Tag: Red-Breasted Merganser

Sawbills – and Call for Help

Greetings everyone! Good news, Brad and Jan have checked in and all appears to be going well on their current trip into the field. Luckily I had several years of Spanish so I could translate their message. Although at the ready, we will hold off on sending our lawyers guns and money. Not much really to relay from the Intrigued HQ beyond a personal highlight of getting in my first 7 miles road run since the ankle surgery. Not pretty by any means, but it means the hard work is finally paying off and on the trajectory to the end of the year 100 miler goal (crap, did I say that out loud – forget you saw that).

I do need some help from my birding friends familiar with the Northwest. The Canine Performance Events Agility Nationals are being held in Auburn, Washington at the end of May and I am looking for advice on good places to bird in the area. This is my first time visiting there in non-official work capacity and want to make the most of the birding opportunity. We are still planning our route, but it looks like the southern trek through Wyoming-Utah-Idaho-Oregon-Washington out and then across Washington-Montana-North Dakota-Minnesota back in order to catch Glacier NP. Any recommendations are welcome, but the Oregon/Washington hotspots are my main focus right now as that is the biggest opportunity for lifers for the trip. If you have some, feel free to drop those in the comments or I can send you out my email address if you prefer a more direct communication. Thanks in advance!!

Let’s not keep you waiting any longer and get you right to today’s featured feathered friend.

Male Red-Breasted Merganser found on North Jetty of Bolivar Peninsula in April 2024

Quite the splash of color on this specimen eh? Hit the jump to learn more about our thin-bill waterfowl.

Continue reading Sawbills – and Call for Help

Seeing Red

Everyone have one of those days when it feels like someone took a sledge hammer and smashed it against the outsides of both your thighs?  No? I expected that to be a little more common.  Anyway, that is EXACTLY how my legs feel at the moment.  I’ve got them all lathered up in BioFreeze, which is making it bearable for the moment .  My hope is another day of staying down will allow this little problem to pass (fingers crossed and rabbits feet rubbed – still on living rabbits of course).  To help pass the time, let’s talk about a surprise +1.

Red-Breasted Merganser at Emiquon National Wildlife Refuge - April 2015

This little lady was shot down at Emiquon National Wildlife Refuge back in April of last year – I know, based on my previous post timelines this one is like yesterday!  Good to know that my brother Ron is now experiencing what it is like to go on birding outings faster than your rate of processing.  Based on his recent California (noting that technically it wasn’t a birding outing and thus all +1’s are subject to sanctioning body validation) and Florida trips, I figure he will be in the 1 to 1.5 year delay range hehehe.

Red-Breasted Merganser at Emiquon National Wildlife Refuge

You might be wondering exactly what this bird is.  Even if you are an avid birder you might have come to the quick conclusion this was a Common Merganser.  That was actually my first assessment until I started looking at the details in the digital darkroom.  The coloring seemed a bit off from my field references of the Common.  Sure enough, thanks to some extra time on Cornell’s website and a host of reference books, I decided it was actually a Red-Breasted Merganser.  The main clue being the absence of the white chin sported by the female Commons.

Once again, the theory that the loner birds are the most intriguing comes true.  This is the only specimen that was in the area that day.  No other Mergansers females or males were spotted … even after the painful process of hunting through the hundreds of Coots littered about the area.

Red-Breasted Merganser at Emiquon National Wildlife Refuge

Eesh, out of pics already – it didn’t stay around very long at all – lucked out, right time, right place.  Better get to some quick facts before I close out this post.  I already mentioned that the Red females do not sport the white chin. Unlike the Common which spends its winters in the area, the Red is only here on its migratory path between Canada and the North American coastlines.  Probably just resting its wings a bit on its way back up to Northern Canada.  And… well, that’s about it – wow, pretty weak on the bird facts for the Red-Breasted Merganser per Cornell’s site.  They do carry the Least Concern Conservation Status so a big yeah on that one.

Apparently the first coat of BioFreeze is wearing off as indicated by the fact the underpants gnomes are once again stabbing me in the thighs with their steely knives.  Time to hobble down to the medicine cabinet and put the gnomes out of business (for at least tonight).  Catch you again real soon my friends.  Right now I’m going to take some pleasure in adding another check on the birding list.

Big thanks to Ron for also confirming the ID on this pretty lady.