Waterfowl Surveys & Flooding

Monday was our first flight out for our annual fall waterfowl surveys on the upper Mississippi.  This is our initial flight to get back into the swing of things, make sure our maps are correct and to get a refresher course on identifying and counting waterfowl while flying over them.  Last year my route went from around Hastings to Lake City.  This year, there were some staffing changes and now my part of the surveys go all the way down to Brownsville, MN.

We had some heavy rains last week and parts of the Mississippi River and the Minnesota River are flooding.  In downtown St. Paul, the Mississippi is expected to crest at 18.5 feet by Friday.  That will be in the top ten highest crests of recorded history.

We saw several areas affected by the flooding Mississippi south of St. Paul.  The above photos are cows working to stay high and dry.

American white pelicans and double-crested cormorants were some of the most common species that we observed.  They are mercifully some of the easiest birds to identify--especially those pelicans.

There were also quite a few great egrets staging for migration.  Unlike other types of waterfowl, they tend to gather in loose flocks.  They do not bunch together like pelicans, each egret appears to need its own fishing space.  But these loose flocks are a sign that they will be gone soon.  We saw far more egrets than great blue herons.

We did see some ducks.  Can you make out any different species?  The big white ones are easier--those are pelicans.  The rest are mostly American wigeon with a few gadwall mixed in with a few coots too.  It's all about wing pattern.  The wigeon are the bird with the white wing patches with a dark patch below the white.  The gadwall just have a white patch.

We even found a few small groups of ruddy ducks too.  They don't have the bright blue bills right now but they have those big white cheek patches which makes them obvious when we fly over--which I love.

And so we're off with our counting.  I'll be curious to see how the flooding affects our surveys in the first few weeks.  I'll admit, I'm a bit nervous about the sheer number of birds we'll be counting, but I'm learning some techniques that seem small but help a great deal.  One technique is when you see a huge flock of 3000 ducks and it's mixed--say 3000 and give percentages of species.  We fly to fast to do it any other way.

Now, as long as my stomach stays settled and I don't get motion sickness, I'll be good to go.

Aerial Waterfowl Survey Identification 2

Now let's talk about some of the more challenging ducks on our aerial waterfowl surveys! Are you ready for some hardcore duck id fun! Sure you are!

I placed this photo in my last blog entry about aerial waterfowl identification and asked if anyone could identify them and somebody did! Believe it or not, these are some of the easier birds to id. Above we have American wigeon and gadwall. The birds with the red arrow are the wigeon. If you look at their wings, you see a dark patch and a white patch right above it. The other birds are gadwall, which have just the small white patch and that dark spot on their tails. I've bee surprised at the amount of gadwall I've seen on our surveys and I suspect that when I have seen ducks fly in these area and I've been watching from the ground, I assumed mallard. Now, I'm going to have to give them a second look. I always feel a sense of relief when I see the white patch of the gadwall or the black and white patch of the wigeon. I know what I'm looking at.

Here are mallards in flight for comparison. They do not have the small square white patch that you see on the gadwall. It's still tough, but since mallards are the more common ducks you see, you get the hang of them fairly quickly, then you just have to figure out how many you see. How many do you think you see in the above photo? Now count them and see how close you got.

Now here is a fun group! This photo was taken on Lake Pepin on a cloudy day. I prefer going out on cloudy day. When the sun is out, especially when it's low, the glare can make identification really tough. But cloudy days, you can focus on the patterns of white on the ducks and you're good to go. Can you pick out any ducks before going below? One of them was a surprise for me.

I know, you're looking at these arrows and you're freaking out, but let's take it one at a time.

If you haven't noticed already, take a good look at the bird with the red arrow, especially the face. Can you make out a white spot? That is a goldeneye. Believe it or not, that tiny white patch is very identifiable from the plane. When we first started, I was focusing on wing pattern and had a tough time telling them from the common mergansers, but the pilot told me to watch the face when a saw the black and white wing pattern. If it's a goldeneye, you will easily see that white patch. So, the red arrow is the common goldeneye.

