so ashamed of myself, now, having forgotten yet again that there are ‘cool’ birds and ‘boring’ birds; the worthy and the unworthy.
Song Sparrows? Way too common! Grays and browns. And small. Boring!
Bushtits? Tiny and completely unremarkable looking. Boring.
Robins? Duh! So boring.
Juncos? Dime a freaking dozen, dude.
Glaucous-winged Gulls? Oh, puhlease! I’m not setting up my thirty-five hundred dollar spotting scope to look at some damned, french-fry stealing seagull. Get a clue, man!
That makes me smile, but most people see gulls that way. Meanwhile, I will never stop learning about them. There’s a lot to learn and love, will only be more. Ducks too.
At the conclusion of my outing, I had more duck encounters. One was with a Bufflehead. I’ve seen more Bufflehead than I can count.
The light was nice, the Bufflehead was near where some placid and nervous water met. It’d be nice if I got one of him right there. I tried, didn’t. But I did see the him there. Seeing sometimes matters more than pictures.
Every time I raised the camera, he dove—par for the Bufflehead course. I kept trying. Then reminded myself: You already have tons of Bufflehead pictures. I left.
More ducks. Sunset silhouettes. A song came on as they appeared. A fitting song. Ducks + music = joy. No choice but to stop. Pintail, I bet. Some were. Northern Pintail aren’t uncommon, just uncommonly handsome.
They were a reminder of what I need no reminder of: I love ducks. Sent an article about ducks to the above-mentioned duck guy. Someone sent it to me because I like ducks. Duck guy’s reply: Love ducks so damn much. It confounds me some don’t.
There are things I don’t like that people feel the same about. Football, some movies. You don’t like that? I’d rather spend Sunday watching a duck than kickoff.
A later date, I went looking for ducks at that first spot I alluded to. Red-winged Blackbirds galore, cooperative Bufflehead, Common Mergansers. Despite the name, Common Mergansers aren’t so common as Red-breasted where I bird. Couldn’t tell you the last football game I watched. Can tell you the last Common Merganser.
There are ducks I haven’t begun to learn about. Gulls, too.
My knowledge is scant of Tufted Ducks. We don’t have them here. They look similar to scaup and Ring-necked—except the namesake tuft. I also don’t know enough about American Wigeons. Green eye streak. Green-winged Teal also have a green eye streak but also have a vertical white stripe on their side. Brown heads, and they’re smaller overall. Redhead, Canvasback, Ruddy, Cinnamon Teal, Black-bellied Whistling, Harlequin, Mottled. Iceland and Sabine’s Gulls—roughly 50 species of gull, 150 of duck.
Enough to keep me busy.
I love ducks and can watch them all day. I saw my first pintail this year, love them. No scaups yet!
Great photos James! Anyone who thinks Seagulls aren't smart hasn't seen them drop a clam or shellfish to get it to crack. I'll be glad to get back out birding soon.