Crosby Park Ranger Work

One of the things we get to do at my park as a ranger is "roving." Essentially, we pick a part of the park and rove around to answer questions or interpret wildlife.  It reminds me a bit of doing improv work-- you rely on the audience to guide where the sketch will go.  In this case, you walk into to a park and use whatever is on hand as your method of interacting with the public.

On Sunday it was my turn to rove and I chose Crosby Park which is great during warbler migration as it's right on the Mississippi River and anything is possible.  There were some great birds there and while I was taking a photo of this song sparrow, I heard a sora.  Tons of birds were recent arrivals like great-crested flycatchers and yellow warblers.  I also noted a pair of broad-winged hawks setting up territory, which is fun because when we do Big River Journey, I always see broad-wings soaring over the park from the boat on the river.

The best part of my morning was when I hung out at this shelter--a great interpretive prop presented itself.  It's at a busy intersection of the trails in Crosby--it's actually not a bad spot to sit and listen for warblers.  But as soon as I approached, movement caught my attention...and it wasn't a bird.  Can you make out an animal in the above photo?  If you can't, don't worry, it's hard to see.  But check out that big hole in the trunk of the tree, just above the shelter roof.  It's a raccoon.  When I arrived, all you could see was the body rising up moving around, I think the raccoon was grooming itself.  When people would stop and ask what I was looking at, I'd set my scope on the hole and pish very loudly like I was targeting a huge bird.

The large raccoon leaned its head back as if to say, "Yeah, lady, what do you want, I've got things going on in here." It was the perfect place to camp out and interpret.  And a perfect place for a raccoon.  Nice secluded tree with a big comfy hole.  Enough natural food and litter to keep a raccoon fat and sassy.

As with birds, the raccoon soon grew tired of my pishing sounds and eventually ignored them, but it was fun while it lasted.  I showed Non Birding Bill the photos and he agreed they were cute but liked this raccoon hole photo series better.  In particular, this photo.

As I continued on, I heard a pair of robins raising a HUGE fuss.  Something was in their territory and they weren't happy.  It was a serious alarm sound but not the aerial predator sound.  There was a clump of leaves and I did my best to scan, as best as I could make out, a red squirrel (see the eye and the whiskers in the center of the photo) had found their nest and was eating their eggs.  They did not make it easy for the squirrel, and smacked into it several times with their body.  Fortunately, it's very early in the nesting season, they will find a better nest location and rebuild.  What was interesting was that I heard a new sound made by robins in alarm--bill snapping!  I always though only owls did that, but robins do it too. As the robins were calling in agitation, it spurred the local house wren pair to sing on their territory below their nest.  Here's a sample:

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rs7Pn3mMa5M[/youtube]

I was missing a piece of one of my digiscoping adaptors so I had to hand hold my video camera up to my scope, but you can hear the wren and the robins in the background.

I love watching wrens sing, they do it with such gusto!

For such an urban St. Paul park, Crosby is great, we did the Bioblitz there last year and not only does it have nesting indigo buntings, but also prothonotary warblers.  I'm a bit concerned about the warbler season.  The leaves are out in full force now and warblers love to hide in the tops of trees, they are going to be hard to find this spring!  Ah well, it will be a good chance to practice birding by ear.

North Mississippi Rookery Still Visible

I had to take a local film crew to North Mississippi Regional Park again to see the heron rookerly.  Since leaf out is so early (this is the first time since I've lived in Minnesota that I have seen lilacs blooming in April) I was curious how much of the rookery was still visible.  Here's what it looked like a couple of weeks ago.

Some of the nests are still visible but most were quite hidden.  One of the trees had fallen over in the last week.  I'm not sure if it fell because it was dead and weak or if the local beaver had a hand (or should I say tooth) in it?  Fortunately it's early enough that there most likely only eggs in the nest and any heron that had a nest in that tree has time to start over.  Quite a few males were still flying in with sticks but almost every nest I looked at had serious incubation going on.

