Watery Wednesday: Prescott Waterfowl

As the temps begins to get warmer and winter loosens its grip where I live I am beginning to get excited about the upcoming spring migration. I know that it will still be a while before many of the song birds migrate back through but it may be only a matter of several weeks, as soon as some of the ice on the lakes and river melt, before we start to see migrating waterfowl, although it has really not been very long since I last saw many of these birds, usually they are the last to migrate and the first ones back

There were quite a few interesting gulls that were hanging around Black Dog Lake and Prescott, WI back in December. Unfortunately those that were more exciting, or at least more rare in Minnesota, were never in a good spot for me to photograph. I did however get this pretty good shot of a ring-billed gull as he flew past.

Redhead ducks typically stand out and are easy to identify with their bright red head, however when their are also canvas back ducks around you need to look a little closer.

The canvas back has a thinner, more pointed bill then the red head duck. It also has a bright red eye where the red heads eye is more of an orange color.

Common goldeneye often spend the entire winter in the area as long as there is some open water. This is an immature bird. You can this by how gray he is and by the fact that his eyes are not yet the bright golden color of the adults.

Trumpeter swans are another bird that will stick around as long as there is open water. Once on the verge of extinction these beautiful birds are pretty easy to find in this area year round.

My World: Colvill Park

One of my favorite places to go take pictures during the winter time is a little city park in Redwing, MN named Colvill Park.

During the summer Colvill Park is your typical city park, with playgrounds for the kids, a swimming pool, picnic tables and a small boat marina, but in the winter Colvill becomes home to numerous bald eagles.

Minnesota has a large population of eagles, second only to Alaska in the US. During the warmer months the eagles are spread out through out the state, usually around our numerous lakes and rivers, but in the winter time they all gather around the few spots where the water stays open, plus many of the eagles that live in central Canada also migrate down into this area in search of food during the winter.

Colvill Park is one of these locations. Just up river from the park is a Excel Energy steam power plant. This plant put warm water back into the river which keeps the water around Colvill from freezing up.

The eagles need the open water to find food. Fish is one of the main food sources for bald eagles in the wild. However eagles are opportunistic feeders and will eat whatever takes the least amount of energy to obtain, which makes carrion a top choice. Many of the eagles in the area are immature birds that many non-birders often mistake for golden eagles. Bald eagles do not get the white head and tail until they are around five years. We do get golden eagles that winter in the Mississippi River Valley in southern Minnesota but they are usually further away from the river, eating squirrels and turkeys instead of fish, and would not have white feathers mixed in to their wings and bodies, except 1st year golden eagles will have a white crescent on the ends of their wings, like many of the bald eagles do.

Last year the Minnesota DNR dropped a couple of dear carcasses out on one of the peninsulas for the eagles to eat. These were road kill dear and it was much better to move them where the eagles could eat them safely then leave them near the road where they might attract eagles and lead to a collision with a vehicle.

Colvill is also the place where The Raptor Center will release recuperated eagles at during the winter. During the summer we try and release them as close to where they are rescued from as possible but during the winter they need to be released where food is available so they get released at Colvill. This pic is of me releasing the eagle that I rescued and was taken by my wife Michelle. The person that is directly behind the eagle taking a photo is John Mikes who runs the blog Weekend Shooter, check out John's blog he has some great pics from Colvill that he just posted.

There are other things at Colvill to photograph other then eagles. There are usually plenty of ducks and geese around, these include Canada geese, mallards, common mergansers, common goldeneye and occasionally something different like the redhead duck pictured above.

Sometimes there are other types of waterfowl like swans, pelicans, or gulls, like this ring-billed gull who is picking at a fish. But when you mention Colvill Park most people who know about it associate it with the eagles.

Redhead, Scaup, Grebes, Flickers and Mergansers

I did also find some birds at Fort Snelling State Park on April 20th.
I have seen quite a few northern flickers around lately. Since they are pretty migratory it is possible that many of the birds that I have been seeing are on their way up to summer nesting grounds up in Canada. All of the flickers that I have seen are yellow-shafted northern flickers. The red-shafted northern flicker has a more westerly range. Perhaps I will get some pictures of a red-shafted when we travel to Yellowstone later this year.
Male redhead ducks are aptly named and easily identified, especially in breeding plumage. After the mating season is complete the males fly to large lakes, typically further north, where they group together. At that point they go through a molt which leaves them flightless for about a month. After the molt they appear pretty much brown all over but still maintain a red tinge on their heads.
Unlike its cousin, the greater scaup, the lesser scaup can only be found in North America. It is difficult to tell the two apart unless you have them right next to each other for comparison. However since the lesser scaup prefers fresh water, while the greater prefers saltwater, most of the scaups that we see here are lessers. From what I have read the best trait to use to identify whether you are looking at a greater or lesser scaup is the shape of the head. Lesser scaups have a thinner more rounded head then the greater do. My guess is that this was a lesser.
The horned grebes have been out in full force lately. Maybe it is just me, but it seems as though there are more horned grebes around this spring then normal.A group of grebes, like the one pictured above, is not called a flock or a kettle it would be called " a water dance of grebes"

Another grebe that I spotted for the first time this year is the pied-billed grebe. Typically I have seen more pied grebes, around home, then any of the other types, but this year I have seen a lot more horned then I have pied.
Another bird that seems to be more numerous this year, at least where I live, are the red-breasted mergansers.
These birds are coming from winter grounds on the east or west coast of North America, as far south as Mexico, and are heading to their breeding grounds in the Arctic and Subarctic regions of Alaska and Canada.

