Red-throated Loon. 3/21/2021

      Sunday morning from my deck I noticed a loon about half a mile offshore, through my 10x binoculars.  I grabbed my spotting scope and telephoto lens and headed to the edge of the bluff to get a better view.  The bright white on its face, throat and sides made it relatively easy to spot with the naked eye despite the challenging distance.  

   After a series of unsharp photos and a half-hour of observing it through the scope, It became clear that it was a Red-throated Loon as opposed to the more common, albeit out-of-season Common Loon.  It's another addition to the yard list, bringing it to 156.  I actually did a calculation of the loons distance and came up with a distance of 2800 feet. The bird was so small in the full frame that the photo would have to have been enlarged up to 10 feet by 15 feet in order for the loon to be 2.5" in length.  And that was with a 500mm lens with a 1.4x teleconverter.

  Just before the loon appeared I had a first-of-the-year Purple Finch visit my feeder.  The year list for the yard is at 55 about 15 ahead of this point last year.

 

Looking Kinda Hoary 3/19/2021

 

      Up to 30 Common Redpolls have been visiting my yard just about every day since early November and despite my best efforts I had unable to turn one into a Hoary Redpoll,  That changed Tuesday when I spotted a lightly streaked, stubby-billed, white-rumped Redpoll visiting my backyard feeders.  I was able to get a series of poorly lit, unsharp photos through dirty windows that had been blasted by wind-blown sand all winter.  I put together a composite of the photos to try to make the case for a Hoary ID.

  The composite shot looked promising even showing a side view of the reliably diagnostic white under-tail coverts.  But a side view isn't as good as a view from straight-on or underneath.  Today the bird returned after an unexcused absence on Thursday and cooperated by revealing the under-tail in a couple of different settings.  First it posed as it consumed sunflower hearts on one of my feeders.

  Next it landed in a small Weeping Willow next to my driveway.  From that position I was able to get right under the bird and get shots of the under-tail coverts.  The only problem was that it so close that my camera lens couldn't focus on it as I stood underneath it.  Instead I had to lay on the driveway in order to be outside my 500mm lens's  15' minimum focal distance.

  The Hoary Redpoll is the 155th species on the yardlist and the third addition to the list this week.  The other two were a Carolina Wren on Sunday and a House Sparrow on Monday.

   Although I have seen dozens of House Sparrows along the US-10 corridor in Ludington I had yet to see one in the yard of either of the houses that I've owned since I moved here 6 years ago.  At my old house in Wayne County I was plagued with up to 300 of them at a time on cold snowy winter days, when they would empty my feeders almost as quick as I could fill them. But here in Mason County I had accumulated 164 species (153 species at this house and 11 additional species outside the Venn Diagram intersection of the 143 birds seen at the house that I sold last year) before my yard was (dis?)graced with this invasive nuisance.

  Other birds of interest today were....

....Tundra Swans which totaled 190 in two flocks as they flew across Lake Michigan. 

.....the first Sandhill Cranes of the year

 and a kettle of 10 Common Ravens.  

  Thanks to Matt McConnell, Dave Dister, Allen Chartier, Derek Sallman and Matt Young for help in the confirmation of the Hoary Redpoll.