A couple weeks back my brother and I birded two bays in two days,and I bragged about it. As it turned out, you only got two birds from one bay (the scoter and the tern). That hardly seems fair. So I’ll make it up to you. :)
Would one bird in two bays do?
In bay number one (Mission Bay, San Diego) we found this bird still wearing his winter outerwear. But not for long. He’s about to do a complete molt during the next two weeks. When they do that they’re grounded-- or watered in this case—because as the saying goes (which I made up): “You can’t fly without feathers.” So he’d found a nice safe place to change clothes. And change he did.
Distinguishing Marks in Winter: Dreary. Boring. Gray. White cheek and throat. Big straight beak. Blurry white spot in front of very red eyes. (I’ve had that, have you?)
Click to see blurry mark and red eyes :)
Distinguishing Marks During Molt: Ugly, ugly.
But remember there’s still another bay…I found him again (well not the same exact bird of course) two weeks later on Chesapeake Bay. Nearly molted and ready for takeoff, this handsome version looked days away from winging off to Canada for breeding season. He let me take his picture all dressed up. :)
Distinguishing Marks: a hard-to-believe-it’s-the-same-species, fancy gold plume. Same beak though. :)
Boring Fact: He's part of a family famous for courtship rituals. They’re monogamous so before running off together they want to get to know each other a little—like whether he leaves the toilet seat up or not, so to speak. I guess the real show is on the breeding grounds, but here’s some early courtship behavior I caught on camera. Sad it didn’t work out for the young couple though.
As seen on YouTube. :) Click the YouTube symbol to Check out my new channel.
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