Halloween Rides, Lingering Warmth

You can't beat maples for fall colors

This late fall seems to be continuing, despite our fourth longest growing season on record "ending" last week. As I write this, we've got strong, blustery south winds and above average temperatures forecasted for the next several days, which means there likely won't be much for me to really look for. However, we did have a short stretch of mostly gentle north winds the last few days, and I took advantage of them! 

I've been mostly focusing on Spring Lake - a nearby 580-acre body of water that is relatively deep (maximum depth of 37 feet). It's easy to bike to and most importantly you can see pretty much the whole lake from a good viewing deck on the north side of it. As I mentioned in my last post, my focus is - and will continue to be - on waterbirds for the rest of the year, with a few notable exceptions (Redpoll, American Goshawk, and Long-eared Owl). 

Ruddy Ducks on Spring Lake

My first trip last week wasn't really productive - nothing new for the year. However, I did notice some shuffling in numbers and some different species like Northern Pintail and Blue-winged Teal, among others. That's good, I thought, and committed to keep checking as often as I could while the north winds continued. 

The day before Halloween I rode out there again with somewhat higher hopes, I just felt like things would be good that day. I quickly got excited upon arriving. There were more Ruddy Ducks and divers in general - Canvasbacks, Buffleheads, and a Redhead hanging around with the armada of American Coots. Three Common Loons. Then one of a pair of dark, distant ducks on the far shore caught my eye. Pale cheeks and a thin-ish small bill on one of them caught my eye and I immediately loudly blurted out "Black Scoters"! Nobody was around to hear me, but still. The birds were diving...a lot. I really wanted to be sure about this species, this is a tough bird to find here and I'm very conservative with my reports, even though I've seen about a million Black Scoters in my previous life as a sea duck counter on the Atlantic Ocean years ago. But it was dark, and they were about as far away as they could be on the lake. 

One of these things is not like the others - a Redhead mixed in with some coots

They were really not being helpful - facing away from me, staying up against the dark far shore, and diving after very briefly surfacing. Totally impossible to get pictures. One was eventually flushed by a boat and later revealed itself to be a Ring-necked Duck. Try as I might, I couldn't get another look at the other "scoter". After a short while longer, it was gone. Having the other one turn out to be a RNDU didn't help my confidence. Was I seeing things? 

I kept birding there for another hour and a half, hoping that it (or something else) would come back. Nothing new. Ugh! I couldn't stay any longer and started my ride back. Should I count it or not? I (proverbially) wrung my hands about it as I rode back along the road. 

A few Canvasbacks mixed in with the Ruddy Ducks

As the day wore on, I came to no resolution. I went to bed resigned to not counting it, even though I couldn't reasonably convince myself that it could have been anything else. The only other possibility could be a Ruddy Duck, but this bird was obviously larger, comparable to its' Ring-necked Duck friend. Nobody else went out that day unfortunately. However, I checked the reports the following morning and sure enough - a Black Scoter was seen by another birder. That made me feel good enough to count the darn thing. I really hoped that it would stick for another day for the birding trip I was leading there on Saturday. Also interesting was that a Lesser Black-backed Gull was seen also! Those would both be really good birds to show people. 

Pre-dawn ride. Not sure how I got the camera to do this.

I got up early the next day and rode back over. It was still dark out - first time I've done a ride in the dark for a bit. I hoped that maybe I'd luck into a Short-eared Owl on ride over as I passed some restored grasslands and wetlands. No luck there. However, it was a nice ride. No wind and cool enough that I didn't get hot at all on the way over. I arrived a little early and decided to look at the lake before the group arrived. There was a large flock of gulls on the water. It didn't take long to pick out the Lesser Black-backed. Nice! People would be arriving any minute, and that would be a great way to start the trip. 

As people started showing up, I told them about the gull. Most of them walked straight down to look for it right away. You can't miss it, I said. Except you most certainly could, unfortunately. All that it takes is for a flyby Bald Eagle to scare the gulls away. Ugh! So frustrating. I was the only one to see it that day, sadly. That said, the trip was really fun. We had 51 species total, not bad at all for November in Minnesota! People seemed to enjoy it. The continuing American Black Duck was a hit for sure. Unfortunately, the scoter was nowhere to be found. 

After the trip ended my friend and I went to the north side of adjoining Spring Lake Regional Park and walked through conifers there, hoping for a Long-eared Owl. No luck there, no signs of whitewash, nothing. Hopefully the coming cold will drive some further south. We did flush an American Woodcock though - which is definitely late, but cool. What wasn't cool was finding a black-legged tick crawling on me afterwards - very ready for a nice hard freeze to knock those darn things back for the winter. 

A leucistic Downy Woodpecker at my feeder

I'm up to 235 "green" species now. The next few days likely won't see me out of the bike, although it's possible I might get a Redpoll flying over at some point. Sightings of those seem to be ticking up in the area, although they likely won't really get more common until it gets colder. Then I'll get back after looking at the lakes too. I'm only three species away from tying the state record now, which seems surreal. It will be very interesting to see where this all ends up.

Thanks for reading!