Now, the blue arrow is pointing to common mergansers. The merganser on the left is male, the one on the right is female. The male merganser and the goldeneye look similar, but you cannot see the white cheek patch. These birds also have a tendency to fly low, right over the water when our plane passes over, they form a long line right above the water which also helps give you a clue when you are approaching them from a great distance and aren't sure what birds you are about to approach.

Now the white arrows get interesting. On our surveys, we are only supposed to document scaup, we don't have to differentiate between greater scaup and lesser scaup which is great, it's hard enough on the ground, I can't imagine doing it 120 feet above them going 100 mph. It's presumed on Lake Pepin that they are all less scaup but it's not out of the realm of possibility for one or two greaters to be mixed in. Here are illustrations from David Sibley's Guide on greater scaup vs lesser scaup:

Notice how the white on the wing of the greater scaup extends longer on the wing than the lesser scaup. Now, if you go back up to the photo to the birds with the white arrows, those are scaup. But here's another enlargement of those scaup:

The birds with the white arrows are lesser scaup, the white doesn't go that far. But look at the bird with the blue arrow. It's darker, which makes it female, but the white appears to extend all the way to the end. Also, if you look at it compared to the closest lesser scaup, it appears bigger. Greaters are supposed to be bigger than greaters--could this be greater? For my survey, I only need to say, "scaup" but it does make me wonder how many greaters might be mixed in.

Aerial Survey Waterfowl Idenification Part 1

Doing aerial waterfowl surveys is hard work. It's a lot like shorebird identification, you can't just rely on colors, it's more general size, shape and impression--that's right giss birding! I'm told that the hard part for many on these surveys is not getting motion sick in the plane. I can't imagine being motion sick and trying to id and count large amounts of birds literally on the fly. Ick. Fortunately, for me as long as I'm not chugging martinis the night before and if I keep some snacks handy, nausea avoids me. When I first learned that I would be doing these surveys, I was given six hand illustrations of ducks to study and I searched Google Images to find photos of ducks taken from aerial surveys to make flash cards...there aren't too many images like that out there. My hope is that someone who gets to do this in the future, finds this blog entry and has some chance of learning what to watch for the first time they go up. The truth is, nothing really trains you like having an experienced eye with you the first few times you fly to help you learn your birds.

Some birds will be easy to identify on an aerial survey--American white pelicans are huge, fly slowly and are quite distinctive.

And some ducks are easier to identify than others. Can you pick out the three species of waterfowl above?

The ones with the prominent white back are canvasbacks. The white arrow points to a bird with a prominent white stripe on its head--that's an American wigeon and then up in the corner is a distinct black and white bird with a bold white patch on the head--that's a bufflehead.

Here's another group that is fairly easy to figure out. Can you name the tree waterfowl species above? The white birds are tundra swans, the medium sized brown birds are Canada geese, and the smallest birds are mallards. You can't see it in the above photo, but the male mallard's green head was easily visible when we were flying this low. Some would ask how we knew these were tundra swans and not trumpeter. The short answer is we don't, but the longer answer is that these swans were in an area that is known to host thousands of tundra swans in November as they stage and feed before flying out to Chesapeake Bay for the winter. Chances are that a handful of trumpeters could be mixed in, but our survey is primarily about general fall usage. There have been a few points along the survey when we've been closer to the Twin Cities, flying over small family groups of swans that I wondered if we were passing trumpeters and I make sure to note that when I turn in my survey sheets. Now that we have such a large population of trumpeters and they stick around in the winter, it's a challenge to tell trumpeters apart from tundras when flying over them in a plane.

Basic waterfowl id isn't the only challenge. Can you see what's wrong in the above photo? Take a look. Here's the answer:

You have to watch closely to make sure that the waterfowl you see are live waterfowl and not a hunter's decoys. The motorized decoys are easy to spot because you start counting and then immediately ask yourself--why is that duck hovering like a hummingbird?

So, these are some of the basic of birds. I'll leave you with a photo that I'll id later. Can you tell what ducks are in the photo below?

Identifying Ducks On Aerial Waterfowl Surveys

I was planning on Monday being a busy day: wake up and meet the pilot and fellow counter at the small airport at 7am, count ducks for 2 hours, tweak an article due that day, take our new Kia in to our mechanic for the final approval, edit photos, have all my lines memorized because our rehearsal that night was our first night off book and if there was time a quick bike ride before winter sets in for real. A busy day, but nothing outlandish. The day started out well, as we left the tiny Lakeville airport, the skies were clear, all looked perfect for a morning of counting waterfowl on the Mississippi.

