There were lots of scaup at the Philomath Sewage lagoons last night.
Probably more than I've ever seen there before, probably more than any other
species of duck. When my parents were active birdwatchers there was an idea in
circulation that Lesser Scaup had a purple sheen to the head and Greaters a
green. This may have carried over to field guides in my early days as a birder.
I put my scope together and checked quite a few scaup. All the males that
showed any color to the head looked green and they were all Lessers. The color
is iridescence and thus subject to angle of the sun, angle of the viewer.
Anyone who has looked at a hummingbird for part of a minute has experienced
this. The red gorget becomes black or violet when the bird's head moves.
The light was poor. The final hour of daylight with a heavy cloud cover, I
had waited in the car for quite awhile, contemplating leaving the scope in
pieces because it was raining. The scaup in Nagi's photo has a nice purple
sheen to the head. It could have come straight off the page of the Golden Field
Guide. But with only a little patience I bet the same bird could have shown a
green head. I once made a fabulous road trip with a truly veteran birder. He
had seen Bachman's Warbler as a living, breathing bird in the bush, not just a
cabinet specimen. He and his wife had made multiple summer drives across the
continent when the roads were gravel and dirt. He rarely stopped talking from
Spring Valley, New York to Marathon, Florida. And in those five days I never
got tired of him. I wish I'd taken notes because of course I've forgotten most
of it, and I realize now that much of what I'd heard from Harold Axtel hadn't
been heard by others.
We got down to Cape Canaveral/Merritt Island in central Florida and spent
the night. It was about the last year there were Dusky Seaside Sparrows lurking
in the marshes there, but Harold declined the proposal to get up and go seek
them at dawn. He knew the spot well and we would be looking into the sun,
perhaps next to heavy traffic. We ended up cruising some residential areas
where I saw my first Florida Jays. Then to a narrow muddy shore of some
uninspiring body of water where I saw my first, and forty years later still my
only, Wilson's Plover. And there, a few meters off the shore from the plover,
looking every bit as grungy as the mud they were standing on, was a scaup.
This was the month of May and scaup didn't really belong in Florida.
Without ever putting the duck in view of his binocular, certainly without a
backward glance as he drove on northwards, Harold said "Lesser." It was
delivered with the detached conviction I expect from someone if I were to ask
"Are you left or right handed?" I was about eighteen. The incredulity this
inspired in me was intense, but I'm pretty sure I kept it hidden. This dude had
to be engaged in magical thinking.
"How do you know it's a Lesser?"
"It had a small head." The skepticism seeping out of every pore in my body
must have thickened the atmosphere in the car to the point it could be cut with
a plastic knife. "You'd be able to tell if you'd looked at as many scaup as I
have." I was far from impressed. Funny that we devoted far more energy on the
scaup than the Wilson's Plover, and four decades later I do so again. Driving
into the Philomath Sewage lagoons Friday a week ago I saw a female scaup. I was
at the far se corner and she was pretty much the first bird I saw. "Gee, that
looks like a Greater," I thought , and rolled down the window. Through the
binocular I got a better look, and felt confident it was a Greater. Yesterday,
Sunday, ten days later, she was still in that southern pond, not with the other
scaup. But I had just spent as long as I could stand scanning multiple flocks
of Lesser Scaup. I got out of the car and got out the scope. I'm sure she's the
same duck as before. But I'm not as sure she's a Greater. More than anything,
it's the big head that got my attention as I crested the dike last week.
I don't consider myself to have looked at enough scaup yet. I don't know
if I'll ever look at enough. It would have been a lot more fun last night if
all the scaup I looked at had been immature gulls. But I bet she'll stay there
a few more days if someone else wants to take a look. Maybe a photo, that could
be shared on Obol, then folks can decide whose head is bigger, mine or the
bird's?
Lars
