Just a quickie today

I am posting today simply to put some feelers out for IDs on a couple of birds.  Honey Bunny and I decided to take a drive because it was such an awesome day and we ended up at the Veterans Memorial Park in Boulder City.  After a quick picnic lunch we set off around the lake, her to get some laps in for exercise and me to capture to some shots of the tons of birds lounging about on the water.

First off, there were quite a few of these birds that are just so full of themselves, they swim around with their noses in the air, like they own the place.  Of course, I didn't see too many other birds challenging them and their attitudes.

Double-creasted Cormorant

There were quite a few of these Ring-necked out there.  They pretty much hung by themselves and with the Coots and Redheads.

Ring-necked Duck

Speaking of Redheads, there were a couple dozen of these swimming about.  I find it interesting how similar the bills of the Redheads and the Ring-necked Ducks.  Maybe this is why they get along so well.

Redhead

Oh yes, the Double-crested Cormorant Air Force was out with a display of strength.  They skimmed the water all afternoon, looking for that one lucky fish to invite to lunch.

Double-crested Cormorant

This Mallard just seemed content to admire his reflection in the smooth water.

Mallard

And there were two of these characters swimming around with the Mallards.  C'mon now!  There is no way any duck should be allowed to look this ridiculously awesome.  I'm sure they both knew that the other ducks couldn't hope to look as good as them, even with a trip to Earl Schieb.

Wood Duck

Now for the IDs.  I saw some birds at the park that I needed just a bit of confirmation for.  The first were these two ducks, the ones in back.  I'm thinking they are just a light, buff-colored variant of the Mallards.  They seemed to hang with the Mallards quite cozily, so that would seem to be a correct call.

Mallards?

The other set of birds has me wondering if I'm right.  On the spur of the moment, I was thinking grackles, but after close inspection of the photos, I don't think so.  I didn't really have a chance to look for long because they all took to flight almost immediately.

Brown-headed Cowbirds?

Brown-headed Cowbird?

After looking at the photos, the bills are all wrong to be grackles.  The coloring and bills appear more in line with Brown-headed Cowbirds, but I'm not even sure about that.  So, I have a post in at iBird to see if I can get some help with the ID here.

Anyway, that's all for today.  There were about a billion Great-tailed Grackles around, struttin' their stuff.  Once someone asked what my favorite bird was and I said the Great-tailed Grackle, because they have some serious attitude.  Okay, so there weren't a billion of them.  More like a hundred and fifty.  But, when the whole flock took to the sky and circled the lake a couple of times before filling up the trees it looked like a lot more.

Take care and get out there and do some birding!

Las Vegas Wetlands Park 02/03/13

Another trip to the Wetlands Park today, this time with my sweetie in tow.  We walked around the perimeter of the park and didn't see much of anything for the first twenty minutes or so, other than a handful of Coots. 

We stopped at one of the wash overlooks and she got to see that there is a pretty good amount of water running down the wash right now.  We left there and started heading north when I saw this guy flying around in circles above us and was able to get a lot of shots.  This is a Northern Harrier and we saw three of them during the walk.

A little up, when we got to the bridge I saw this second Harrier sitting on a branch at a fork in wash.

From there it was just some of the same old birds having seen a few times before.  Saw about two dozen Coots, a dozen Mallards and a dozen Ring-necked Ducks.

Saw this Yellow-rumped Warbler, that appears to be a juvenile because I could only see the yellow on his backside.  Could be a female I guess.

Also saw this juvenile White-crowned Sparrow and this Snowy Egret.

The last bird we saw before getting back to the parking lot was this Northern Flicker.  Probably the same one I saw a few weeks ago out here.

A pretty good day for being just a spur of moment trip out there.

We are thinking of heading out to the Overton Wildlife Management Area tomorrow to see what kind of birds we can scare up.  I've been watching some of the lists coming in for this place over the past couple of weeks and looks like I could add quite a few to my life list.  Including a bald eagle?  Saw that on a list a week or so ago.  Should be fun.

Las Vegas Wetlands Park 12/17/12

Had a free day today and decided to go do a little birding.  Thought about going to Overton to the Wildlife Management Area, but decided against that because of time.  So I decided on the Wetlands Park on the east side of the city.  I've never been there, though I have been to the Duck Creek Trail system, which joins up with the Wetlands.

There really wasn't a whole lot happening out there today, but I did get a few pictures worth looking at.

First, here is one I'm posting on whatbird.com to find out what it is.  I know it is a Flicker and it is either a Gilded or a Northern.  I just don't know which one.  I'm leaning towards Northern, but there are things that point towards Gilded.  So, we'll see what the folks at whatbird.com have to say.  

UPDATE:  After some discussion with others at whatbird.com and doing some detective work of my own I have concluded this is a Northern Flicker.  When I adjusted the brightness and contrast on the second photo I could see some definite red  feathers on the underside of the tail.  A guilded wouldn't have those.