Then we got to the river and noticed a problem. Some very dense low lying fog. Check it out, it's below that water tower, I love the shadow cast by the rising sun.

The fog was just over the river, nowhere else. That makes finding ducks hard and flying low at 120 feet a bit too dangerous, we had to call the flight off for the time being. Our pilot flies all over using his plane to survey waterfowl all over the river, testing out aerial camera equipment, vegetation assessment, and documenting land use violations. He had two other flights to do that day, one to count waterfowl down by LaCrosse and another to take aerial photos of tundra swans. His plan was to fly down and do those surveys and meet up with us for our count later in the afternoon. My schedule wax flexible so that wasn't a problem but then I hatched a crazy plan and asked the pilot if I could fly down with him and observe the counts he was doing on the other side of the river. He wasn't sure since the plane was small and there would be two others on the flight, but fortunately for my short legs, he was able to squeeze me in. This complicated my plan, but it was one heck of an opportunity to watch and learn...and take photos!

And so we flew down to Winona, MN to pick up the other counters. I love, love flying in these small planes. Number 1, I can talk to and interact with the pilot so I know he's awake and sober. He also will mention hazards that he sees like cell phone towers. It's amazing what we can see from up above lie the above farm on top of one of the bluffs near the Mississippi River...or large piles of corn right in front of a deer stand (not pictured above). But flying in these small planes is really conquering my fear of flying and heights.

I'm really getting spoiled traveling through all these tiny airports. For one thing, they all have dogs (note this lovely fellow had his own recliner). How can you not be in a good mood when greeted by a friendly pooch with soft fur and wagging tail? Secondly, there's no airport security, no baggage check, no taking off of shoes, no standing in line, no wanding, and there's free coffee. I'm going to be a bit whiny the next time I'm on a commercial flight.

The flocks of ducks in this stretch of the Mississippi River was off the hook--insane numbers. I was grateful for the opportunity to be an observer, I would have been way too focused on fast id and quick counting to take pictures. The above is a mixture of canvasbacks, scaup, ring-necked ducks and a few coots. There's probably one or two gadwall in there as well.

Here's a closer look of part of that flock, you can make out the canvasback shape (and the bright canvas colored back).

It was so cool to fly over Winona, MN and some of the other areas like Weaver Bottoms, I've gone there so many time to look for tundra swans and I wondered what it would be like to fly over it. I can't believe I actually got to do it. It was so cool.

We flew right over the Brownsville, MN Swan Watch. Note all the white specks? Every single white speck is a tundra swan. We estimated that there were close to 7000 there. There were also thousands of smaller diving ducks mixed in too.

Here's a closer view of the swans, rather than a 2000 feet like the previous photo, here's a view at about 100 feet. There also some mallards and Canada geese mixed in.

If you look closely, you can make out three bald eagles flying away from our plane--there were dozens mixed in on the islands near the swans--there were like mini flocks of eagles. I tried very hard to see if any of them were golden eagles since they are in the general area of where golden eagle 42 is supposed to spend the winter but they were all bald eagles.

Speaking of golden eagle 42, he's hanging out near here and I just got a phone call from Mark Martell and we're going to go out and look for him this morning. I'll post more on the surveys when we get back.

Another Day Of Waterfowl Surveys

We did another aerial survey of the Upper Mississippi yesterday. It was beautiful morning to fly over the river. We still are not seeing huge amounts of ducks and our pilot who is flying surveys all over the places said that Pool 9 to the south of us is just packed with ducks and even a few tundra swans already. I'm hopeful that as it gets later we'll see more waterfowl, but this all part of a long term study--how and why is this area being used by waterfowl and if it's not being used...what could be the reason?

