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.

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.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ncWb8bTEIAc&feature=channel_page[/youtube]

Fall Birding At Bruce Vento Nature Sanctuary

Saturday I had to go put in a ranger appearance at an event at Bruce Vento Nature Sanctuary for an open house they were holding.  It's a great little park that still needs some work, but as more people hang out there, cool things will be found.  This park has such interesting features--a closed up cave that is of spiritual significance for Native Americans, caves that used to store beer for the North Star Brewery built in the 1850s (the brewery was later bought by Jacob Schmidt). In the late 1880s the area was used as an industrial area and rail yard.  It was turned into a park in 2005 and yes, it needs some work--buckthorn and garlic mustard city and the old railroad yard has left all kinds of nasty things in the soil, but a dedicated group of volunteers has been working hard to turn it around and over the years, this will be a bright gem in the Twin Cities park system.

Here's a young male kestrel who was on patrol for food in the area.  He was mobbed by a few goldfinches but he mobbed a Cooper's hawk when it flew through--no one is going to partake of his food source!  I spent most of my time with local birder and excellent bird guide for St Paul Audubon, Julian Sellers.  I noticed he had photos of an orchard oriole out and I remembered that this past spring when I was Bruce Vento, we heard an orchard oriole singing on territory.  Julian said that he and his wife saw the male this summer feeding three young!  That's a great bird for an urban area and for this new park.

At first, we didn't see too much in the way of birds, which surprised me since Carpenter Nature Center was so full of migrants on the move the day before.  But between the nearby highway and active railroad tracks, hearing chip notes is a challenge.  I walked over towards the tracks and found this grassy area to be CHOCK full of birds.

Mostly eastern bluebirds--they were all over and scattered about.  Not sure if they were after grasses or lethargic grasshoppers hidden amidst the grass and low to the ground.

House finches and sparrows were mixed in with the bluebirds.  Above are a couple of female sparrows and a chipping sparrow.  You may be saying to yourself, "Hey, that chipping sparrow doesn't look like the ones I see at my feeder in the summer." But they change color and kind of look like clay-colored sparrows in the fall.  There were also white-throated sparrows, Lincoln's sparrows and fox sparrows mixed in.

The real fun were all the goldfinches.  And boy do they hide well in their brownish plumage!  I would walk down a path completely unaware and then a big flock would explode out of the grasses around me.  But soon enough, one finch would return to the food source and others would follow.

I think these are common sunflower heads, but I'm not sure.  Whatever they were--the goldfinches were digging it.  If you didn't know they were there, they totally blended in despite their furious feasting.

It's a great little park and again, I think we're going to see some great birds there the more people check it out.

Craziness and Flying

I'm in the process of trying to film some videos and in the midst of bird walks, banding, counting ducks, so there's been a lull in blogging.  Hopefully, I'll have some video snippets up tonight--or at least a photo of a purple finch!  Meanwhile, if you are not faint of heart, check out this link to a photo of some sort of mantis that has captured a hummingbird.  Not the first time this has happened or is this sort of thing just an insect related event, arachnids get in on bird eating too, but certainly one of the most in focus photos of such an event.

Meanwhile, I have started a new project for the park service--counting ducks along the upper Mississippi River from a small plane.  I have a fear of flying, but it stems more from feeling a lack of control from not being able to watch what the pilot is doing.  In a small twin engine, I'm right there with him, helping him watch for aerial hazards as we fly below 500 feet to id waterfowl.  We were so low, as we passed boaters on Lake Pepin, they would wave and we would wave back.  I also had to giggle, I kept having the soundtrack from Wings playing in my head the whole time.

Not too many ducks moving through, but we saw TONS of American white pelicans, double-crested cormorants, and ring-billed gulls.  It's the weirdest experience, I'm considered part of the flight crew for this and part of duties include pointing out potential hazards like towers, wires, and oh hey, five turkey vultures right overhead.  Our pilot is awesome and I'm looking forward to watching the the change in waterfowl along this stretch of river.  So, species we saw this week:

Trumpeter swans (about a dozen), Canada geese (lots), mallards (lots), pintail (few), green-winged teal (few), great blue herons (some), great egrets (flocks gathering for migration), bald eagles (overheard the pilot say, "We get out of our way for them, they don't get out of our way."), coot (a few), pelicans (tons), and cormorants (tons).

