Birds!

The Merlin app is a bit addictive. ID’d these Long Tailed ducks from this Saturday.

They are amazing!

In Pacific Beach, San Diego our apartment pool hosted a mallard pair for a few weeks. It wasn’t very big but it had a float rope marking the deep end and they’d sleep with a foot holding the rope so they wouldn’t drift close to the edge and us people. The impressive spectacle was their takeoff! As “puddle ducks” they’d apparently developed the ability to pretty much launch straight up. More like a submarine missile launch than the leisurely surface skimming of a seaplane takeoff. Just BAM and they were airborne.

One of my favorites to watch are pelicans: with an offshore breeze they’ll skim just slong the crest of breaking waves to take advantage of the helpful updraft off the wave face: a wing beat every once in a while but mostly just a line of these big birds inches over the water rocketing along above the waves.

Is it just me, or do pelicans fly in perfect synchrony with each other? They remind me of precision fighters like the Blue Angels.

On another species note, the eagles and ospreys are back on their nests along the upper Hudson. We kept checking, and finally we have confirmation. One eagle nest is in a Revolutionary War era cemetery 60' up in a white pine. It has a good view over the river and is less than a 1/4 mile as the cro....uh, eagle flies to a pond that is loaded with bluegills and perch. I watched the large male hunting last Sunday. The ospreys are on top of a roadside pole and take great offense when I stop my bike underneath them. The upper Hudson has many eagles and ospreys along it's banks, hopefully we'll find more this year in our new tandem yak.

That is really cool to catch them migrating like that. Likely on the way to the Gaspe and some cliff face in the Chic Chocs.  I had very close encounter with one going through Westgard Pass, the break between the Inyos and the Whites in California. I came around a corner in  USFS van and one was feeding on a  jackrabbit roadkill. I slammed on the brakes just as it rose and brushed the windshield with  its  fully outstretched wings. Thank God it was tie goes to the runner and obscured visibility wasn't an issue. It took up the entire glass.  I've only seen a few in Pennsylvania in the east, lots in arid western mts.

If anyone wants to witness Bald Eagles in their natural glory, you are welcome to watch them attempt to eat my chickens and ducks. They win here and there. I lost 2 ducks, 1 hen and a baby this past year to them and the Owls that live here. It's a number game - you raise enough to absorb the losses. Watched the Eagle take out the last duck, a drake. Eagle was so tired it had to go rest, and then came back to fly away with it. Pekin ducks are HEAVY and big.
It's gross, but I can usually tell what took the bird, based on what is left.
We have a massive rooster now, I raised him as a livestock guardian, and he goes insane when the Eagles shows up. He's good.

We had a bald eagle fly in front and just above our car on a road trip last week.

Barry the Central Park Barred Owl being her delightful self.

I do like that pond, they rent model sailboats to sail on it in summer.