We passed quite a few duck hunters and again, we were so low that the hunters waved at us and we gave them a friendly wave back. One area was so full of duck hunters, I had to be very careful that I was not counting decoys. Our pilot mentioned today that it's very difficult to train people to aerial surveys--especially birders. He said that they lose most who try for two reasons: 1. Motion sickness (which as long as I don't drink too much alcohol the night before and have some snack crackers to eat if I feel a slight tinge of nausea, I'm good). 2. Most birders can't handle the speciation and counting at the same time from this angle and going that fast. I told the pilot that this reminded me a lot of shorebird id--using movement, shape, comparative size, and not using color too much to id birds. This is very much birding by "GISS Birding" (general impression of size and shape) or "Jizz Birding" as birders have a tendency to use the unfortunate slang spelling.

There are still many American white pelicans around. I love this shot of some loafing pelicans spreading out onto the water as we fly over. There were a few in the air and it's fun to watch the pelicans and the eagles soaring at eye level...so long as they are a good distance away. And again, the pilot had to veer to stay out of a soaring eagle's way--they don't move.

Ring-billed gulls on the other hand fly all over and all around our plane, easily dodging as we go by. Gulls are hands down the dominant species we are seeing on the survey, but we're not counting those. I get a kick out of identifying other bird species as we go over like the large flocks of red-winged blackbird (SO fun to look down and see hundreds below and their red should patches flashing--what a cool view), cedar waxwings, robins, and flickers--lots and lots of flickers.

We're still seeing good numbers of coots, this was a raft out on Lake Pepin. I was very excited that we did see a few of our first divers--common mergansers finally. Their numbers should be huge in November. I've seen thousands in and around Pepin in late fall and have always wondered what it would be like to be over the river where they are. We also flew over some ducks that I was going to call mergs and the pilot called goldeneye. He saw the white patch on the face and I did not. I thought it would be more obvious to see the goldeneye white patch from overhead, but you're going so fast and your eye is drawn to their backs, I'm going to have to make a conscious effort to look at the heads.

Towards the end of the survey, we could see the coming rain. I was glad we were able to get our counts in before the weather got nasty. It was cool to see the sun trying to creep though the gathering clouds over Lake Pepin.

The rain hadn't quite hit when we were finished with the surveys, so I stopped at Black Dog Lake before going home to see if I could see some sparrows and to also just enjoy birds in the way that I'm used to--on the ground.

As usual, bald eagles were all over the places, including this young bird--so dark it looks like it was hatched this summer. When they are young like this, they look like disaffected youth who don't know what to do with their bodies yet...with really big noses. That beak almost looks too big for his face. Why does it look more streamlined when the head turns white and the beak turns yellow?

There were quite a few sparrows, but only this song sparrow was brave enough to pop up from the grasses. What could have been the reason to lay low?

A shrike. I had to think a minute because loggerhead shrikes nest in Minnesota in summer and then migrate out. Northern shrikes come to Minnesota in winter...I had to take a look and remember which one has the thinner mask and thicker bill--it's a northern shrike. This is a fairly reliable spot in the Twin Cities for a shrike in winter.

Aerial Waterfowl Surveys

So, once a week throughout the fall I will be going up in a plane to do aerial waterfowl surveys for the National Park Service.  It is equal parts fun and frustration.  For one thing, ring-necked ducks look very snazzy in profile, but from above, they're very dull looking and hard to id from scaup, especially if they don't fly!  I've been trying to take some photos and video with a little point and shoot to give you an idea of what it's like, but the camera has trouble picking up the birds.

Although, here is a small flock of ring-necked ducks to count--so you can kind of get an idea of what I see.  It's hard, especially when we get in the rice fields and you realize how hidden coots, teal, and gadwal can be.  If they fly, it's a bit easier to try and id them.  Our pilot is fantastic, (for one thing, he resembles Aaron Eckhart) he flies waterfowl all the time and all over the country and has some great tips, like green-winged teal have a two toned look compared to blue-winged teal form overhead.  The head looks darker than the body--that's helpful.  He will also call out what he sees from the window.  When I listen to my digital recordings of my observations the next day to enter the numbers on the data sheets, I'll hear my voice give a little excited, "YES!" That means that I heard the pilot confirm my id through my headset as we went.

Here's a quick video that I took below.  This little camera only picks up the the gulls which I don't need to count, but you can get an idea of how fast we're flying.  I'm hopeful once the common mergansers show up that I'll be able to take an HD camera and get some better footage.

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