Point Pleasant 1/18--Greater Scaup, Red-necked Grebe

It was so cold that this Ring-billed Gull
warmed his feet on the hood of our car
Photo: Shari Zirlin

I must not have been paying close enough attention to the weather reports, or else I saw what I wanted to see, but it was a lot colder, and with the unexpected wind, a lot more uncomfortable to be birding by the water than I expected it to be. We did, however, see some cool birds.

We started the day off mid-morning at Lake of the Lilies where there was a good selection of water fowl--Lesser Scaup, Ruddy Ducks, Mallards and geese primarily, with one American Coot in the mix.  A few minutes away on Little Silver Lake we found more of the same with Buffleheads, Hooded Mergansers and finally a couple of scaup with rounder heads and cleaner sides that we felt comfortable calling as Greater Scaup. A Horned Grebe was in with the scaup.

Over at the inlet I had a few birds on the wish list. The inlet was just full of Common Loons, affording close ups looks at the hounds-tooth pattern on their backs and a few Red-breasted Mergansers were scattered about. The wind was really blowing hard so the wind chill was a lot colder than the mid-30's it read on the car thermometer. I didn't want to go out on the jetty in that kind of wind, so I suggested we bird from the boardwalk, where the buildings provided something of a wind break for us. Lots of gulls on the beach but picking thoroughly through them brought up no Iceland Gulls, a disappointment. There were 3 Black-bellied Plovers in with the gulls, and hunched around some driftwood, about 15 Dunlins.

I wanted to see what was closer in shore and unfortunately to see that I had to walk down to the high tide line. At first there was no wind and I was happy to see about a dozen Long-tailed Ducks in the surf. Shari & our friend Joan followed me down and as we scoped the ocean we found a target bird, a very obvious Red-necked Grebe. It looked at first somewhat like a loon--just as Peterson describes it, but with its long yellow bill and dark neck it was soon apparent that we had this much sought after (at least by me) grebe. Another Horned Grebe was in with the loons, causing some brief confusion, but it actually confirmed our sighting seeing how short the bill was in comparison to the other grebe as well as the different facial pattern.

And that was enough of the ocean for one winter day.