Langley Nest Building Already??? December 2, 2012

[Randy]

Hey everyone,

Fortunately the weather cooperated for a couple hours for me to wander out back. Another very productive day here, with 39 species.

My yard was quite active before I ventured out, which is usually a good sign. I had a goldfinch make a brief stop on my feeder, which is the first one I've seen here in a couple months.

The marsh was not overly active, my guess is because the water level was really high today. Numerous GW teal as always, a few gadwall, wigeons, and a nice flyby by a northern harrier.

I was greeted by a kingfisher as I entered the lagoon, but it didn't stay long enough for me to get a picture. The lagoon was fairly active today. The most cormorants I've seen on it ever, with 7 today. One caught a pretty good sized fish. Anyone know what kind of fish that would be? It had some "whiskers" on it...



Again, a number of both common and hooded mergansers. Does anyone know why with hooded there was only 1 male and a bunch of females, and with the common there was a bunch of males an only 1 female. This has been the theme here. Do they separate during the winter?

Again, another pic of a hooded merganser:


I continued west and found this particularly photogenic mushroom in one of the groves of trees:



Then I moved on towards the eagle's nest. I couldn't get too close because the floodplain is full of water and some of the path is flooded, but I was happy to see two eagles in the nest carrying sticks and reorganizing things. I would have thought this was very early for this behaviour, but again, I'm still fairly new to the area so I'm interested to hear comments about this from "locals".



In this area I also had a flyover by 4 trumpeter swans, which is a first for Brydon for me and species number 107, so it was definitely a nice treat.

A flock of siskins is still hanging around and I'm still hoping to find some redpolls but no dice today.

Here's my list:

Canada Goose 35
Trumpeter Swan 4
Gadwall 4
American Wigeon 5
Mallard 45
Northern Shoveler 4
Green-winged Teal 75
Common Goldeneye 3
Hooded Merganser 6
Common Merganser 15
Pied-billed Grebe 3
Double-crested Cormorant 7
Great Blue Heron 1
Northern Harrier 1
Bald Eagle 2
Red-tailed Hawk 1
American Coot 1
Ring-billed Gull 20
Glaucous-winged Gull 3
Belted Kingfisher 1
Northern Flicker 3
Steller's Jay 1
Northwestern Crow 9
Black-capped Chickadee 15
Chestnut-backed Chickadee 2
Bewick's Wren 1
Golden-crowned Kinglet 5
Ruby-crowned Kinglet 1
American Robin 4
European Starling 15
Spotted Towhee 6
Song Sparrow 12
Golden-crowned Sparrow 5
Dark-eyed Junco 30
Red-winged Blackbird 4
House Finch 8
Pine Siskin 40
American Goldfinch 1
House Sparrow 6

[Chris]

Randy, a nice outing. Weather has been bad recently.

I have seen the similar observations regarding the mergansers. At Island 22, there was about 60 during one winter, all males.

Not sure what the eagles would be doing. Maybe they sleep there and keeping it tidy? I think they start breeding around late February.

[martin]

Randy
I have seen the same with regards to the mergansers. Your fish looks like a brown bullhead.

[Randy]

Thanks Martin. I just looked up brown bullhead and that's definitely what it was. Seems like they're native to NA, which is nice considering there are at least a couple other species in the lagoon that are not native to the area, including the red-eared sliders and bullfrogs.

[innerphoto]

Hi Randy,
A birder friend of mine says they may have eggs already as this is not the only nest where this type if activity seems to be picking up.
John Gordon
thecanadianwarbler.blogspot.ca