This heron stood up from her incubation and adjusted a few sticks and then she went through the motions of regurgitation.  I wondered if she had a recently hatched chick?  It's not out of the realm of possibility.  What's interesting is that I gave a program last week at the fabulous Coon Rapids Dam and my friend Michelle Cook who works there said that the herons there did not return to the rookery this year.  Since North Mississippi Regional Park's rookery is only about 7 river miles south of Coon Rapids Dam, I wondered if the herons were too tired to go further north?  Or maybe it's because some other birds have moved into the Coon Rapids Dam rookery in recent years?

There is some bridge work going on near this rookery and I know people have some concerns.  I doubt the bridge work is going to bother the herons.  This rookery is in close ear shot of Hwy 94--it's noisy already.  The birds seem to have a tolerance for noise.  There's also quite a bit of river traffic along the river there anyway.  So long as no one is climbing the trees, I think the birds will deal.  If not, they will probably end up back at Coon Rapids next year.

Speaking noise, one of the trees hosting some heron nests appears to be hosting a pair of yellow-shafted flickers too.  The male is on the left (with the black mustache) and the female is on the right.

The male flicker worked his way up his trunk and disappeared into a hole.  I wondered if he was excavating a nest cavity and soon got my answer:

He came out with a beakful of wood chips.  Hopefully it will be a successful nest and the pair will not be chased out by starlings.  Wow.  If the herons in that tree can put up with woodpecker hammering, I think they'll tolerate the Camden Bridge construction.

North Mississippi Park Heron Rookery

This is the week to check out the great blue heron rookery at North Mississippi Regional Park (or the one at Coon Rapids Dam too).  I headed out to the North Mississippi rookery yesterday to take a look, right now the nests are very visible--even without binoculars.

You can get a great view of all sorts of behavior including nest building as the herons are coming in from migration.  Some have been at this rookery for a few weeks already.

Quite a few of the herons were perched on or near a nest and not moving.  I read on Cornell's Birds of North America Online that like many migratory bird species, males arrive to the nesting grounds first and establish who is taking what nest.  From there, when not foraging for food, a male will spend all his time at the nest.  Perhaps these were males waiting for a female to court or hoping to prevent other males from stealing sticks for their nests.

A few herons were already incubating eggs.  These nests will either be way ahead of the game with chick rearing or have to start over in a few weeks.  We are heading out of an unusual March--no snow in the Twin Cities at all.  This is highly irregular, March is technically our snowiest month.  It's not out of the realm of possibility for us to get snow in April.  I'm loving the opportunity to bike on the trails a whole month early, but I'm not going to hold my breath and say that we are totally free of snow for the rest of the spring.  If we get a cold snap, these already incubating herons may risk losing young and have to start over.  But that's what birds do.

So, take a moment to head to one of our heron rookeries before the leaves are out.  You can always somewhat see the nests at North Mississippi Regional Park and Coon Rapids Dam but it's ten times easier to point them to kids before the leaves are out.  If this 70 degree weather keeps up, that could be rather soon...aw man, that means that leaves will be well out when warblers get here in May.  That's going to make warbler watching a challenge.

UPDATE 2011: This heron rookery was destroyed by a tornado that ripped through Minneapolis in May, 2011.  All the nests were destroyed.  The birds did renest, some up river at Coon Rapids Dam and others at a new site at the Riverside Power Plant near the Head of Navigation on the Mississippi River. Most of the young did not survive, but the few that were rescued were eventually released later in the summer.

Judging Jr. Duck Stamp Entries

Tuesday was one of the coolest days of my life as a birder and park ranger!  I was one of the judges for the Minnesota Jr. Duck Stamp competition.  This wasn't the final judging for the Jr. Duck Stamp, our Best In Show entry is entered into the final round and I think it stands an excellent chance of winning.  Here's a snippet of walking through the Kindergarten and 3rd grade entries: [youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E-8NyhLJ5Ts[/youtube]

What an honor to be part of the panel and to take a look at all the hard work kids from Kindergarten to 12th grade created.  The other judges included artists like Joe Hautman and wildlife folks like Peg Callahan of the Wildlife Science Center.

