Snowball

New eyes for Christmas

Grand gift of real binoculars for Christmas. Took them to the cove for a test run. Immediately started seeing things differently. For example, hooded mergansers are easy to notice with the bare eye...but what's that in the upper right?

I'm guessing female common goldeneye.

(Wouldn't have even noticed without the binoculars).

Quick scan of the opposite shore...what's that standing there?


Night herons (juve black-crowned, I'm guessing). One awake, the other asleep.


(Wouldn't have even noticed without the binoculars)
[UPDATE: Today, binoculars gave me this common merganser. Bad photo, but tremendous view.]

Thanks Mom and Dad!

Millennium Park Marsh Hawk

A bright sunny day brings out the northern harrier, hovering over the long grass waiting for its prey to appear.

The recent snow has receded just enough to force mice to race over open land between snow tunnels.

So for the moment, the harrier (in Aldo Leopold's words) is "free from want and need." Until it snows deep tomorrow and it's the mouse's turn.

The complete awesomeness of the hooded merganser

I don't get how other people fail to stop and gaze in awe when the hooded mergansers swim by.

Don't they see the awesomeness of the hood (going up, going down just like a sail on a boat)?

I'm not always sure who is more awesome, the tuxedo guy

or the punk-rock girl.

All I know is that they are both awesome

and even more awesome when they are in a big group and don't fly away as soon as they see you.

Go go hooded merganser!

Song of the Swan Wing

Something spooked the resident swan family at the CRP this morning. I don't think it was me (they've seen me lots of times before). All of a sudden they took off and circled the peninsula again and again.

The sound of five swans flying is quite uncanny--apparently the "mute" swan's two note wing song used to be taken for a human voice. These days a closer comparison is, sadly, a muted car alarm... Their strangulated distress call, on the other hand, is scarily human.

Neponset River

Dropped Lily off at a birthday party in a Norwood industrial park; I'd noticed on Google Maps that the location was close to the Neponset River. Walked through several warehouse parking lots and found an access road into the wetland. Sat by the river for a while, the lonely Mallard quacking away. Heard some noise in the brush, got the camera ready, and here comes bumbly.

Would have bumped right into me if I, a little paranoid about rabid raccoons, hadn't deliberately signaled my presence. Not rabid, it spun and swam across the river.

On into the wetland (deer droppings everywhere, though no ticks that I could find), I discovered sparrow land.

A host of juncos, white-throats, songs, incredibly raucous house sparrows, and sigh, an extroverted swamp sparrow, gratefully photographed.

Crows

A massive congregation of crows at Forest River in Marblehead this afternoon. I watched as the crowd formed. New arrivals coming from all directions. Scuffles breaking out. Everyone talking at once.