ML258420751

Age and sex

Adult, Unknown sex - 1

Observation details

Lifer! It was also somewhat close to shore and occasionally diving, but it also seemed to be doing a lot of preening and occasionally flapping and shaking its head vigorously, a bit like I've seen Common Goldeneyes do. Bigger than I expected, almost as big as the common murre. In fact, at first I thought it was another common murre. However, as I got better locks, I saw that it was lacking that distinct eye line and the division between white and black plumage was much murkier and less clearly defined. There also appeared to be a little bit of black and white baring or other small pattern on the wing. The head was blockier than the murre's with a shorter bill and steeper forehead. When it dove, I could see that the neck extends to longer than it usually appears while swimming above the surface. I was still right in the middle of being excited about seeing my first alcid, when my wife pointed out this second one! I don't think the murre was the first of my lifers she ever spotted for me, but this was definitely the first time she got me two in a row. This bird was really different from what I expected. I had only looked at the breeding plumage before, and for some reason I thought it would have a much more slender look. That's part of the reason why I didn't figure out what this bird was until after Merlin consistently IDed it as a guillemot with several of the photos I took. As I noted in the murre backstory, I had so recently been sort of internally moping about how my hobby was in conflict with spending time with my family, but now I was at a complete 180 emotionally. It was so cool that I got these two new birds and got to get some semi-decent (at least for my standards) photos of them. The guillemot was fun, too, since it was preening and being more active above water. It's out of focus, but I got one photo where the bird looks like it's floating vertically above the water right after having flapped and ruffled itself up.

Technical information

Model

Pixel 2

ISO

50

Focal length

4.4 mm

Flash

Flash did not fire

f-stop

f/1.8

Shutter speed

187/125000 sec

Dimensions

1484 pixels x 1094 pixels

Original file size

216.53 KB