Kindergarten thru 3rd grade was fantastic, so much potential with artwork and such interesting interpretation of key waterfowl field marks.  At first glance, some of the pictures looked wildly inaccurate, like a bufflehead with a rainbow of colors on its head.  But then you realized that the young artist was trying to communicate the iridescence that can be seen when the sun hits the male's plumage in the right way.  Other pictures had a story you could tell was working its way through a kids brain.  One of my favorites had what looked like a female wood duck flying through the woods and then you noticed a cavity drawn in a tree with two sinister red eyes looking out--what was that all about?  What did that kid imagine was staring out from that cavity?  Was the wood duck flying through a haunted wood?  I don't know, but I loved it.

Our mission was to judge the different age groups: Kindergarten through 3rd grade, 4th thru 6th grade, 7th thru 9th grade and then 1oth thru 12th.  For one group, they would give us 10 poker chips and we placed a chip on the picture we wanted to stay in (no picture could have more than one chip) and we'd get to narrow down our favorites--leaving 50.  After that, all of use would get five chipa, narrowing it down further.  This would go on until we narrowed it down to five illustrations.  We could also use field guides to confirm id.  Since I have six different field guides on my iTouch, I kept that with me.

Then we five judges would be shown the final five images one at a time.  We were given numbers and we had to hold up the number we'd like to score each image.  If we had any ties, we'd have to re-score.  We only had a few ties and they were solved quickly.

The challenge I had was picking through photos that actually fell into the rules of the competition and weren't just a creative interpretation.  As much as I loved the cubism seen in the black duck it, I had to keep in mind, which of the finalists showed habitat?  It was nerve wracking.  Since the judging was public, we did have some spectators.  Peg and I couldn't help but notice that one little girl was doing some serious hand wringing while we studied the pictures.  We had to turn our backs so as not to be influenced by all her hopes, fortunately she placed well in the competition.

After we picked our favorite pictures, we had to decide on a Best in Show from all the first place winners and that one is entered in the National Jr. Duck Stamp contest.  I don't know if Best in Show has been announced on the website, so I don't want to post it yet.  But the person who won best in show was there and got to witness the judging.  All of the finalists will be up at the Science Museum on April 23 and there will be all different kinds of programs going on.  I'll be doing a program on tools birds have for surviving in a marsh habitat but there will be artists giving tips on creating waterfowl art.  I did get a video of the winner of the K-3rd grade division:

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

Don't you just want to eat him with a spoon?

Judging The Jr. Duck Stamp

Tuesday morning I'm heading over to the Burnsville Civic Center as a judge for the Junior Duck Stamp Contest.  I had grand schemes of Twittering during the event, but I was reading over my rules as a judge and there will be no Twittering!  Check them out:

• Must have cell phones off throughout the judging process

• Only the designated state coordinator & volunteers may touch the art work at anytime

• No food or drink in the area for the judging

• Maintain quiet while judging is taking place

• There should be no comments about the art work; no pointing to a particular piece, no naming of the artist, etc. throughout the judging process

• The public is welcomed to attend. In previous years we have had students, parents, teachers, & grandparents attend. They are invited to the judging floor to look at the art prior to the judging of each grade category.

• When judges are not judging, they should be in the breakout room or sitting in designated area

From there all the judges are given poker chips and we look at the art and place poker chips next to artwork we want to keep in the show and whittle the group down and then do some scoring.  I'm so excited to this tomorrow.  I'm excited to be a judge (in a park ranger capacity), I'm excited to see what kids have come up with, I'm excited to just be part of the process.

This is open to the public, but I realize it's on a Tuesday and most people have to work.  But if you have some free time, do come to the Burnsville Civic Center to check it out.  There will be a second event with the winners at the Science Museum on April 23.

