Weather: The last few days have been sunny and warm. I have heard about a little bit of frost in some locations, but have not seen any around our house. It got pretty windy today, with clouds starting to move in.

Birds: Migration is still ongoing. We didn’t see too many waterfowl while out on the boat. I did see a Red-necked Grebe and some scoters.

The Red-necked Phalaropes seem to have moved on after spending a month or so hanging around. I did not see a single one while we were out on the boat today.

Flora: There are still a few plants blooming, including these purple flowers in the aster family that I photographed along Blue Lake Road.

I heard about a pair of strange looking ducks on Swan Lake seen by the Natural History class and went down to check them out. The only odd bird I saw was a Mandarin Duck that I had seen previously. When I talked to Kitty LaBounty, the instructor for the naturalist course, we discovered that the Mandarin Duck is not what they had seen. She and I went down there again to look and found the strange looking ducks. They were bigger than the mallards on the lake and had odd looking feather growths on their heads. I decided to call them ‘poodle ducks’ until I knew better, since the feather growth was reminicent of the way poodles are partially shaved.

After some searching on the internet, I was able to determine that these are Crested Swedish Ducks. As best I can tell, they are the Blue phase Swedish Ducks. It seems that any domestic breed (originally bred from mallards) can have a crest, though the crests do not necessarily persist in offspring of crested adults, and 25% die before hatching due to skull deformities. (More information on crested ducks.)

I kept fairly busy with school stuff today and was trying to ignore the evening sunshine but finally gave in and went for a walk down to Totem Park. The tide was up fairly high, but going out. It was probably around the 9 foot level.

Weather: Cloudy for most of the day, partial clearing this evening. There were periods of rain and a pretty nice rainbow as the sun broke through about an hour and a half before sunset.

Birds: There were at least a couple of Harlequin Ducks on Sage Rock this evening.

I saw about a dozen Black Turnstones scattered along the beach. Most of the ones I saw were up near the high tide line until I came around, then they moved down toward the water.

I saw a single Spotted Sandpiper along the lower stretch of Indian River (part of the estuary, actually).

There were quite a few warblers in the branches at the edge of the forest and many Savannah Sparrows foraging along the upper
part of the beach.

Several hundred gulls were on shore, in the bay, up the river, and flying all around. I saw one that I think might be a California Gull.

On a couple of occasions I saw a large group of gulls take off and a moment or two later a Bald Eagle flew over. In each case the eagle did not look like it was trying too hard to get a gull, but maybe if one had not been paying attention it would have been a little more serious.

I just missed getting a photo of an immature eagle trying to pull a salmon out of the water.

Other Notes: There are lots of dead fish on the beach now.

There was a crazy Giant Vetch plant blooming at the south end of the park along the beach. Normally vetch blooms pretty early in the summer. I do not know what was going on with this one.

What caught my eye about this bird was the striking two toned bill. It also seemed to have darker plumage than I am used to seeing around here, especially at the end of its wings.

My inclination is to think this is a California Gull in first winter plumage. However, I am not knowledgable enough to feel this is a definitive identification. It seems like it could also be a young Herring Gull. Any help with this identification question would be appreciated.

It was pointed out to me that the size of the bird relative to other species may be of use in identifying the species, so I have now included a couple of additional photos that show other gulls in the frame. Unfortunately, they are not exactly lined up, so it may be a little difficult to judge relative sizes since they are different distances away.

More gull identification questions