ML119504071

Age

Not specified

Sex

Not specified

Media notes

More heavily cropped version of pic number two!

Observation details

This is embarrassing as HELL to admit, but I will gladly throw myself under the bus and expose my already tarnished reputation to further ridicule!!! I observed a rare species of duck for the S'toon birding area on Thursday afternoon. But didn't realize it until late Thursday night! The fact is, I somehow managed to overlook three Black Scoters (BLSC), during my "three hour tour"!!!!! Here’s the prequel. After driving south of the Causeway that “splits” the reservoir, I soon entered Blackstrap Provincial Park. Almost immediately, I notice a large raft of Snow Geese (SNGO), resting on the water west of the road. I pulled into the Hazelnut Grove Campground access and pulled out my Pentax spotting scope. I wanted to get a rough count on the 'Snows', plus also hoped to find a few similar Ross's Goose (ROGO), which might be hanging with their larger cousins. Almost immediately, I noticed three medium-sized dark brown ducks swimming in front of the geese. Since I was taking pictures of the SNGO anyway, I quickly snapped a couple of images with our little Canon SX720 HS, thinking I’d scope the trio of ducks after I was done counting the geese. In my rather weak defence, my excuse is that I was on a rather strict timeline to get back to the city, so was more obsessed with counting the Snows and picking out a Ross’s, than looking at those three (possible) Ruddy Ducks!!! Of course, by the time I was done sorting through the roughly 2100 SNGO - no ROGO were discovered - that threesome of ducks had vanished! :( I said to myself - or was it out loud?! - "DAMMIT, shoulda looked sooner, I guess!" Oh well, c'est la vie! As mentioned earlier, I had a decent outing in general and returned to the city on time to complete my chores before the Palmer's arrival. Later in the evening, I downloaded the pictures of the day off the camera onto our computer and began looking through them. MUCH to my chagrin, when those three dark ducks appeared on the monitor, I quickly realized they actually were bleeping female BLACK SCOTERS!!!!! The attached photos illustrate the key field marks: Sooty-brown plumage overall with distinctly two-toned head, featuring darker brown cap and nape; the face and foreneck were considerably paler; the dark bills were also comparatively thinner; the birds had short steep foreheads and smoothly rounded crowns. This is only the third time that I've seen BLSC!!! My "life" sighting was a single female at the north end of Blackstrap on Nov. 5, 1997. Next was a single female off Pelican Pointe, at the south end of Last Mountain Lake, on Nov. 26, 2005. Needless to say, the BLSC were also NEW for my 2018 list!!! After sending out a late night email, as well as numerous morning texts about this event to other birding friends, most of their remarks were of the "been there, done that" variety. Thanks for the support guys and gals! This illustrates the fact that one should never be too complacent when birding. A rare bird can appear at any time during the course of a field trip and it pays to give your attention to each and every individual. I learned a valuable lesson on Thursday which won't be repeated again. Until next time!!! ;P

Technical information

Model

Canon PowerShot SX720 HS

ISO

100

Focal length

172 mm

Flash

Flash did not fire, auto

f-stop

f/6.9

Shutter speed

1/200 sec

Dimensions

952 pixels x 335 pixels

Original file size

164.59 KB