Wednesday, February 3, 2016

More International Birds

The second time I went to Sylvan Heights Bird Park, I ended up with over 1000 pictures. So I'm still going through them and enjoying them.  Here's a few more to share with you.

I took lots of pictures of the red-crested pochards.  They were very active and I loved their hairdos.

Red-crested pochard

These white-faced whistling ducks were probably pair bonding. But they were nibbling on each other.  Here they looked like they might be telling secrets too.


White-faced whistling ducks

I took this picture for the beautiful feather patterns


Normal wood-duck and a mutation known as a silver

Hooded Merganser - thanks Stewart 

Both times I was at the park, I took a lot of pictures of the Nenes. This is Hawaii's national bird and is almost extinct.  This one was really aggressive and would run at the fence, making it very hard to get a picture of him.  The other nenes would hang out in the shade against a fence and refused to pose.


The aggressive Nene goose from Hawaii in the snow


Head study of the Nene


White-faced whistling duck and Coscoroba swan 


Ringed teal


Cinnamon teal 


A mix of swimmers in the international pond


Canvasback 


Indian Spot-billed Duck


The female Indian spot-billed duck

I was excited to see the falcated duck.  We had this as a wild duck at Colusa NWR in the Sacramento Valley of California and I spent a lot of time doing crow control and interpretation.   I think around 10,000 people came to see it and I heard it mated with an American widgeon and came back with his family the following winter.  It was probably an escapee.


Falcated Duck


 I'm still trying to figure out a lot of the species I photographed. Please leave me a comment if I'm wrong.

Meanwhile, our birds seem to be already starting to leave. We've had a couple of days with few swans and today we saw no American white pelicans or snow geese. I went to look for a common gallinule after work but didn't find it.

Sorry about missing my Sunday post. My computer was down for several days.

Click on the picture below for more great bird blogs from around the world. And you are invited to share your bird blogs on Wild Bird Wednesday.





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