Birding Colville Park

Last weekend I also made a stop down at Colville Park in Red Wing, MN. There were still quite a few eagles around but they were all perched pretty far away. I did find a group of redhead ducks. This was the first redheads that I have seen since they closed the road at Vadnais Lake late last fall.
There were also some mallards, which are quite common and a ring-billed gull who was nibbling at what looked to be a winter kill fish on the shoreline.

Christmas Eve Birding

The snow that was predicted for Saturday the 22nd came a day late. This was nice since our Red Wing CBC was spared the snow, except for the small amount of wet sloppy snow that fell in the morning. I had hoped to go out and do some birding on Sunday morning before going to my in laws to celebrate the holidays, but unfortunately the weather changed my plans. Not that it was really that bad. A little wind and around 3" of snow might close down a place like Washington DC but for Minnesota that is pretty mild. Unfortunately clouding skies usually don't yield great pictures and snow can really mess up expensive camera equipment, so I decided to stay home and wrap some gifts.

The holiday at the in laws was pretty normal. My wife got me some snow shoes, which I hope to get out and use this weekend. The next morning the clouds had cleared out and the sun was shining so I headed out early in the morning to Douglas Point in Hastings, MN. My wife and I had discussed going to a movie that afternoon so I knew I did not have a lot of time but I wanted to see if I could find the harlequin duck, that I had seen the week before, and a Barrow's goldeneye that had been reported in the area.

When I arrived at Douglas Point there was already a couple birders there looking over the large grouping of birds that were on the edge of the ice.
The group mostly consisted of Canadian geese, common golden eye, and common merganser.
Most of the Canadian geese were all still resting with their heads tucked in close to their bodies to conserve heat. Mixed in with the geese were 8 to 10 trumpeter swans still hanging around. I began to search through the flocks of goldeneye looking for different patterns that would indicate a Barrow's goldeneye or a harlequin.I spotted some mallards and some lesser scaup mixed in with the othersThere were also some American Coots, ring-billed ducks, canvasbacks and redhead ducks mixed in but I still did not find the birds that I was looking for.

I decided to try and look a bit down river so I crossed the bridge into Wisconsin. From the Wisconsin side of the river, near one of the boat launches in Prescott, WI I saw more common goldeneye as well as more mallards but no Barrow's or Harle. I continued down the river to the Great River Road Visitors Center that sits on the bluffs overlooking the river in Prescott.

The visitors center was closed but there were still quite a few birds around to look at. On the visitors center grounds I saw a white-bellied nuthatch as well as a red-bellied woodpecker. At the houses behind the visitors center there was a blue jay. With my red white and blue birds all in line it was probably no coincidence to see a bald eagle in a large tree on the rivers edge. Unfortunately he was facing the other way so I decided not to take a picture of the back of his head.

I still had not seen either of the birds that I was hoping for so I decided to go back up to Douglas Point and try one more time before I left. While I was there scanning the flocks one more time with my binos, Milt Bloomberg, one of the two birders that I had talked with earlier, stopped by and told me he had located the harlequin over by the boat launch in Prescott. I followed Milt back over to the spot where he had spotted the bird but by the time that we arrived the bird had already moved on. Milt had to take off, he was doing some quick birding while visiting from St Cloud for the holidays, but I was happy he got to see the bird. I stayed a bit longer but was unable to relocate the harlequin.

Later that afternoon while I was watching a movie, around 2:30, Jim Ryan located the duck, back around the same location where Milt had spotted it. I was a bit disappointed that I missed it, but I was not too upset. I had already seen the duck the week before and added it to my life list. It was cool that Milt, who had never seen one in Minnesota, and Jim, who added it to his life list, got to see it that day. I also recieved word today that John from Kansas, who was at Douglas Point with Milt when I arrived in the morning, got an opportunity to see the duck on the 27th.

Another trip to Vadnais Lake before the road closes

The road at Vadnais Lake closed for the season last week but the day before it closed I took a trip over and got some more shots of waterfowl on the lake.

There were still a few ring-necked ducks hanging around. There are not as many as there was a couple weeks ago, but on this trip they were in a lot closer to shore so I snapped a couple of pics.

There were also some redheaded ducks still around. This time around I got an opportunity to photograph a male redhead A new comer to Vadnais Lake were the canvas backs.

Canvas backs are a larger diving duck that are found only in North America. They breed from Alaska to Manitoba and south from Minnesota to California.

During the breeding season the canvasback inhabit wetland habitats. The nests are formed of grass and feathers in the marsh. They typically lay 7 to 10 eggs which the female will incubate for around 24 days.

Canvasbacks eat aquatic vegetation such as pond weed, water lilly and their favorite wild celery. They also will eat mollusks, insects, and small crustaceans and fish.

Canvas backs are highly migratory. They spend their winters on the Great Lakes, Atlantic, Pacific, and Gulf Coasts and in Mexico.

Canvasbacks are currently on the decline due mostly to loss of wetland habitat in their breeding range.

Other waterfowl at Vadnais Lake

I found some other water fowl at Vadnais Lake like an redhead duck. We do not usually do not see many redhead ducks here in the Twin Cities except during migration. Typically their summer range is more westerly and they winter further to the south. Due to loss of breeding habitat, marshes and prairie potholes, their numbers have been declining. Redheads usually mate with a new partner each year. After mating the males molt which leaves them flightless for almost a month.There were also some American coot swimming around.

Although many people think of coots as ducks they are actually a member of the rail family. The main difference between coots and ducks is that coots do not have webbed feet like ducks instead they have scalloped toes as you can see in the picture below.It is funny watching coots take off from the water. They usually have to run across the water while flapping their wings until they are airborne. Once in the air they are strong fliers. There are records of coots that have crossed the Atlantic Ocean into Western Europe.