Making a Heron Out of a Sandhill

I had a fun ranger assignment today.  We periodically use heron decoys for some of our birding programs at the park.  We have two, but one went missing and a new one was purchased.

However, when the ranger went to purchase a new great blue heron, all that was in stock was a sandhill crane.  The ranger picked it up because we needed a second one.  If you look closely at the sandhill, you can see that it has a bit of a heron shape, right down to the crest feathers.  All that was done to alter the species of the decoy was that the bill was painted black, some white was added to the face, a red cap was put on and the whole body was gray.  I offered to try and paint it into a great blue heron.

I also had an ulterior motive.  If you look at the decoys side by side, you might notice that they have unusually large cloacal protuberances.  I'm willing to overlook this, however, your average sixth grader is not and sometimes the unneeded part leads to lots of giggling that can take away from program time.  I thought since I had the decoys in my possession, I might do some trimming.  Alas, my exacto knife was too small to cut it.  So I had to put in a maintenance request for a large blade.  I decided to be discreet and take it downstairs to maintenance.  As I explained what I wanted done and that it was "too hard" that led to uncontrollable giggling on maintenance's behalf.  Fortunately, they found a blade and both protuberances were swiftly and mercifully removed.

Considering all that I had to work with were three cans of spray paint (white, black and buttercup) plus a sharpie, the sandhill turned into a rather nice looking or at least somewhat identifiable great blue heron.  Even more impressive, I managed to avoid spray painting my park uniform.

Also, these should be good decoys now that the laugh factor has been removed.  I thought it was curious that the local store would only have sandhill crane decoys and not herons.  I think this particular store sells them more as lawn ornaments, however in some states, it is legal to hunt sandhills. Minnesota is not one of those states, so it is curious how they ended up here.

It's The Most Wonderful Time Of The Year

Blackpoll warbler chips outside my bathroom window. I look through the screen.  It chips and flies away as if to say, "You just got served!" I did?  I got served.  Holy crap, is it on?  According to Mike McDowell's blog, it's on. Fall migration has totally hit and from looking online, some of the hottest action is at Hawk Ridge.  Check out this photo of a peregrine falcon eating a sharp-shinned hawk on the wing.  Yeah, migration is on!

Yesterday, I was supposed to lead a bird walk at Coon Rapids Dam.  No one showed, so I took it as an opportunity to "rove."  We rangers will sometimes just walk around in different parts of our park and be there to chat with people.  Walking around with my uniform, spotting scope and camera, I'm basically a walking sign, "Come and talk to me!" People do.

I didn't get very far because I found a spot right on the bank of the low Mississippi River that was just chock full of birds. This cedar waxwing was surrounded by palm warblers, one Cape May warbler, yellow-rumped warblers, hundreds of robins, one Philadelphia vireo and a red-eyed vireo.  Behind me were gulls, herons and egrets so it was a great spot to point out birds.

I got this shot of a great egret and when I downloaded it noticed that there was also a drake mallard in the shot too--the drake is coming out of his eclipse plumage. His head is almost all green with that patch of brown. Ducks must be so relieved to be finished with their molt in the fall. I can't imagine what it must feel like to have thousands of pin feathers coming in at once.

I met a new birder Paul who was also taking photos. He said that he was relatively new to birding, but it's been awhile since I've met someone excited about geese. He took photos of them every chance he got--which is great. I think many birders overlook the "common" birds and he was focused on getting the best flight shots of them possible. He inspired me to take a few shots, I like getting photos of them squabbling.

The big treat for me were the sparrows. Check out Mr. Mutton Chops above--I love song sparrows, when you catch them in just the right angle, they have such a great pattern on their heads. Song sparrows are fun this time of year, they are in fresh plumage, the tee up nicely for photos and I LOVE listening to young song sparrows in a bush practicing their songs for next spring. They don't quite have it down and the sing over and over sound like sort of song sparrows.

I saw a group of four song sparrows as I was leaving. After I got a few shots, I continued the walk back to my car. I noticed something scurry like a mouse across the trail. Only it wasn't mouse shaped, it was bird shaped. "Lincoln's sparrow," I thought to myself. I set my scope up to where it had scrambled into the grasses and waited, knowing it would pop out again.

