Dragoness Eclectic (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
dragoness_e) wrote2010-01-02 05:15 pm
dragoness_e) wrote2010-01-02 05:15 pm
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Birds at the Park, December 26
Happy New Year!
The day after Christmas, we took our left-over bread and went to visit the swans and other birds. This time, we looked for the swans ashore, first--and found them.
The young cygnets have grown quite a bit, and are showing more adult feathers. Notice how their necks are darkening first.
Mama swan and her three cygnets
Three dark young
Also note that the beak is continuing to redden somewhat.
Of course we fed them.
Yay! Food!
Swans grazing
There was another swan there, too. A very large swan.
Mute Swan (Cygnus olor)
The Mute Swan is a European introduction that is popular as an ornamental bird for parks and estates. It's also a very large bird. Note the size of the seagulls in comparison.
Over at the pond, we were surprised to see a large white bird. At first, we thought it was another Mute swan swimming along, but a closer look proved it to be something quite different.
White Pelican
Meet the American White Pelican or Rough-billed Pelican (Pelecanus erythrorhynchos). Unlike the commoner Brown Pelicans we have in Lousiana, they do not dive for fish, but trawl along the surface, seining up fish in big gulps. As best I can tell, they have just migrated in for the winter.
You can see how he seines for fish in this series of photos.
Another wild migratory bird that showed up recently is the Lesser Scaup (Aythya affinis). There's a whole bunch of them in the park now, swimming around with the local domestic ducks, the geese, the mallards and the coots. They migrate down here for the winter every year.
Lesser Scaup
More Scaup
The local gang
Above we have a typical bunch of waterfowl at the park: white domestic ducks, domestic Chinese geese, and little wild coots.
We have several varieties of domestic geese.
Gray Goose
I don't know exactly which breed this is, but it's one of a zillion European breeds
descended from the wild Greylag Goose (Anser anser).
Chinese Geese
These geese are domestic breeds of the wild Swan Goose (Anser cygnoides). Domestic Chinese geese come in brown or white; wild ones are brown.
Pretty brown Chinese Geese
Chinese Goose being harassed by seagulls
This happened when we were feeding the geese; as usual, seagulls dove in and tried to snatch what they could, including bread on or under the geese.
Chinese Geese swimming
Geese do not like to be ignored when you are feeding the birds. Sometimes they
are quite insistent...
Feed Me Now!
"Swans Grazing" and "Feed Me Now!" by Dragoness Eclectic are licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 United States License.
The day after Christmas, we took our left-over bread and went to visit the swans and other birds. This time, we looked for the swans ashore, first--and found them.
The young cygnets have grown quite a bit, and are showing more adult feathers. Notice how their necks are darkening first.
Mama swan and her three cygnets
Three dark young
Also note that the beak is continuing to redden somewhat.
Of course we fed them.
Yay! Food!
Swans grazing
There was another swan there, too. A very large swan.
Mute Swan (Cygnus olor)
The Mute Swan is a European introduction that is popular as an ornamental bird for parks and estates. It's also a very large bird. Note the size of the seagulls in comparison.
Over at the pond, we were surprised to see a large white bird. At first, we thought it was another Mute swan swimming along, but a closer look proved it to be something quite different.
White Pelican
Meet the American White Pelican or Rough-billed Pelican (Pelecanus erythrorhynchos). Unlike the commoner Brown Pelicans we have in Lousiana, they do not dive for fish, but trawl along the surface, seining up fish in big gulps. As best I can tell, they have just migrated in for the winter.
You can see how he seines for fish in this series of photos.
Another wild migratory bird that showed up recently is the Lesser Scaup (Aythya affinis). There's a whole bunch of them in the park now, swimming around with the local domestic ducks, the geese, the mallards and the coots. They migrate down here for the winter every year.
Lesser Scaup
More Scaup
The local gang
Above we have a typical bunch of waterfowl at the park: white domestic ducks, domestic Chinese geese, and little wild coots.
We have several varieties of domestic geese.
Gray Goose
I don't know exactly which breed this is, but it's one of a zillion European breeds
descended from the wild Greylag Goose (Anser anser).
Chinese Geese
These geese are domestic breeds of the wild Swan Goose (Anser cygnoides). Domestic Chinese geese come in brown or white; wild ones are brown.
Pretty brown Chinese Geese
Chinese Goose being harassed by seagulls
This happened when we were feeding the geese; as usual, seagulls dove in and tried to snatch what they could, including bread on or under the geese.
Chinese Geese swimming
Geese do not like to be ignored when you are feeding the birds. Sometimes they
are quite insistent...
Feed Me Now!
"Swans Grazing" and "Feed Me Now!" by Dragoness Eclectic are licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 United States License.