Juanita Bay was one of the first parks I ever went to when I moved to Seattle, and remains among my favorites. It’s got some really bonza birding opportunities. We see something good almost every time we’re there.
Back in early July, we took a walk there near sunset, and came across a little chickadee having its dinner. I was amused by all the pollen it knocked loose – you can see it kicking up clouds in this video. Chickadee don’t care!
Your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to identify the exact species of chickadee we’re watching.
Too easy? Here’s another that will probably be too easy, but it’s a sweet little waterbird that was there when we went back later in July, when the lilies were blooming. You can see them in the background here:
(There’s bonus mystery flora in the foreground, for them as wants it.)
The bird was rather a distance out, and with all the plants in the way, it was hard to get my poor point-and-shoot to understand what it was supposed to shoot. But we clicked eventually, and it grabbed me a very nice pic:
Isn’t it sweet?
I’m afraid I haven’t got many challenging UFDs, so perhaps it’s time you sent me some. Any unusual UFDs in your photo collections? You can send them to dhunterauthor at gmail. Just be sure to put UFD in the subject line.
That’s a Black-capped Chickadee (Poecile atricapillus), adorable little dinos. I see them at my feeding stations all the time.
Female Garganey?
Chestnut-backed Chickadee?
UFD #1 &B 2 Female Teal, maybe???
Oh yeah, the Chickadee. Looked like Black-Capped Chickadee to me. We get a lot of them here in Illinois. Here’s one on our peanut feeder:
https://drive.google.com/open?id=0BwIhal1_dKQ1VHdYdmJ4Z1JUZXM
I agree with “black capped chickadee” since the chestnut backed have…wait for it…chestnut backs.
Don’t know about the duck. Other than that it’s a duck. Possibly immature, probably female. Bill is somewhat distinctive. That’ll take more digging. I suspect it might be a species more commonly seen in marine environments.
The bill on that duck looks rather like one of the divers. Nothing in North America shows quite that face pattern, and the bird looks awfully young. I’m thinking it’s still in it’s natal down, at least partially, and I don’t know where that particular guide is right now.
D’aw! What a cutie!
Well, I’m stumped. Might be an immature male something rather than a female. Dana, if you are reading, do you remember any other ducks of about the same size that day? Probably with very different coloration?
Black-capped chickadee. And yeah, chickadees are pretty bad-ass, surviving minus 20 and 30 degree winters and everything.
As for the duck, next time give it a shout and tell it to turn around so you can take a picture of its back. That would be helpful.
As it is, the closest guesses I have are (a) female black duck, (b) female garganey or just plain ol’ (c) yer ordinary female mallard. The other duckie post seems to be mallard-dominated, so I’m leaning towards this option.
Having seen a great many female mallards, I don’t think so. The white patches on the face are wrong, as is the shape of the bill. It also looks smaller. It’s some sort of diving duck. We don’t have garganeys here.
I did come up with a few Australian options, but they… didn’t seem to fit, either.
I’m bad with ducks, anyway. :)