A gull and a loon

Today Ray and I walked along the South Saskatchewan River in Saskatoon looking for a Red-throated Loon.  And we found it.

It has a beautiful red spot on its throat which I saw but wasn't quick enough with the camera.  Right after I took this photo the loon dived under the water.  We glimpsed it again about half an hour later but I didn't have another photo opportunity.

We did find a more cooperative bird, however, in this gull. 

I find the hardest birds to identify are small sandpipers and hawks, but gulls are not far behind.  After studying bird guides extensively I've decided this is our most common gull, the Ring-billed, but it is a first year bird, just entering his first winter. I based this on its black bill with pink at the base, its mottled brown and white plumage, and the grey feathers just beginning on its back.  While disappointed that it was not something new and exotic, it is still satisfying to give this guy a name.

It was really cold for October 2 but still beautiful, and the walk was great.

New Bird

Last week I went for a short walk in Estevan, a city five or six hours from our farm but still in Saskatchewan.  I saw a lot of the same birds we see here:  Grey Catbirds, Chipping Sparrows, American Robins...

But then I saw this.

Yellow-throated Vireo is my conclusion, based on the amount and arrangement of yellow and white.  

It decided not to be found when I returned with Ray a while later.  Once again our life lists have diverged.  This is getting complicated.

Drama in the back yard

I never see nests.  Or almost never.  I generally have no trouble seeing them in the winter.  Yesterday, however, I was following the song of a Yellow Warbler when the small yellow bird

 landed on its nest. 

 (A nest made mostly of baler twine which is a problem for which I have no solution.  Why?  Because I have three times found dead birds with their feet caught in twine in the nest. They get caught and can't break free.)

I have birding goals.  My main goal is to learn to recognize birds by their song.  My secondary goal is to be able to find birds that are hiding in the trees.  Therefore following the song of this warbler was aiding me in both goals.  A possible third goal is less possible I fear.  It would be to remove cowbird eggs from nests of much smaller birds.

This male Brown-headed Cowbird perched on the top of one of the highest trees in our yard (a dead poplar, sigh) where I believe it was looking for likely nests for its mate to lay her eggs.  A favourite choice are Yellow Warblers.  (A much tinier bird, sigh). When the much larger cowbird egg hatches, the much larger cowbird baby demands the most food and runs its adopted parents ragged feeding it.  Sometimes the big baby will push the littler babies out of the nest.  I would like to remove these foreign eggs from nests but since I only see nests in the winter it is too late.  Until now.  Except that this nest is many feet over my head and in a lilac bush too insubstantial to lean a ladder against.  And sure as shooting, that cowbird saw the same nest I saw.  Sigh.

One last Yellow Warbler photo because Yellow Warblers are one of the cutest birds God made.

This bird is a male.  The one in the first photo is a female.

Varied Thrush and other interesting migrants

This is a beautiful bird.  Unfortunately I neither saw it nor took the photo, but because the bird was seen about ten feet from my house and the photo was taken with my camera I feel comfortable about posting the picture here.  I just can't add it to my life list.

It is, of course, a Varied Thrush.  A bird that according to our bird book isn't supposed to be any closer to Lucky Lake than the Rocky Mountains.

Birds I did see yesterday include a flock of Lapland Longspurs which are just passing through on their way to their nesting grounds in the Arctic.  Generally Longspurs crouch in the grass and practically disappear from view.  I noticed these because some of them chose to sit on a fence wire.

Others dropped to the ground close to the wire where the ground had been worked.  They were only twenty feet or so from my car so I was able to see them.  Further back they seemed to fade into the background.

The female hides even better with her muted colours.
While I watched, about thirty of the birds flew up into the air at the same time and landed again further away.

This one stayed though, along with a few others.

My other bird of the day were these two American Golden-Plovers.  Or that's what I'll call them till someone tells me differently.

The only thing making me uncertain is the white on the underside of the bird on the right. Here are a couple more photos showing different views of the same birds.

Click on photos to make them larger.