Winter Light

It's fair to say that I have... mixed feelings about winter time. On the one hand, I genuinely like snow (at least when I'm not driving in it), and the Michigander in me will always appreciate a bit of cold weather to even out a hot summer. On the other hand, around here in DC it also means a severe reduction in bird density and diversity, and essentially no insect life to speak of. Not to mention that fact that it just drags on. And on. And on. 

Okay, so I probably fall more into the "anti" camp for winter, but one thing I do appreciate is the light: the "golden hour" before sunset gets longer, and the sun falls at a more oblique angle, making everything look just a little cleaner and crisper than in the summer when the sun is directly overhead. As a bonus, the few birds that do remain are active throughout the day rather than only in the early morning, which is good news for a lazy birder like me who doesn't always appreciate having to wake at the crack of dawn.

I got to enjoy both reasonable-hour birding and some great winter light on my first-ever visit to the Washington Sailing Marina in the first week of February. It was out on the very edge of my 5MR and not easily accessible via public transport so I'd avoided it before then, but another birder had reported a flock of Rusty Blackbirds from there earlier that day. Rusty Blackbird would have been a lifer for me, so it was a perfect excuse to get around to visiting it. Long story short I... didn't end up seeing any Rusty Blackbirds after about an hour of searching. Such is birding I suppose

Things got much better when I got out to the Potomac River, however, with a great selection of wintertime ducks on the calm water in the late afternoon light. The best was a pair of Canvasbacks surprisingly close to shore, by far the best view I'd ever gotten of them (and the best I've had since). There were also Lesser Scaups, Buffleheads, Mallards, Common Mergansers, and to my surprise a flock of four Red-breasted Mergansers, very uncommon birds for DC and a very good addition to my 5MR list.

Female Canvasback

Male Canvasback

Lesser Scaup

Male Mallard

Female Mallard

Red-breasted Merganser

A very successful Herring Gull

In the sheltered part of the marina was a small family group of Hooded Mergansers, which I was able to see much better than I had for my previous 5MR sighting of them. There were a few Brown Creepers in the trees, hard to photograph as always, while a Black Vulture was soaring overhead.

Hooded Mergansers

Brown Creeper

Black Vulture

The next day I made another visit to Hains Point, where the best new 5MR bird was a Merlin perched near the end of the point. There were lots of ducks in the water, including some very distant Canvasbacks, hundreds of Lesser Scaups, and a lone Ruddy Duck hiding in the middle of a flock of Scaups. 

Merlin

Lesser Scaups

Ruddy Duck

It was a good day for raptors- besides the Merlin there was a Red-shouldered Hawk perched in the open, while a Bald Eagle was sitting majestically on top of a big dead tree. Below the eagle was a pair of Northern Raccoons having an *ahem* intimate moment, while I also had much better views of the Brown Creepers than I'd had previously. 

Red-shouldered Hawk 

Bald Eagle

Exhibitionist raccoons

Brown Creeper

I had some time for birding between classes later that week (mostly thanks to poor time management skills), which I used to look for some new 5MR birds. On Wednesday I stopped by the Georgetown Reservoir to check for vagrant ducks, and while there weren't any vagrants some (very uncommon) Cackling Geese were hanging out in a much-larger flock of Canada Geese, this time close enough to the boundary fence that I could get decent pictures and easily tell the two species apart. 

Cackling Geese- note the tiny beak and steep forehead.

Thursday I stopped by Fort C.F. Smith on my way to work to look for the Great Horned Owls that had been reported by others. One wouldn't think that a bird that huge would be good at camouflage, but it took a solid half hour of scanning through the same set of trees, squinting through my binoculars, before I finally found the Great Horned Owl perched in an ivy-covered tree, in plain view but nearly impossible to see even when I knew exactly where to look. The difficulty just made finding it more exciting- that and the fact it was a lifer for me.

Great Horned Owl!