Mississippi Flooding In St Paul, MN

It's an oddly exciting day at the National Park I work for (Mississippi National River and Recreation Area)--the river is flooding and it's odd to be excited by the flood and watch what the water will do.  Since our visitor center is based in the Science Museum lobbby, we're right on the Mississippi River in St. Paul, MN.  We have an awesome view. That's a giant tree working it's way down towards Raspberry Island (which is mostly submerged at this point).

St. Paul has closed Sheperd Rd. from behind the museum all the way to Hwy 61 in preparation for the flood.  One of the officers I spoke with said parts were already under water.  I spent a majority of Sunday afternoon roving and interpreting the flooding--what ranger wouldn't rather be outdoors on a sunny day?  The river is in flood stage at 14 feet and when I was at the river it was at 16.4 feet.  It's expected to crest on Wednesday at 19.5 feet!

Across the way, Harriet Island was flooding.  The police were trying to clear people off of it, but would have a better shot at herding cats.  As soon as they would get one group to move on, 12 more people would walk in from the other side.  Once church let out, the Harried flooded with people and the police seemed to give up.  I have a feeling that tonight some serious barricades will go up and Harriet Island will be off limits for real tomorrow.

The Padleford boats are still docked at Harriet but barges have been placed in front of them to prevent debris from damaging them.  If you watched the water up against the barges you could really get an idea of how strong the current was flowing.  Here's a video I digiscoped:

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LJ-E8oOzQOA[/youtube]

Did you hear the house finch singing on territory in the background?  Here he is:

He was duking it out with another male for space in this tree outside the museum--prime real estate in downtown St. Paul and relatively safe from flooding...I wonder if the river will affect some of our early nesters like wood ducks, mallards and Canada geese?

If you want to watch some of the flooding, there's a great view from the Science Museum and be sure to visit us at the Mississippi River Visitor Center in the lobby.  To watch the predictions for the crest, check out NOAA's website.

Lilydale Christmas Bird Count

Last Saturday I helped out with the St. Paul Christmas Bird Count. I love the above photo, that's two of our team members standing on the frozen Mississippi River counting ducks with the downtown St. Paul skyline behind them. My original intent was to just be part of a team, but St. Paul Audubon needed someone to lead the count and I thought it would be fun to do a section that was part of the National Park that I work for. We mainly worked the Lilydale Park section. I had great volunteers and it was a treat to meet some new local birders. It was an easy going group and I am so grateful to John who introduced me to Jerabek's Bakery (my new favorite bakery and a must visit if you are in St. Paul). I requested that we meet before dawn at 6:30am and everyone did. We tried to do an owl survey and got completely skunked. I played calls for saw-whets, eastern screech, barred, and great horned (keep that in mind for later in this post). However, even though we were nooged on owls, we were rewarded with excellent views of river otters rolling around in an open patch of water on Pickerel Lake--bonus! It was too dark for photos, but man what cool mammals to watching through the scope in the dark (thank you Swarovski for that most excellent light gathering ability).

Lilydale is an interesting little park in our metro area and one that I'm loving more and more. For one thing, you can get permits to go fossil hunting there--how cool is my town? You can go fossil hunting in the Twin Cities metro area! The bluffs at Lilydale are chock full of St Paul brickyard history as well as geologic history. You can see three distinct layers of rock from when this used to be part of an ocean: sandstone, limestone and shale. Many come to look for the fossils of ancient sea life in the shale and limestone. Water trickles through and creates lovely ice falls which attracts a few climbers in winter. We were lucky to get a day for our count that had temperatures in the teens and twenties. When we stood still it felt chilly, but as we climbed the hill in Lilydale, we stayed warm.

Robins were our most common species (if you don't count the ginormous flock we tallied in downtown St Paul). This interesting Robin was found in a yard by one of my team members--it's lacking pigment in some of its feathers. It's not leucisitic--the colors are not washed out, it's just some of the feathers are white. Scientifically, something cannot be a partial albino--it's one or the other, there is no in between. There are a lot of names tossed around out there, but no one has come up with an easy term to call a bird with patches of pure white, other than to say that the bird lacks pigment in some feathers.

Here is the front of the robin--you can see it was lacking some pigment on its breast feathers as well.