And it did. I love me some brown birds and a Lincoln's sparrow is always a great during migration. It has streaks like a song sparrow, although not as thick. They can even have a central breast spot like a song sparrow, but they don't quite have the mutton chops that the song sparrows have. Ah, what a great sparrow to find.

As I went up the trail to the parking lot, I apparently startled a tree. In fairness, it was dozing on the job so kind of had it coming.

Bioblitz Buntings and Prothonotary Warblers

Watch out! It's the world's angriest indigo bunting!

Last weekend's MN Bioblitz was great fun--if you don't know, a Bioblitz is an event where people try to document as many living species in a 24 hour period as they can: birds, fish, mammals, insects, plants, fungus, reptile--everything that is alive. I was sorry that I didn't get a chance to see some of the other non birding events, but the banding station ended up getting quite busy. I was so happy that Mark Newstrom volunteered his time to set up his nets so banding could be part o the day's activities.

We started with a morning bird walk around Crosby Park where we saw a ton of great birds, in particular, the above cedar waxwing (who is scratching his neck). Our small, but dedicated group on the walk was hoping for a prothonotary warbler...and we found a few. At first we heard what sounded to be two singing. I was anxious to try and get a photo since my only photo was the sad blue I got at the World Series of Bird last year. We listened to try and determine where the bird was, we were in a high traffic area and kept looking in the bushes. There were several birds perched and singin on the wire, one looked like a really bright goldfinch and then I realized...that was where the song was coming from. I aimed my scope and...

...Holy Crap! There's a male prothonotary warbler singing...out in the open...in perfect sun! Apparently, this guy did not get the memo that warblers are to skulk and hide and unlike children, they should be heard and most certainly not seen. He was so accommodating, I was able to get a video:

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oUqJOKEj_-M[/youtube]

He's just one of the coolest warblers ever! Bright gold in front, delicate sky blue wings in the back! Did you notice that in the video he was kind enough to show both sides? Again, he must not be part of the official warbler union.

And the beauty did not end there, we ended up getting three male indigo buntings in the nets! Crosby Park is just loaded with buntings, they like to nest on the edge of woodlands and their active song is noticeable. I'm quite certain that one of the tree birds we got in was the bird that I digiscoped the other day at Crosby. One of the nets was near his territory and after we captured the buntings, we didn't hear him sing for awhile. He had to preen that greasy human touch off of his feathers.

What a treat to be able to show a kid an indigo bunting up close. My favorite part is when it's time to let the bird go. If a kid is nearby, I look down and ask, "You want to release it?"

Most kids say yes and all get a combination of glee and anxiousness in their face. When I placed the above male in that little girl's hands she gasped, "Oh! He's so soft!"

Take that, nature deficit disorder!

Another thing that is fun to do with kids (and frankly, adults) is when a larger bird comes in (like the above female cowbird) and put them up to their ears so they can hear the bird's heartbeat--it sounds like a cat purring. What a great way to open the conversation up to talk about a bird's metabolism and how much they eat and how they can survive in various temperatures.

This cowbird hit the net the same time a female common yellowthroat did. I wondered if the cowbird had been about to make her move to the yellowthroat nest and deposit an egg. Mark blew on her feathers near her vent:

You could see the area was swollen and an egg beneath her transparent skin. Normally, when banding birds during nesting season, we release them near where they were trapped so they can go right back to the nest, but in the cowbird's case, we let her go in the opposite direction.

As we were about to wind up our banding station, we had three redstarts hit the nets. At first, we though we had two males (that's a male above) and one female. Males are kind of like mini orioles--small and orange black. Females are more grey and yellow.

The bird that I took out of the net and thought was female, ended up being a second year male. It takes redstarts two years to get their black and orange plumage. This bird was in transition. Still mostly in his immature plumage, but his tail feathers were already showing black. It was fun to show kids how you can sometimes get a very good idea of how old a bird is in hand.

I have to say that I have new respect for Crosby Park--even though it's in a very urban area, lots of great birds are there. We also heard both yellow-billed and black-billed cuckoos, broad-winged hawks, saw a beaver, someone else reported a river otter. It's a great place that I'll have to visit more often.

