The Punk Rocker of Ducks!

There will be a blogpost lacking feathers sometime this year.  But it is not this day.  This day, we find... the strangest looking duck in Lake Springfield, and after the Horned Grebe that's saying something.

Originally this post was to be entitled,  "The Eagles are Coming!"  because, well, the bald eagles have been seen refurbishing their nest on Lake Springfield's Marina Island.  The cormorants have "refurbished" Bay Island as well.  It's "painted" white.

Off Center Park's waters, to the north, the pochard ducks (Aythya spp.) are still present in fairly large numbers.  Flotsam driven to the north and east by the prevailing winds seems to bring about fairly large concentrations of ducks on the eastern shore of the lake at this time of year.

As I was watching, suddenly, a bird flew in and landed.  I have never seen such an outlandish fellow.

Your eyes do not decieve you.  That is actually a  real duck, a Red- Breasted Merganser (Mergus serrator) by name. the rarest of the three Merganser species in Illinois.  It joined a small band of Ruddy Ducks (Oxyura jamaicensis)out in the middle of this bay.

After watching this duck, which bore an uncanny resemblance to a punk rocker, especially due to the mohawk, I went to leave.  As I put on Berlioz' March to the Scaffold, a pair of birds of prey arrived overhead.  In tune with the beat, they kept swooping behind trees.  I drove after them, stopping on the park's many lots to try and get a picture, and the strong beats of March to the Scaffold were perfectly in time with every missed opportunity.  I never got a "good" picture.  Here is one of the pair.

This is an immature Bald Eagle (Haliaeetus leucocephalus), the largest species of bird in the state.  A mature bald eagle flew alongside, but the pictures of that bird were even worse.  As March to the Scaffold is a piece of music culminating in a depressing end, so was the attempt to photograph these two eagles.  If I had been orchestrating the chase for a montage, there would be no better piece of music than March to the Scaffold.  It's one of those few moments where every action seems to fit completely, like its in a well-directed movie.

The American Coots (Fulica americana) are the most numerous waterbird on the lake currently, and one of the most fun to watch.  After leaving the park, I drove south to Lincoln Memorial Garden.

I'd never realized how well the black and white pattern of the Downy Woodpecker (Picoides pubescens) camouflaged it on a tree.  In denser shade, this bird might as well be invisible.

This White-Breasted Nuthatch (Sitta carolinensis) paid almost no attention to me as it flitted through the brush, poking its bill in every nook for insect larvae to eat.

This small patch of woods contained many tree-clinging birds, and a Red-Bellied Woodpecker (Melanerpes carolinus) soon appeared.  This is a male, and you can tell that by the fact that the red patch is on top of his head, not just in the back  of the head only.

Here, you can definitely tell Lincoln Memorial Gardens was designed, and see a good shot of the environs I'm hiking.  All the shrubs greening up are invasive Bush Honeysuckle, the worst invasive species in central Illinois among any organism.  It leafs out before any of the native shrubs, and thus native woodland plants have a hard time growing under it.

Thankfully, the area has plenty of open patches where a medley of ephemeral flowers can bloom.  Ephemeral describes plants that  come up in the spring and bloom for a short time, dying back by summertime and the time the trees above leaf out.

A Great Blue Heron (Ardea herodias), bright as usual.  I sometimes wonder whether herons are angels, as they always seem to be glowing when I take a picture of them.  Then I see them stabbing at a fish in the shallows, and that thought goes completely away.

But what's this?  It's a Red-Breasted Merganser, henceforth Punk Duck, cleaning its feet.  The feet, located near the rear of the bird, help to propel this diving duck to the bottom.  They seem to be able to stay down for a few minutes at a time, too, unlike Ruddy Ducks, which reappear within about a minute.

Further out, a whole group of  Punk Ducks were tipping up and down in the water in a fascinating courtship display.  The wind on the lake made it incredibly hard to hold the camera straight at this display.  You can see the Ruddy Duck in the foreground trying to avoid the strangeness of it all.

All of a sudden, a whole flock of what I believe to be pochard ducks (Aythya spp.) took off on the far side of the lake, a  good three hundred or so birds.  While this was going on, something nearby tweeted amongst the hawthorns...

It's the Golden-crowned Kinglet (Regulus satrapa), and I'm about seven feet from it.  This bird was a little fluffball of mischief.  It was taunting me the entire time, jumping out of focus or behind a branch every time I went to take a picture of it.  Finally, I gave up and focused on a Punk Duck.

This fellow was only about thirty feet from shore.  After about thirty seconds of watching me fumble around on shore, this Punk Duck decided to go fishing again.  You can see how smoothly these birds just dive underwater, with barely an audible splash.

All in all, I saw about fifty Punk Ducks that day.  However, another sight awaited me, or rather two:

Let's see.  What two birds stick out among the Ruddy Duck flotilla?  (If Ruddy Ducks wanted to take over the world, they probably could, in all honesty.)  There's a Pied-Billed Grebe in the background, very, very fuzzy.  (You can tell by the head shape and if you were there to see it.)  The most notable bird, however, is the big fellow in front of the Grebe.  That is a male Gadwall (Anas strepera), a duck found throughout the Northern Hemisphere.  This is my first Gadwall sighting.  What's it doing in a flock of Ruddy Ducks?  Well, Gadwalls are thieves.  The Ruddy Ducks dive for food, and the Gadwall steals it from them as they bring it back to the surface to eat.  So, these Ruddy Ducks are going to have to watch out.  There's not only punks, but thieves, too, among ducks.  After seeing this sight, I noted the time and worked my way back home.

On the way back to my car, I spotted a crow harassing this vulture.  Crows will often chase larger birds away out of fear, like the Red-Tailed Hawk I mentioned a couple posts back.  It was a fascinating conclusion to a strange day of bird behavior.  A string of punks, lovebirds, thieves, jerks, bullies, and coots, as well as the Great Eagle March Montage, made this an unforgettable day worthy of unforgivable puns.

History Fact:

Mexican dictator General Santa Anna, best remembered as being cast as the villain in the battle of the Alamo, is one of the most fascinating amputees in history.  He had his leg blown off by a cannon in 1838, in a battle with the French  (who attempted to take over Mexico on multiple occasions, eventually doing so while the U.S was distracted by the Civil War), and he held a funeral for his leg.  Later on, in the Mexican-American War, Santa Anna's replacement leg was captured by an Illinois regiment, and is currently on display in a museum in Springfield, Illinois.  I have seen it.  The Mexican government considers the wooden leg a Mexican historical artifact, and thus has demanded its return unsuccessfully.