Brig 11/29--American White Pelican

American White Pelican with Double-crested Cormorants

I finally found the American White Pelican at Brig today. You'd think with a bird this big it wouldn't be hard to see but the impoundments are large and if a big bird is way on the other side and you don't know the precise location it can be...difficult as 3 previous fruitless trips proved. Today my strategy was to go just go for the bird without spending (wasting) time counting ducks along the way. I gleaned from eBird that Goose Marker 15 was the spot to scan from, which is 3/4 of the way around the drive, so I plunked myself down there and scoped out the far corner where I could see a flock of big white birds, which I assumed, correctly, were Tundra Swans. Just as I was getting discouraged that that was all they were, the pelican loomed large in my eyepiece. I was lucky. Most reports said the bird was resting, which meant that it's beak was tucked in and it was identified purely by size, a trick at that distance. But I clearly saw the beak and when the pelican spread its wings, the black edges of the primaries. I was even able to get digiscope some documentary photos. I must have really wanted this bird because normally I wouldn't expend that much effort to find one. 

Impressive

I pointed the bird out to a couple of birders who were passing by. One guy asked me if I'd seen the pelican and when I replied in the affirmative, he asked me "How many?" 

"How many? How many do you want!" 

So now that I'd gotten the target bird out of the way and on the year list (a pathetic exercise this pandemic year but old habits die hard), I could actually do some birding. I parked at Jen's Trail and walked it then hiked the rest of the upland trail to the exit, took the old rail bed trail and hiked over to the Gull Pond. With the return trip it was a walk of just under 4 miles. I didn't find anything special, but I didn't expect to. If I expected to find a special bird, it wouldn't be special, would it? Like the Red Crossbills which made a brief appearance on Jen's Trail about an hour after I was there, seen by a couple of birding acquaintances of mine that I saw when I returned to my car. Figures. 

Now that I had found the target bird and had my walk in, I could count ducks, so I did a second loop and found all the expected species plus the infrequently reported Canvasbacks, which I had overlooked when I was scoping the pelican and swans. Another birder acquaintance of mine told me to look for them there. They were mixed in with a huge flock of ducks from which I was able to pick out one wigeon with the help of my friends. The rest of the flock, distant and in silhouette in the sun, could have been listed as "duck, sp. 500" but that wouldn't be very helpful, would it? 

The list for the day--decent, but with some big gaps of common species:

48 species

Snow Goose  500

Canada Goose  225

Mute Swan  3

Tundra Swan  20

Northern Shoveler  35

Gadwall  2

American Wigeon  1

Mallard  40

American Black Duck  100

Northern Pintail  100

Green-winged Teal  75

Canvasback  10

Ring-necked Duck  10

Bufflehead  10

Hooded Merganser  40

Ruddy Duck  40

Horned Grebe  7

Greater Yellowlegs  110

Ring-billed Gull  20

Herring Gull  15

Great Black-backed Gull  3

Double-crested Cormorant  30

American White Pelican  1   

Great Blue Heron  5

Black Vulture  1

Turkey Vulture  2

Northern Harrier  2

Bald Eagle  1

Red-bellied Woodpecker  2

Peregrine Falcon  1

Blue Jay  8

American Crow  6

Carolina Chickadee  8

Tufted Titmouse  2

Golden-crowned Kinglet  1

Red-breasted Nuthatch  2    Upland near exit ponds

White-breasted Nuthatch  1    Heard

Carolina Wren  3    Heard

European Starling  10000    Murmuration

Northern Mockingbird  1

Eastern Bluebird  3

American Robin  15

American Goldfinch  2    Heard

Dark-eyed Junco  1

White-throated Sparrow  1    Heard

Song Sparrow  1

Eastern Towhee  3

Northern Cardinal  1    Entrance Pond

A baleful look from a Peregrine Falcon