Ranger River Walks

We have a new activity we're offering this summer at the Mississippi National River and Recreation Area called Ranger River Walks.  We meet at different parts of our park and show whoever is there around.  There's an asterisk next to the list of parks that denotes if it's a specific birding ranger walk, but if I'm leading any of them, they will automatically be a birding walk, I can't help it.  I did one yesterday at Lock and Dam 1 to see the peregrine nest box (above).  Unfortunately, the nest failed, but the adults are still hanging out.

The lock and dam is a fun place for some light birding anyway.  There are usually herons and waterfowl hanging out right under the platform and it's fun to look right down on them, it's your chance to see those great long heron toes.  The dam is a great spot for them to go fishing, you'll also see cormorants hanging out around the dame too.

This poor black-crowned night-heron was trying to fish but the great blue herons kept chasing him off.  It finally found a spot around some rocks to fish in peace, but just another fun bird that you can find in our very urban park.

I think the next ranger walk I lead is on June 24 at Minnehaha Falls if you would like to come along.  Maybe we'll find a merlin, they've been around there in the past.

After the Ranger Walk, I headed over to Crosby Park to help get things ready for the bird banding that we'll do this Saturday at the BioBlitz.  There were indigo buntings all over the place, if you've never seen one or had a good look at one, you'll get it this weekend if you show up.  Above is the same bird that I got the video of yesterday.

While I was there at about noon, I head some barred owls hooting and a black-billed cuckoo.  I doubt we'll get those in the nets, but still there are some great birds to be found in that park.

And I leave you with a video of that peregrine falcon preening:

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SXVj6TuEXR8[/youtube]

The Upcoming Minnesota Bioblitz

This year's Minnesota Bioblitz is at my National Park (The Mississippi National River and Recreation Area) in the Crosby Farm Park area. The Bioblitz is a 24-hour survey where the public can help scientists find different plants and animals.  The event is coordinated by the University of Minnesota Bell Museum of Natural History, is free (except for the river boat ride)  and open to the public. Here is the current schedule of events--All events are free of change and open to the public until otherwise noted:

Friday, June 12 5 p.m. BioBlitz Kick Off 8:30 p.m. Night Creatures Ramble 9:30 p.m. Insect Survey*

Saturday, June 13 6 to 8 a.m. Bird Hike (I will be leading this) 8:30 to10 a.m. Bird Cruise/Bird Survey on the Jonathan Padelford. Tickets are $15; regist ration is required. 8 to 11 a.m. Bird Banding (led by Mark Newstrom & I'll help) 8 to 9 a.m. Mammal/”Herp” Survey* 9 to 10 a.m. Floodplain Forest Foray 10:30 a.m. Fun with Fish—Electro-fishing Demonstration* 10 to 11 a.m. Disappearing Waterfall Walk 10:30 a.m. Fun with Fish—Electro-fishing Demonstration* 11 a.m. to noon Mussel Madness

*  These programs include special activities for children involved in the  National Park Service’s Junior Ranger program.

Every year BioBlitz attracts hundreds of families and scientists from around the state who use sonar detectors, bug lights, live traps and laptops to count and chronicle an area’s floral and fauna. Volunteers of all ages work alongside biologists to collect plants and insects and live-trap animals, which are identified before being released back into the wild. Collection stations and inventory “leader boards” will be set up inside the Padelford which will be docked at Crosby Farm Park, the BioBliz base-camp.

This year’s BioBlitz will feature a Saturday morning birding cruise aboard the Padelford as it makes its way to dock at base-camp. The cruise leaves St. Paul’s Harriet Island at 8:30 a.m. and arrives at Crosby Farm Park two hours later. Tickets are $15 and shuttle service is included, click here to make reservations.

I noticed Padelford offers a Sunset Dinner Cruise and a Margaritas on the Mississippi Cruise...maybe we should do that for a Birds and Beers this summer?

The Bioblitz should be a great time, Mark and I scouted the park for net locations and I think we saw at least six male indigo bunting on different territories and heard broad-winged hawks calling.  This is also the park where I suspect a pileated woodpecker is nesting.