Goldeneye Again

I stopped by the Charles today and spent some time watching the odd goldeneye again. Fortunately, today there were a total of 5 goldeneye along the river, including another female that would occasionally be close enough to get a photo of both in the same frame.

Here’s three more photos of the bird, twice with the male and once with the female for comparison:

Goldeneye

Goldeneye

Goldeneyes

Note on the last one that I cut most of the water between them out and then made a bit of a mess with the clone stamp fixing my quick cutting and pasting, but that’s one photo.

Also remember that these are all hosted on Flickr and clicking on any of them and then All Sizes will blow them up to the original size.

I’m not seeing much of a difference in bill structure, so I’m leaning towards Common. And since every shot shows a slightly different head shape, I’m not sure that the one with the strong peak is actually the normal shape.

Then again, I just took a look at Ted Floyd’s new field guide and the Barrow’s there looks pretty close. Via Amazon, search for goldeneye and then go to page 53.

Update: I heard from Jim McCoy who was quite sure it’s a Barrow’s. And just now I came across Sean McMahon’s series, which seem to show the bill and head shape quite definitively.

Last update: Simon Perkins agrees on Barrow’s, so I’m done questioning.

Yellow-billed Goldeneyes

Today, after doing some scouting for the Concord CBC (which is now on hold after finding my territory all ice and deep water), I headed over to the Charles for a few minutes. It was on the quiet side (no mergansers, only 1 ring-neck) but the first goldeneye of the winter had arrived. Interestingly, the female had an entirely pale bill. With a bunch of Barrow’s reported lately (including one at Fresh Pond), I got excited for a couple seconds, but it was shaped more like a Common.

Note that the head is slicked down a bit in the first photo.

Yellow-billed Common Goldeneye

Yellow-billed Common Goldeneye

Update: John Crookes found this bird independently and has a much better photo of it (with the male). Anyone want to go over the ID again?

Another update: I’ve posted 3 more photos, with a second bird for comparison.


Interestingly, I had a very similar bird here a couple years ago (January 2005). Two photos of that one are below.

Previous Goldeneye

Previous Goldeneye

The previous one seems a bit more intermediate in shape, although I’m not sure whether that means anything. If you have any feedback on these birds, I’d like to hear it.

More photos:

Starling Roost

A belated couple of photos from the Menotomy trip to the Alewife Reservation robin and starling roost.

I estimated 1200 in the tree, but was probably way off.

Starling Roost

Starling Roost

You’re on your own counting those.

The robins were coming in in small groups, so no impressive photos of them. And the Cooper’s Hawk(s) didn’t cooperate for a photo either. I do wish I got a shot of the hawk chasing the robin that decided the next branch over was a good perch (one on the other side of the tree only got glanced at and then ignored).

More cool bird photos:

With any luck on the CBC, I’ll have something better for next week.

Top 5 Wanted Bird Meme

The latest meme for the birdblogs seems to be top 5 most wanted. I’m not going to go with lifers, as most of that list would be Texas birds and either I’ll be getting them in a month or jinxing myself now, so here’s top 5 Middlesex county and Massachusetts birds:

Massachusetts

  1. Upland Sandpiper
  2. Clapper Rail
  3. Cattle Egret
  4. Lark Sparrow
  5. Parasitic Jaeger

I really need to bird along the coast more.

Middlesex County

  1. Northern Goshawk
  2. Lapland Longspur
  3. Surf Scoter
  4. Long-billed Dowitcher
  5. Bonaparte’s Gull

I decided not to have any overlap, even though I’ve now chased and missed multiple Lark Sparrows within 15 minutes of home and should have the sandpiper and egret as well in the county.

I took this from Christopher, but there’s a bunch of other people doing it as well.

BPW14

Gray Catbird

Another CBC-related one this week. This guy taunted me a couple years ago, showing up at the same spot along the Charles every time I went from November to February except on count day. One of these years I’ll actually get one on the count.

Weekend Highlights

Saturday started with a walk through Lot 1 with hopes of White-winged Crossbills and other birds that would be new for Waltham (or at least my half-hearted bigby list). That didn’t work out, but I still got some CBC scouting in. Lots of sparrows along the edges and a few woodpeckers were the extent of things.

After an hour at Lot 1, I got in the car and headed over to Met State. Not that exciting either, but a few good pockets of birds. One started with a chickadee and Carolina Wren and then ended up containing 3 Brown Creepers, a Golden-crowned Kinglet, several nuthatches, woodpeckers, goldfinches, and titmice. Checking the pines, the Great Horned was in the usual spot, which is definitely good for the CBC:

Great Horned

I had approached from a slightly different angle and this time I noticed some sticks higher up in the tree. This was the tree that I was told was the nest tree and the pile of sticks looked a lot like this. Think I can mark that as confirmed (UN – used nest) but I’ll probably just check back in a couple months. The rest of the walk was pretty birdless, although a Golden-crowned Kinglet taunted me into attempting so photos that didn’t come out.

Even though the weather today was much worse, the birds were better. Steve Moore and Barbara Volkle reported a lingering Semipalmated Plover at the Arlington Res, so I headed there to sneak it onto my county year list. I got a quick view flying across the water and then was able to watch it running along the mud flats for quite a while. I’m not fully sure, but it’s among the latest inland records for Massachusetts if not the latest. Hopefully it will make it through the sleet and will be a December record.

Late Semi

Other birds around included 3 Killdeer, 4 Shovelers and many Gadwall and Wigeon. I took a few pictures of the ducks but since it was dark and they all happened to have their heads in the water, I’m not going to show any.

After leaving, I hopped on Rt. 2 and then 128 and made a quick circle around the Cambridge Res. Passing on 128, I noticed lots and lots of geese but couldn’t find them from the other side. I settled for about 60 Common Merganser and a few Hooded. A spin through the office parks didn’t have anything interesting, so I continued on to Flint’s Pond.

Driving up to Flint’s, I could see ducks in close. Walking down the road, I kept finding more and more at each different viewpoint. The majority were Hoodies, but there were plenty of Common Mergansers and a few Bufflehead, Ring-necks, Common Goldeneye, and Ruddies mixed in. Two Great Blue Herons were along the shore as well. Not too bad.

And in perfect timing, I headed home and was putting the lens cap on the camera in the driveway when I noticed the window was wet. Two minutes later and there was a nice sleet/rain mix coming down that I had missed entirely.