Great Backyard Bird Count - A Late Recap

The 2012 Great Backyard Bird Count was conducted on 17-20 February, and I'm just now getting a chance to provide a recap of results from my four-day count.  Results can be posted to the GBBC webpage until 5 March; at this point, Indiana has a total of 138 species, a new state record for the count period.

On the first day of the count I spent a few hours at Kingsbury Fish and Wildlife Area in LaPorte County.  Kingsbury is, I believe, my favorite birding spot in northern Indiana.  The wide array of habitat in this approximately 7,000 acre preserve allows for quite a variety of species, from Bald Eagles (Haliaeetus leucocephalus) to Northern Pintails (Anas acuta) to Field Sparrows (Spizella pusilla).  The photo above is a shot of the marsh at Kingsbury, a great place for waterfowl in the fall-spring and for shorebirds when the water levels are down in the spring and fall.  Most of the birds in the photo are easily identified as Canada Geese.  Can you name the other species in the photo?  You will probably need to click on the photo to expand it to be able to see the other species.
 

One of my favorite birds is the Hooded Merganser (Lophodytes cucullatus), pictured above and seen at Kingsbury during my Great Backyard Bird Count there.  The bird pictured is a male; a female was also there but didn't make it into this shot.

Often found with Hooded Mergansers are Wood Ducks (Aix sponsa), and in this case both ducks were present in a wooded pond at Kingsbury.  Like the male Hooded Merganser, the male Wood Duck is one attractive creature.

Our most common hawk, especially along roadsides, is the Red-tailed Hawk (Buteo jamaicense, above).  Kingsbury is a great place to see raptors, especially Red-tailed Hawks and in winter Bald Eagles and Rough-legged Hawks (Buteo lagopus).

On Saturday morning, 18 February, Lindsay and I joined Brian Miller and members of South Bend-Elkhart Audubon Society for a field trip and count at the lakes at University of Notre Dame.  As seen above, we had a pretty nice crowd.  St. Joseph's Lake never freezes and has always been a "hot spot" for winter birding in the past because of the variety of waterfowl present.  This year, waterfowl were scarce, and we almost had as many people birdwatching as we had ducks!  Our highlight was the Horned Grebe (Podiceps auritus) shown below.

In addition to counts at these sites, I also did counts on 19 February at our feeders, our property (while walking the trails), and Potato Creek State Park, and on 20 February in Walkerton while driving home from work and on our property while walking our trails.  A list of all birds observed during my count is found below.

Canada Goose

Mute Swan

Wood Duck

Mallard

Ring-necked Duck

Common Goldeneye

Northern Shoveler

Northern Pintail

Hooded Merganser

Common Merganser

Horned Grebe

Great Blue Heron

Eastern Screech Owl

Turkey Vulture

Bald Eagle

Sharp-shinned Hawk

Red-shouldered Hawk

Red-tailed Hawk

Rough-legged Hawk

American Kestrel

Wild Turkey

American Coot

Sandhill Crane

Ring-billed Gull

Herring Gull

Mourning Dove

Red-bellied Woodpecker

Downy Woodpecker

Hairy Woodpecker

Northern Flicker

American Crow

Blue Jay

Horned Lark

Black-capped Chickadee

Tufted Titmouse

White-breasted Nuthatch

Eastern Bluebird

European Starling

American Tree Sparrow

Field Sparrow

White-crowned Sparrow

Dark-eyed Junco

Northern Cardinal

Red-winged Blackbird

House Finch

American Goldfinch

House Sparrow

Birding the St. Joseph River

Lindsay and I joined Brian Miller and other South Bend-Elkhart Audubon Society members on a "river run" along the St. Jospeh River on Saturday, January 28, 2012.  As we've heard from those who've been in our chapter for many years more than we have, this used to be a very productive field trip, with large rafts of waterfowl observed at various locations along the river.  These days, unfortunately, there is little waterfowl diversity on the river, but it still makes for a fun morning (despite the biting wind).

Lindsay and other SBEAS members looking at distant Buffleheads on the St. Joseph River

The battle for most abundant species on the river in the past several years always seems to be between Mallard (Anas platyrhynchos) and Canada Goose (Branta canadensis).  During this trip, we saw more Mallards. Because Mallards are so common, I rarely take the time to look at them in detail.  If we didn't have Mallards around here and I saw one in an exotic place on a birding trip, I would probably think that the males, with their iridescent green heads, yellow beaks, and chocolate brown chests were superbly attractive birds.
 

Mallards (male and female)

Although Canada Geese aren't as colorful, there is still good reason to search through gaggles of geese, as there are some more uncommon species that can sometimes be found amongst them.  Although we didn't see any similar species on Saturday, I was watching for Cackling Geese (the smaller version of the Canada Goose), Greater White-fronted Geese, and even for Brants.

Canada Geese

Along the river at Eberhart Golf Course we saw the highlight of the morning.  Lindsay and I were in the last car in a line of members entering the property.  We were following the group and watching the river when a duck that was clearly not a Mallard flew in front of us.  Lindsay quickly identified the bird in flight as a Common Goldeneye (Bucephala clangula).  I hit the brakes and fumbled for the camera; meanwhile, the bird landed and swam farther and farther away from us.  By the time I was able to get photos, he was contently as far away from us as possible on the opposite bank of the river.  Common Goldeneye is one of the duck species that used to be much more common on the St. Joseph River in winter.  They are said to spend winters as far north as possible, so long as there is open water.  I wonder if the large rafts that we once had here now winter further north as a result of a warming climate.

A distant Common Goldeneye (male) 

Another surprise of our outing was seeing several Herring Gulls (Larus argentatus) in a wet spot along the road at the Mishawaka Riverwalk.  The two common inland gulls around here are Ring-billed Gull (Larus delawarensis) and Herring Gull, with the former being much more common than the latter.  The typical parking lot gull is the Ring-billed Gull, and that's what I expected to see as we got closer and saw a flock of gulls along the road, but a good proportion of the gulls we saw at this location were Herring Gulls.

Herring Gull

For comparison, below is a shot of Ring-billed Gulls from the same location.  Herring Gulls are larger and have thicker bills.  They also have pink legs (as compared to the yellow-green legs of Ring-billed Gulls).

Ring-billed Gulls

Thanks to Brian Miller for leading another successful field trip.