Birding the Bulb
Went birding at the Albany Bulb with Sarah this morning. It was raining, but not hard, and there were actually plenty of birds about. Tide looked way out, and the waders were wading, ducks were diving and dabbling, humans were out with their dogs. Highlights were the big flock of beautiful Green-winged Teal, hilariously waddling about the mud flats (definitely not birds built for land), the Pelagic Cormorant and Oystercatchers out at the point, and oh yeah, A NEW SLUG FOR ME! I was sort of just perusing the pools at the point, not really hoping for much, when I cam across what I knew to be an opisthobranch I hadn't seen. Of course, I didn't have a camera with me, it being rainy and me wanting to focus on simply seeing stuff, instead of taking pictures. Looking it up now, I'm pretty certain it was in the genus Haminoea, but it's hard to say which one without a pic. Sigh.
Now I kind of want to go back and look for intertidal critters. Maybe next tide.
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צולל יַמי (Aythya marila)מתצפת.ת
kuedaתיאור
Lots of scaup, as usual. I'm only assuming some of them had to be Greater. Still can't really tell them apart.
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שרשיר מצוי (Anas crecca)מתצפת.ת
kuedaתיאור
There were LOTS of green-winged teal out there, like 20 or so. Kind of amazing. As usual, I started out thinking they were wigeons, but Sarah set me straight.
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חופזי מנומר (Pluvialis squatarola)מתצפת.ת
kuedaתיאור
There were one or two out here at the tip, and more on the mud flats along the northern shore. Not really sure I've positively ID'd this before, so yay.
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בצנית ברודה (Actitis macularius)מתצפת.ת
kuedaתיאור
One or two pecking and pumping among the rocks.
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DEVOURING crabs right of the point. Weirdly, it always seemed to come up with a crab that was nearly legless. I wonder if they peck off the legs underwater before bringing it up to swallow.
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kuedaתיאור
Just beginning to get into summer plumage, along with several other species.
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kuedaתיאור
Oh jeez. I was just looking around in tidepools and under rocks while we birded when I came across this slug... and I didn't have a camera. It was raining, and for once I wanted to just focus on birding instead of photography, so I left my camera at home. Big mistake, because this was a whole new order of slugs for me (Cephalaspidea)! It was just grazing along some algae in a hollowed chunk of concrete. Brown overall with light speckles, internal shell was visible. Looked a lot like the pic of Haminoea vesicula in Behrens & Hermosillo, but Haminoea japonica is also a possibility. The lesson: always bring a camera. Always bring a camera. Always bring a camera.
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