Saturday, March 31, 2012

NEOTROPIC CORMORANT at Timnath 3/31

While scanning Double-crested Cormorants on the north side of the reservoir (from the SW corner) I noticed a cormorant flying with a long tail, as long as the rest of the body. Then it landed in a tree and it appeared a lot smaller than the other birds around it. I assumed it was just the distance and it was possibly a Neotropic, but no way to tell for sure. After scanning the SW corner of the reservoir I went to the NE side. From there I noticed a bunch of DCCO swimming in the reservoir. The fifth bird I saw after starting to carefully scan appeared quite a bit smaller. So, I went through the other birds quickly and didn't see anything else that looked that small, so I knew this was a good sign. When I got back to the small bird I started looking at it more carefully. I noticed it had a very small head and also a very small bill. Right about that time I noticed some of the birds around it was biting it. Then they started chasing it while swimming. It then turned and went to the back side of the flock of cormorants and it disappeared from my sight, mostly because it was smaller than the other birds. I am assuming that it was the same bird I saw from both locations, but can't be certain, although it appeared like it was the same bird.
Geese numbers were way down today as there was only about a thousand instead of five thousand. I saw 7 Western Grebes, which are now starting to show up and I heard them call a few times also. A few other birds of interest were 4 Red-breasted Mergansers and 2 Franklin's Gulls.

No comments:

Post a Comment