Another winter day in Gallup Park

It is March and the birding world of Michigan starts to warm up a little bit, unlike the weather. The first red-winged black birds have been reported in the county, and some exciting waterfowls (long tailed ducks), and gulls (Glaucous, Iceland, Lesser Black Backed) have been seen on the wrong side of the washtenaw/wayne county line. Pretty easy then , to allow ourselves to think about future relaxing birding trips in the Arb or Crane Creek, feeling the soft temperature of the spring sun gently warming up the Michigan lakes and forests, listening to the "sweet-sweet-give me more sweet" of a yellow warbler.

One should notice, by the way, how low my standards are after a long and cold Michigan winter. I are not daydreaming here about exotic, nemesis species, such as worm eating warblers, clay colored sparrows, or bachman warblers, no! Just a cute, common, yellow warbler (ok let's say a male), is all I can dream about right now.

But last Sunday, the warm days were looking as distant from Michigan as a growing economy. Temperature, again, fell in the single digits (in Farenheit, unfortunatly), despite the bright sun.

Ice skater in Gallup Park

Icicles around tree branches

Decided to make the most of the situation, I walked quickly along the bike path, scanning for waterfowls. Nothing much new there, except an American Coot (FOY), and a growing number of Hooded and Common Mergansers. 6 Goldeneyes were diving along the ice, and a dozen Buffleheads were also seen. Interesting was the fact that 2 males Goldeneyes were already fighting , despite having 4 females available. Maybe greediness is not only a human sin after all

I flushed a winter wren (FOY, First Of year!), and discovered 2 Trumpeter Swans. These swans were quite cooperative, and I was able to take pictures of them without using my digibinsing technique. Not too surprisingly these are much sharper than usual, and I am proud to relieve my regular readers (the three of them!) from their chronic headaches caused by the usual blurriness of my digibinsed pictures.

This gives me an excellent opportunity, using my old pictures from Lake Erie Metro Park, to study the differences between the Tundra and Trumpeter Swan. Being a beginner (my first birding outing was in January 2007 with my friend and birding mentor Jochen, in...Gallup Park), I struggled so far to make the distinction between the two species, so now it is about time to solve this problem for good. A picture being worth a thousand words (5 pictures = 5000 words?), I tried to match pictures of the two species in a somehow similar position. A reader looking for quality and accuracy should probably stop at this point, and look at the excellent description made by David Sibley.

• From the front (look at the V shape border for the Trumpeter, U shape for the Tundra)

Trumpeter Swan (Cygne Trompette)

Tundra Swan (Cygne Siffleur)

Trumpeter Swan, detail

• From the side : (look at the broadly connected eye of the trumpeter, versus the almost separated Tundra Swan eye)
  
  

Trumpeter Swan

Tundra Swan, detail

It should be noted that the yellow lores that are usually present (I've read 90% on other blogs) on most Tundra swans are not showing on my digiscoped pictures. This is likely due to the poor quality of my pictures, but I guess this is a hint that we should not take this feature for granted.

At last, I should end this post with the last swan present in michigan, usually fairly easy to identify to the attentive birder.... The Mute Swan (for the inattentive or distracted reader, look at the color of the bill...)

Mute Swan (cygne tubercule), present on Gallup Park last Sunday

Not too hard most of the time....but what's about this one?

Winter birding at Lake Erie Metropark

As liquid water as pretty much disappeared from Washtenaw county, except a little stretch of water at the beach of the arb, Diane offered me last Saturday the opportunity to go birding at Lake Erie Metropark, as she has another cat show at Allen Park. Saturday was a magnificent - and frigid - day, one of these days where Mr Winter shines, and when you don't regret at all the cloudy and rainy winters of the north of France. Oh boy, I love winter birding, for 3 reasons :

- First, you don't have to wake up at 5 in the morning and rush out to Starbucks (or, depending on the economic situation, Mc Donald's) and rush out to Crane Creek or Pointe Pelee to be there at dawn....So winter birding means waking up at 9 AM, drinking a warm coffee in the sofa and watching the Juncos and chikadees having breakfeast with the lone Pine Siskin that we have currently in our garden. Then, only after you have watched the news and drinked your second cup of coffee, you can fix some french toasts, and eat them while having your third cup of coffee, and start to think about how many layers you will wear today

- Second, for some strange reason , you have the whole park for yourself, most of the time. I mean, 1000 acres of marshland and lakes just for you and your binoculars. Which means you will never meet anybody who will tell you " what a shame you came so late, this morning we had an Iceland gull on the beach". Of course, you will never meet anybody to brag out about the very nice bird you just saw, either

- Third, it is usually so cold that you never regret to have a bit more time to do more birding.

As I arrived, the Parc Ranger told me : " you should probably go on the south side, on the north side, there is only mute swans". There was, effectively, a few mute swans. hundreds or even thousands of them, mixed with Tundra and Trumpeter's. There were also thousands of Canevasbacks (6,000?), hundreds of common mergansers and redheads, as well as all the commoners of michigan. What a show!!!!!! On the raptor side, a Northern Harrier was spotted, and a dozen Bald Eagles (half of them being juvenile) were seen flying over the open water

Lake Erie metropark Lakeshore

Mute Swans and Tundra Swan, and Canvasback, digiscoped

Seeking a respite from the cold wind, I later went birding in the woods, close from the Hawk watching site. Here a few song birds, such as Robins, a lone Brown Creeper, White Throated Sparrows. But the stars of the day were a large flock of Redpolls (my first this winter). Among them, I noticed a much paler bird, making me think about the You-know-who.....But this tiny fellow did not want to be taken in picture, probably thinking that he deserved better than a digibinned picture. His darker friends were more cooperative...

American Robin, digibinned

Common Redpoll, digibinned


The Complete List was :

Location: Lake Erie MetroparkObservation date: 1/24/09Notes: 10F, clear skyNumber of species: 27 Canada Goose 0Mute Swan 3000Tundra Swan 2000American Black Duck 12Mallard 24Canvasback 6000Redhead 200Ring-necked Duck 12Lesser Scaup 12Bufflehead 24Common Goldeneye 1Hooded Merganser 2Common Merganser 300Ruddy Duck 12Great Blue Heron 6Bald Eagle 12Northern Harrier 2American Coot 2000Ring-billed Gull 6Herring Gull 1Mourning Dove 12Downy Woodpecker 1American Crow 2Black-capped Chickadee 12Brown Creeper 1American Robin 12White-throated Sparrow 4Common Redpoll 30This report was generated automatically by eBird v2(http://ebird.org/)