Merry Christmas

[Napper]

After our family destroyed our Christmas wrappings, I ventured outside and was surprised how warm and Foggy it was.

I heard what I thought was a duck like quack, I looked up and was surprised to see a large all white gull fly over my house (no black on it's wing tips) thru the fog. Moments later four more followed heading North West I guess.

I have never seen anything other than Ring Bills & Herring gulls around here in farm fields and at the pond I like so much. I'll have to have a closer look back there.


I did indulge in some Christmas cheer last night but that had absolutely no influence on what I saw.. Although my wife might think otherwise..  The Fog was not in my head.

Later I Ventured over to my favourite spot and found the pond was empty with the execption of one lone Common Goldeneye . I was able to spot on the way back along the creek/scrub area American tree sparrows, Song Sparrows, Dark Eyed Junkos A Redtail Hawk and heard American Gold finch's..  No Shrike, unfortunately that was probably a one time sighting.

Back along my street lots of bird activity 6 Junkos in the neighbours tree, Doves and more Gold Finches,
Tonight at dusk a lone female Cardinal was in the bushes along my house making sure it was safe to hit the feeder. (No birds at my feeders for a while now)

Oh yeah, last night  I noticed hundreds and hundreds of geese moving West from the fields back there.

Hope everyone has/had a safe and happy holiday

  Napper

[Al Johnston]

And a Merry Christmas to you Napper,
   You mentioned that you heard a duck-like quack. BTW, do you know how you can tell the gender of a duck by it's quack?  Al

[Napper]

funny Al, that is one of the names my wife calls me. That and birdbrain..


So tell how can you tell the sex of a duck by is Quack??

(It wasn't a duck that I saw) bye the bye

Napper  

[Al Johnston]

Napper, the male duck doesn't quack so if you hear a quack, it's gotta be a female. Simple,Huh? Great birding in 2007, Napper and keep the reports coming.
   Al

[Napper]

Welcome back, haven't  heard from u in a while..

last night I did some listening  to various gull sounds on the "What bird" site.

I ruled out all the gulls with black wing tips. I then ruled out the ''ivory gull" (too small)

That left me with "Iceland" and "Glaucous'.  The "Glaucous" actually makes a Quacking sound in flight.

I couldn't believe it.   No mention of that in my "Petersons guide".


 :lol: Napper :lol:  

Maybe  I change my nicname to "Quack"

[David Shilman]

Napper, the male duck doesn't quack so if you hear a quack, it's gotta be a female. Simple,Huh?...

To be a bit more specific, the female MALLARD quacks, but males aren't silent. They do make vocal sounds though not what we would call a "quack".  Male Gadwalls quack, according to http://www.whatbird.com/.

So, I guess more accurately, "male mallards don't quack".  

David

[Al Johnston]

According to Peterson's Birds of Eastern and Central North America, the male Gadwall makes a"low bek; a whistling call" and  the female "quacks". In almost all of the other duck species where the female quacks, Peterson writes, the male makes sounds like "low croak, yeeb, pppip, whew-whew,whee-o, took-took and peeping. I stand by my original post. All you birders out there have a great birding year in 2007!  Al