Wednesday, December 29, 2010

At last, some birds!

I've been seeing a lot of Red-tailed Hawks, American Kestrels, Red-shouldered Hawks, and possibly even a Rough-legged Hawk (but I didn't get a good enough view to call it a lifer), and today I went down to the Duck Pond near PSU and saw some nice ducks:a cute little female Ruddy Duck, complete with perky stiff tail, and

and a beautiful female Redhead. There is some back-and-forth on the listserv today about whether this is a Redhead or a Scaup -- I think the consensus is Redhead. Any other offers?

I'm also super pumped about three upcoming events:
1. Flying to Boston tomorrow for New Year's with AB and some of her old friends.
2. My bff Gretchen is moving back to State College next month!
3. I'm participating in the Christmas Bird Count for Bald Eagle State Park on Sunday! (that means a quick turnaround on the Boston trip)
So much fun, so little time!

Happy New Year, everyone!

4 comments:

John B. said...

That doesn't look like a scaup to me. In addition to the head shape, I would expect a female scaup to have more white around the base of its bill. Maybe you could go back and look for the Rough-legged Hawk again – they tend to settle in a location for the winter if they find good hunting.

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

dguzman said...

John, that's what I said on the listserv, about the lack of white at the base of the bill. The RLHA was around the same location for about two weeks, but it's not been seen for the last couple of days. I'm hoping to see him again.

Dr. MVM said...

Have fun you.

RG said...

RedHead. You don't have too many there - I think that is about as far east as they are - common out here in the west. Very pretty picture.

HAppy New Year ... one birdy, two birdy, ....