We did see quite a few red-tailed hawks like the above immature bird. I was surprised that we did not get any Cooper's hawks, I usually see one at Lilydale, but they remained hidden. This bird was actively hunting the field near the boat launch off of Shepherd Road.

One of our goals was to get the down St. Paul peregrines included on our count. I chuckled as I scanned a peregrine box on the Landmark Center that had a red-tailed hawk perched on it.

We did eventually find some peregrines, so I was happy we kept up that goal.

While we were out documenting as many bird species as we could, we were surprised to find a muskrat out and about on the ice. This little mammal should be tucked away in a little mound in a marsh, sleeping away the winter. This one was on ice right in downtown St Paul, not near too many places for a muskrat den.

Just as I was thinking, "Wow, that's an easy target for an eagle," one showed up. The blue arrow is the muskrat, the red arrow is a bald eagle. Can you see the eagle's landing gear down? The muskrat saw the eagle and smartly slid into the water.

The bald eagle landed on the ice and watched the edge where the muskrat dove into the Mississippi River. Then a moment later--the muskrat popped back up on the ice. The eagle stared, almost as if assessing the situation. The muskrat behaved as though the eagle was not there. The watched intently. I wondered if it realized that if it spread its wings and went for the muskrat, that it would easily see the predator and have time to dive back into the river. The muskrat trundled along, turned and suddenly seemed to notice the eagle. It hopped a little (almost as if it said, "DOH!") and plopped again into the river and hightailed it towards a separate piece of ice. The eagle remained on the ice for quite some time. So long, that we had to leave to count other birds.

After we did Lilydale Park and downtown St. Paul, some of my group went home (understandable, it was a long day). The remaining group went out to cruise the neighborhoods for bird feeders and a few species we missed at the park--like turkeys. We found a huge flock of 12 marauding a rather upscale neighborhood. By the end of the afternoon, I looked at the time, I only had about an hour before I had to work an evening shift at the park service and the light was fast fading. We made one more pass at the park.

We passed some trees that I thought looked good for saw-whet owls. A cedar and a pine. I left my scope in the trunk and said, "That will guarantee we'll see something good." We walked underneath the trees and there was quite a bit of small owl poop. I was convinced if we stared at the cedar long enough, a saw-whet owl would materialize. Suddenly, we heard a flock of very angry chickadees. I looked in the direction of the sound...I saw a lone cedar tree. "That's where the saw-whet is, let's go," I said.

We crossed the street and approached the tree surrounded by alarmed chickadees. We were within about 30 feet of the cedar and a medium sized owl flushed from the cedar. I saw distinct buff panels on the wings and realized instantly what we flushed--a long-eared owl. It perched in some thick branches nearby, I got a quick look at the slender bird and it flew further away. DOH!

I wasn't expecting a long-eared. If I had, I would have approached that cedar in a different way, they are so cagey. We looked at the base of the cedar it was perched in and found much larger poop marks and a fresh pellet. I have Tuesday off, I might head back to Lilydale and see if I can get it in the scope and take a photo.

All and all, it was a great day. I was lucky to have such a great group to count birds with and I appreciated all of their help. One was even a fellow beekeeper--loved to meet someone else working the hives.

Harlequin Duck Again At Point Douglas

Winter got a tad aggressive last week. It's been weird, we had snow in early October, so I was prepared for six months of cold and snow. Then it got strangely warm for the rest of October and November and thought, "Terrific, maybe winter won't be so bad!"

Then out of nowhere, we went from 40 degree weather to below zero and single digits in one night--no build up, just blammo: booger freezing cold. On the upside, all the area lakes froze up in a hurry making places where water stays open popular with the remaining waterfowl. One particular hot spot this time of year is Douglas Point Park. This is where the Mississippi River meets with the St. Croix River on the Minnesota and Wisconsin border. I love it for a couple of reasons. One--it's in the boundaries of the National Park I work for and two--it's a hop, skip and a jump away from Carpenter Nature Center. The water here stays open and it corrals some of the waterfowl. I headed out there on Friday.

