Today I birded the Superior Entry and Gull Bluff for almost four hours, and had some very cool sightings. I got to observe my first adult-plumaged Lesser Black-backed Gull. What a gorgeous bird! A very sharp Iceland Gull was seen around the Superior Entry, as well as a Thayer's Gull.
At Gull Bluff, I observed two more Glaucous Gulls among hundreds and hundreds of Herring Gulls and Ring-billed Gulls. There was one very distant duck that stumped me though... There were three scaup swimming way out there, beyond the gulls, and one other duck was following them. This duck was roughly the same size, but just a little bit squattier - but not nearly as small as the tiny Buffleheads are. My first thought was scoter, but this bird was too small-billed and small-proportioned to be a scoter. Even compared to a Black Scoter, this one duck of interest lacked that 'Mallard' profile. The bill on this duck was small and triangular. It did not come out of the head like a slender mallard-bill or redhead-bill... just short and squatty for a bill. The thing the confused me most when I observed this bird was the white patch on the head. There was a white spot on the ear region of the duck's head, but no other white was observed throughout the duck's head or body for that matter. I saw the duck in flight, and the wings were all dark. The nearby-flying scaup had the noticeable white wing streams, but this one duck's wings were black. The belly looked dark too, but it's hard to say what color the belly really was due to the overcast conditions. backside coloration was notable on the ducks when they were in the water. It's a distant bird to try to ID, but my two thoughts were either Black Scoter (1st winter) or a Harlequin Duck (adult female). I did not see any white on the front of the face of this bird. Does anybody have any thoughts on this duck? Location: Wisconsin Point Observation date: 11/12/09 Number of species: 10 Greater/Lesser Scaup 3 Common Goldeneye 3 duck sp. 1 Ruffed Grouse 1 Northern Goshawk 1 Ring-billed Gull 150 Herring Gull 1000 Thayer's Gull 1 Iceland Gull 1 Lesser Black-backed Gull 1 Glaucous Gull 4 Snow Bunting 1 Thayer's Gull http://www.pbase.com/birdfedr/image/119317412 I was able to get Glaucous Gull and Iceland Gull in the same, cropped photo today http://www.pbase.com/birdfedr/image/119317398 Herring Gull, pulling on the wing of the Iceland Gull. What a mean bird! It just walked up to the Iceland Gull and started yanking on it's wing tip http://www.pbase.com/birdfedr/image/119317402 http://www.pbase.com/birdfedr/image/119317405 Glaucous Gull http://www.pbase.com/birdfedr/image/119317400 Lesser Black-backed Gull http://www.pbase.com/birdfedr/image/119317407 My first Ruffed Grouse photo http://www.pbase.com/birdfedr/image/119317409 Good birdwatching, Erik Bruhnke Duluth, MN NATURALLY AVIAN - Guided bird hikes and bird photography www.pbase.com/birdfedr/naturallyavian ---- Join or Leave mou-net:http://lists.umn.edu/cgi-bin/wa?SUBED1=mou-net Archives:http://lists.umn.edu/archives/mou-net.html
