You are browsing the archives of waterfowl.

The Wildfowl & Wetlands Trust (WWT) declares Slimbridge Wetland Centre in Gloucestershire to be the birthplace of modern conservation. That may well be true. All I can say is that Slimbridge seems to be brilliant for birding. I’ve never been myself (yet) but Charlie has mentioned Slimbridge more than once. Now, one of our readers has turned to us for [...]

Though most people probably have only heard of eiders in relation to eiderdown pillows, the Common Eider is a bird well worth getting to know for more than its warm, insulating feathers.  Somateria mollissima is a seaduck that breeds colonially in the far north across North America, Europe, and Siberia (it is in the far [...]

The Black Scoter Melanitta americana, called the American Scoter by some and Melanitta nigra by others*, is a large seaduck rather readily identified by the large, shockingly-bright-yellow knob on the male’s bill that stands out amazingly well against the all-black plumage that gives the bird its common name.  The female is dressed in more muted [...]

I am not too sure how difficult this quiz is but I guess we will quickly find out.  Here is a single picture of a single bird and your job is to guess what it is in the comments.  Obviously guesses like “duck” of “goose” are not specific enough (literally: we are looking for a [...]

I’ll admit it… you guys are good. Our ID quizzes have evolved over the years to contend with and challenge the arrogant (oh, did I say that?) perspicacity of our readers. Corey is so scared of you eagle-eyed armchair ornithologists that he’s been reduced to posting blurry plumage pics, which many of you still recognize. [...]

Fitting in an outing to see some birds has gotten exponentially more difficult now that I am back at work.  Spending time with Desmond and Daisy (don’t get me wrong, I love it!), putting the nose to the grindstone forty hours per week (which I love a bit less), and the fact that though the [...]

This past Wednesday, 11 November, I was in my office in midtown Manhattan when I was dismayed to see an email on the state listserv from Seth Ausabel saying that he had found a Cackling Goose Branta hutchinsii in Flushing Meadows Park, Queens.  Why was I dismayed that a good birder, who 10,000 Birds readers [...]

Yesterday, Sunday, three days before I was scheduled to be a dad (still not yet!) I was out and about in Nassau County with five other birders on the Queens County Bird Club‘s “South Shore Potpourri” trip, a yearly search for waterfowl both rare and common in the assorted small parks and ponds that are [...]

One tends to think of birding as an idyllic pastime.  One goes into the field, sees gorgeous creatures, identifies them, and then brags to one’s birding friends about what wonderful creatures one saw.  Sometimes one sees one of the gorgeous creatures do something interesting and one tells one’s birding friends about it but with less [...]

My original plan was to put up a blog post today about the trip to Copan from the Lago de Yojoa region of Honduras but as I started looking through the pictures I hadn’t used yet from the first part of the Honduras trip I realized that I had quite a few shots of Pied-billed [...]

On both the day of and the day after the Superbowl of Birding I was amazed at how the ducks, loons, and gulls (way maybe not so much with the gulls) were willing to go about their lives so close to people.  Some of the shots I got digiscoping with my Swarovski equipment have already [...]

Some months ago we here at 10,000 Birds learnt about Charleen Turner, and her amazingly patient (and loving) documentation of a pair of Mute Swans and their cygnets that she’d been watching through the summer. Charleen had a gift for telling a story and had taken hundreds of photos too – a combination that seemed [...]

Though we don’t get the sheer volume of Snow Geese (Chen caerulescens) that one might find in more westerly regions of North America we here in New York are often blessed with decently-sized flocks of the marvelous white geese with black wing tips.  They are a welcome departure from the wildly honking Canada Geese and [...]

When the sun is shining and it is in the fifties on the Fahrenheit scale on a Sunday  in November I’ll be birding.  Of course.  Jamaica Bay was where I wanted to be, mostly because I wanted to get some shots of the waterfowl flying from the West Pond to the bay with the sun [...]

During my most recent trip to California, I had a chance to drop in on Kenneth Hahn State Recreation Area in Los Angeles. The waterfowl there were mighty tame, with wild ducks, geese, and cormorants practically posing for portraits. But the bird that really captured my eye was not purebred but rather poultry. This fine [...]

On a weekend that is, at least around here, cold, gray, and dreary, it’s entirely possible that not everyone is exercising their avian observation muscles to the fullest. Here’s a waterfowl workout for you weekend warriors… aficionados from either side of the Atlantic can and should play along: Easy, right? I’m sure you don’t need [...]

Just two short years ago, I first beheld the the wondrous waterfowl that I’d come to regard as my favorite duck, bar none – the White-cheeked Pintail. The White cheeked Pintail (Anas bahamensis), also known as the Bahama Pintail, is a dabbling duck that plies brackish waterways throughout its range. Three similar subspecies are distributed [...]

One of my favorite ducks is the Northern Shoveler (Anas clypeata). Something about their namesake, absurdly long, shovel-like bills, elegant plumage, and cool vocalizations make me want to see them on every birding excursion. Or maybe it is their clever methods of eating, whether straining the water with their bills or swimming in circles in [...]

Diabolical. Truly diabolical. That’s how I felt, anyway, when I made up the Diabolical Female Waterfowl Quiz. But, once again, some dedicated birders have proven themselves up to the challenge by managing to correctly identify all five partial pictures of female waterfowl, truly a magnificent accomplishment. To see for yourself the quiz pics, the images [...]

If previous incarnations of the Diabolical ID Quiz left you scratching your head this one might leave you wanting to cut it right off your shoulders.  Female waterfowl, also called hens, are usually drab colors, the better to hide themselves when they are incubating their eggs.  They are still beautiful, but in muted tones that [...]