When I arrived, there was still a bit of a mist on the river and some of the Canada geese were covered in frost on the back. See the guy towards the bottom of the photo just covered in frosty white on the back? I always do wonder about ducks and geese in cold water. Yeah, I get that feathers are a terrific insulator and that birds have a different circulatory system and metabolism than humans so they handle cold in a way that I simply cannot understand--but damn, thats incredible to witness.

The mix was mostly Canada geese and goldeneye. The goldeneye crack me up, as soon as they realize a scope is on them, they dive or take off. I love this shot above of Canada geese and mallards and one lone lurking male common goldeneye coming up after diving under. Isn't he just a little Mr. Lurky McLurk Lurk!

Goldeneyes are just awesome little diving ducks. We'd seen a ton of them on our waterfowl surveys this fall. It was a treat just to hang out and watch a big section of waterfowl and not have to worry about counting them or identifying them in a hurry. But I had plenty of time scan and got a kick out what I found:

Like the stealthy pintail male behind the Canada goose in the upper right hand corner. It's fun to find a big stretch of waterfowl which on the surface look like a ton of Canada geese only to scan and find a few different guys mixed in.

But the big excitement of the day was the above male harlequin duck that was floating around the area--even the Canada geese seem to look like, "What the duck is that??"

This duck is exciting on several levels. Number one: it's a cool looking duck--a male in full on adult plumage. When I tell my non birding friends about this exciting bird, I say, "It's blue and white duck!" They seem to understand. As a matter of fact, I'm typing this blog entry backstage during our Golden Girls Christmas Carol and the other actors agree that he is very, very sweet.

The second thing that makes this a cool bird is that a male harlequin duck, is not even supposed to be here any time of year and one has been spending the last three winters at this spot--this is quite possibly the same bird. If it is, I got a photo of him last winter.

Just because the water stays open doesn't mean this is the safest place there is. Bald eagles patrol this spot regularly and both adults and immature eagles take pot shots at the waterfowl. I digiscoped the above bird actively hunting and it was zeroing in on some goldeneye. I've not seen an eagle take a dive at the harlequin. I wonder if Minnesota and Wisconsin eagles think blue ducks "just aren't right" and avoid diving for it? Nah, I've seen them eat dead chickens mixed in with chicken manure, I don't think their standards are that high. Must be one evasive harlequin duck.

For some reason, this photo reminds me of a Huey Lewis and the News album cover. There were quite a few trumpeters mixed in with all the other waterfowl. It was fun to hear their trumpet calls rise above the over a thousand or so Canada geese. Since this spot was part of the Mississippi National River and Recreation Area, I asked my boss if I could work some of the day today at Point Douglas to help people watch the waterfowl. He bought it or...I should say, he agreed that it would be a great idea. I thought I would interact with mostly with birders from Minnesota and Wisconsin, but a vast majority of the people I spoke to just happened to be driving along the river and stopping for photos of the swans, completely unaware of the harlequin duck or other waterfowl. The harlequin didn't show up to Point Douglas while I was there in the morning, but there are still quite a few open spots around Prescott, WI. As the ice closes in further, people should have a better chance of seeing him this winter.

Word spread from some other birders that a long-tailed duck was seen along the Mississippi River in South St Paul on the corners of Grand Avenue and Hardman so on my way back to the visitor center, I stopped by to look for it. There were quite a few common mergansers working the shrinking patches of open water.

Sure enough, you could see it--she's the bird laying flat on the water. The other two are male common mergansers.

She's the opposite of the male harlequin, this is a female long-tailed duck. Still cool to see a rare bird, but not as striking as the male. This is a bird that I have a tough time convincing my non birding friends is a cool find. Word spread on the birding trail that a white-winged scoter was seen here earlier in the morning. I wanted to walk along the trail and look for it, but I had to get back to the visitor center--all in all, not a bad weekend for waterfowl.

Waterfowl Sampling

A sample of waterfowl at Point Douglas right now.

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.