Serpentine Fen - March 25/12

[Randy]

I hope everyone is taking advantage of the amazing weather. I decided to head over to Serpentine Fen today. It turned out to be a fairly productive morning. I picked up 36 species over 2 hours. The highlight was a ring-necked pheasant near the parking lot. I haven't seen one of these in a few years, and I'd only seen them before while driving on the highway in Sask.

The marsh wrens were singing their little hearts out all over the place, which was a nice treat.

One of the first birds I saw was a dark-eyed junco that had a peculiar white mask (this was present on both sides of the face). I only managed to get one picture but I was hoping some people would be able to comment on this unusual appearance:



Here are some other pictures:

Red-tailed hawk:


I'm assuming this is a juvenile RT hawk...can someone confirm? Not the best picture but here it is:


Green-winged teal:


Great blue heron - I like taking pictures of these guys because they actually hold nice and still for a very amateur photographer like myself!


Ring-necked pheasant - again, not the best pics because he was wandering/running in the opposite direction from me:




Here's my complete list:

Canada Goose 25
Gadwall 2
American Wigeon 100
Mallard 45
Northern Shoveler 10
Northern Pintail 4
Green-winged Teal 60
Lesser Scaup 25
Bufflehead 6
Common Goldeneye 1
Ring-necked Pheasant 1
Pied-billed Grebe 1
Double-crested Cormorant 1
Great Blue Heron 2
Bald Eagle 2
Northern Harrier 1
Red-tailed Hawk 3
American Coot 3
Killdeer 2
Glaucous-winged Gull 3
Downy Woodpecker 1
Northern Flicker 2
Steller's Jay 2
Northwestern Crow 15
Tree Swallow 4
Black-capped Chickadee 10
Marsh Wren 9
Spotted Towhee 10
Fox Sparrow 6
Song Sparrow 8
Lincoln's Sparrow 2
White-crowned Sparrow 4
Golden-crowned Sparrow 8
Dark-eyed Junco 7
Red-winged Blackbird 12
House Finch 1

I hope everyone clings on to the remaining hours left in the weekend!

Randy - Langley

[martin]

Great List Randy, nice shots too.

The junco is probably leucistic, lack of pigmantation on some of it's feathers.

[Randy]

Thanks for the help Martin. I Googled leucistic junco and found a picture of one that looks almost exactly like the one I found, so you were definitely right about that!

Randy

[martin]

Mar 26, 2012 8:04:18 GMT -8 Randy said:

Thanks for the help Martin. I Googled leucistic junco and found a picture of one that looks almost exactly like the one I found, so you were definitely right about that!

Randy

Your welcome Randy, I belive it was Len (form this site) who originally enlightened my on that term, when I posted a simialr question. I thought it was Albinisum, but apperently not, it's a bit different.