My son Tilden and I went to Myers Park in Lansing on Monday evening to see whether the bad weather had brought down any birds.
We found no unusual species, but did find an impressive seven BELTED KINGFISHERS, including an apparent family group of six perched on a single tree. The young birds were nearly full-sized, but had smaller crests and bills. Somehow the young kingfishers also seemed to have a kind of naïve demeanor slowly looking around from thing to thing, alternately looking blank and thoughtful (so it seemed at least to us). We also saw two teeming consolidated crèches of COMMON MERGANSERS, each with one mother leading 25+ little ones. Off to the side, we saw two adult females commiserating with each other on a log. Most intriguingly, we spent several minutes watching one mother Common Merganser carrying two striped ducklings on her back while one laggard struggled desperately against relentless muddy waves to join them. We couldnt figure out why the mother didnt just wait for a couple of seconds. Then we saw a Ring-billed Gull descend with deadly intent on the lone duckling. Immediately the mother turned and raised her red bill -- and that, to our relief, was enough to deter the attack. (All these Common Mergansers added up to a fairly precise count of 60, which elicited the coveted eBird need details prompt for Tilden.) We were surprised to see very few swallows over the water, but we did see two OSPREYS over Salt Point and the mouth of Salmon Creek. Mark Chao -- Cayugabirds-L List Info: http://www.NortheastBirding.com/CayugabirdsWELCOME http://www.NortheastBirding.com/CayugabirdsRULES http://www.NortheastBirding.com/CayugabirdsSubscribeConfigurationLeave.htm ARCHIVES: 1) http://www.mail-archive.com/cayugabirds-l@cornell.edu/maillist.html 2) http://www.surfbirds.com/birdingmail/Group/Cayugabirds 3) http://birdingonthe.net/mailinglists/CAYU.html Please submit your observations to eBird: http://ebird.org/content/ebird/ --