The next weekend I decided to get some exercise by walking along the old C&O Canal from the Chain Bridge near the border of DC and Maryland down to Georgetown, a solid 3-mile walk. It started off with another new 5MR bird- a Northern Raven perched on the Chain Bridge that quickly flew away when it saw me. Another surprise was a pair of Common Mergansers, usually seen in the middle of deep water, swimming in the middle of the C&O Canal, maybe sheltering from the heavy winds. 

Common Mergansers

It was another afternoon of beautiful winter light, enough to make photographing even the common birds exciting. I was especially happy to get decent pictures of Golden-crowned Kinglets and an American Black Duck, neither of which I'd managed to photograph well at all earlier in the year. 

White-throated Sparrow

Song Sparrow

Golden-crowned Kinglet

White-breasted Nuthatch

Female Northern Cardinal

American Black Duck

Nearby Fletcher's Boathouse, I was happy to see a couple of Swamp Sparrows, a new 5MR tick, foraging in the marsh area along with Song Sparrows and Dark-eyed Juncos. A big surprise was the Dickcissel I'd twitched in January still hanging out nearly in the same place I'd seen it before- Dickcissels tend to only stick around in DC a day or two, so seeing it nearly three weeks later was odd. A final treat before I headed home to warm up my freezing fingers was a very friendly Red-tailed Hawk perched just above the main trail that posed for pictures for as long as I could stay there before finally heading home to warm my freezing fingers.

Swamp Sparrow

Dickcissel

Red-tailed Hawk

Later in the month I took the plunge and bought a new camera, retiring my trusty but aging OM-D EM5 for an OM-D EM-1 Mark ii. The first day it arrived, I took it out for a test run at Fort C.F. Smith. Unfortunately this was not a day of good winter light- instead it was gloomy and overcast, and the Great Horned Owl was nowhere to be seen. I spent much of the time by the bird feeder, getting accustomed to the new settings and buttons with the common birds. The only highlight was getting my first decent pictures of the year of an American Goldfinch.

Mourning Dove

White-breasted Nuthatch

Purple Finch

American Goldfinch in drab winter plumage

Carolina Chickadee

The next day at Hains Point wasn't much better weather-wise, but I did luck out with a couple of Greater Scaups, one of my few remaining "low-hanging fruit" lifers left to see in this area. Equally good (and rarer for the area) was a new 5MR bird in the form of a Horned Grebe unusually close to shore, my first-ever good look at one. The Brown Creepers were also around, giving me a chance to practice with the new camera's quick autofocus.

Greater Scaup

Horned Grebe

Brown Creeper

My last birding outing of February was another visit to the Washington Sailing Marina, and the Winter Light was back in peak form. I visited because others had reported a Green-winged Teal earlier that morning, an uncommon bird for the area. In what seems to be a pattern, the damn duck was nowhere to be found, even though another group of birders I ran into said they'd seen it about 2 minutes before I arrived. I consoled myself by getting some more new camera practice with the more common birds around the marina. 

Ring-billed Gull

American Robin

Pied-billed Grebe

Northern Mockingbird

Rainbow over the Potomac

Things improved when I decided to explore the bike path running south of the marina through a small marsh area. There was a Red-shouldered Hawk perched in the sunset light, and a Belted Kingfisher calling from the far end of the marsh. Best of all, however, were the Wood Ducks gathered in the marsh, including lots of males in full breeding plumage. Wood Duck was a new 5MR bird for me, and they're also one of my favorite North American ducks in general- far cooler than the escaped Mandarin Duck that was hogging the limelight in Central Park, but I digress. 

Red-shouldered Hawk

Belted Kingfisher

Mallard

Female Wood Duck

Male Wood Duck

I left just before sunset, very pleased with how the day had gone, and with how my February had been bird-wise. Not included here is a weekend trip I made up to snowy Vermont, where I also saw some very good birds- but that's reserved for my next post.