In the first pond I came to I saw this guy just standing on the far shore.  Wasn't doing a whole lot, but it was a bit nippy out today, so maybe he didn't feel like moving much.  Just your average Snowy Egret with all kinds of a royal-looking white feathers.

There wasn't much else going on out there.  About fifty or so Coots swimming around and that was about it.  I do have some photos of a hawk or falcon patrolling the skies over the field just south of the large Wetlands building, but he was so far way and the photos are so fuzzy I can't say for sure what I was looking at.

 If someone wants to take a wild guess at this one, let me know.

UPDATE:  This has been ID'd as a Northern Harrier.  Another new one to my life list.

I also saw this guy swimming around with some of the coots.  Looks like someone took a piece of candy corn and pasted it right on his face.

Also saw a couple of American Wigeons do a quick fly-by, but the photos were quite blurry, so not of much use.

 

That's all for now folks.

Henderson Bird Viewing Preserve 12/10/12

While my sweetie was back home in the Philippines attending the funeral of her father, I decided to get in one day of birding in Henderson.  Wanted to get out there early for the early morning activity, when the birds are just getting up from a night of sleep and are hungry.  But work pushed my departure back a couple of hours and I ended up seeing a lot of waterfowl in the middle of their mid-morning nap.  I did add a few birds to my life list though, so it was a pretty good day.

First bird to come across was this Costa's Hummingbird, sitting in a tree just outside the entrance building.  He just sat there and posed for a couple of minutes for me and a lady that was getting plenty of shots also.

After he took off I went down the path leading along the west side of the ponds and sat at a number of different benches along the way.  But, with the mid-morning slumber going on there wasn't much in the way of "swim-by" activity.  I did find a family of white-crowned sparrows busy foraging in the undergrowth of a patch of bushes.

My next life-list bird was the fairly common Abert's Towhee.  Though they are common and seem to be on everyone's checklists around here, these were the first I was able to visually identify myself.

Out on the far lake I saw about a dozen Buffleheads, but they were so far out that getting a decent photo was out of the question.  Everything came out a little blurred.  They were hanging with a gang of Northern Shovlers and some Ring-billed Gulls.

Continuing back to the north, through the middle of the complex, I came upon about a half dozen Black-tail Gnatcatchers, though I am wondering about that identification.  There are characteristics here that get me to thinking these may actually be Blue-grey Gnatcatchers, but previous listers are listing the former.

After leaving these gnatcatchers I started heading north again, starting to make my way back to the entrance building and parking lot.  I saw three Snowy Egrets that were looking for some tastees along the shore of one of the ponds.  These are some fairly skittish birds, because they don't want to have anything to do with someone walking along the trails and will take to flight rather quickly.  Only got one good shot of one of them on the wing.

Another life-list bird was this Green Heron.  I was very lucky to get this one because he was just doing a quick fly-by and heading to parts unknown in the northern part of the park.  With the photos that I got, there is one with a great reflection in the water that will make a great painting someday.

The last bird to get a good photo of was this Verdin.  She was very busy with building her nest, which is located about fifty feet from the entrance building and she stopped long enough to get one great shot.  Not a life-list bird, but beautiful none the less.

And now, time for the UPDATE:  After posting these photos to whatbird.com the answers have come back.  This first one is just your average White-crowned Sparrow, Junior model.  So nothing new for the life list there.

However, this next turned out to be quite new.  It is an Orange-crowned Warbler.  Oh yeah, I didn't see that one coming. 

Well, that's all for now.  So now these two UPOs (Unidentified Perching Objects) have been Identified.

Veteran's Memorial Park 12/03/12

Took a drive out to the Boulder City with the sweetie to have some lunch and to check out the Veteran's Memorial park in the south part of town.  I'd heard of some good birding there and have seen some reports come through my email with sightings so I figured it might be a good place to spend an hour or so.  And I was right.  I added two more birds to my life list and got some pretty good shots.

My sweetie decided she was going to take some treats for the birds this time, having forgotten every time before this and so she promptly burned a couple bags of microwave popcorn.  And I do mean burned.  When we got to the park, there was already a gentleman feeding about a hundred mallards and coots and so Mila joined right in.  I guess the mallards are not quite as discerning as I am when it comes to scorched popcorn.  They ate it up.  Literally.

First, let's have a look at one of the birds that was already on my life list.  The Double-crested Cormorant.  There were four of them out in the upper lake, one female and three males.  The three males are just starting to show their crests.

Yeah, yeah, yeah ... we heard you the first time!

LUNCH!  Didn't do her any good.
One of the males stole it about three seconds later.

The first new bird to add to my life list was this Common Goldeneye.  There were about half a dozen of them scattered across the lake.  Very nice looking duck and will make a great subject for a future painting.  Especially if I want to do an action shot!

Guess he didn't like having his picture
taken because he was beatin' "feet."

And the other bird to make my life list were these Ring-necked Ducks.  Had to be at least fifty of them around the place.  They were smarter than the Mallards because they didn't want to have anything to do with my sweetie's popcorn.

All-in-all I would say a very good day.