common_nature | Things I Have Found Out Lately

Thing One:

I had for some reason assumed we in the Northeastern US get the kind of kingfisher that's got sparkly green males.

Not so much -- we get the belted kingfisher, which is mostly blue (or a bit greenish but not sparkly), with white and red trimmings. ("A rufous band," says wikipedia.)

As it turns out, though I've seen them perched a few times, I've also several times seen one barreling across the water in search of prey, but didn't recognize it. I was like, "What a blue bird! What on earth is a blue jay doing doing on a *lake*?" Answer: It was not! (Points to me for being confused, at least...) I had also somehow not connected their chattering hunting call with them. Now I Know.

Anyway, so a few days ago, in Highland Park -- which is a former golf course that the city of Attleboro bought and has let go back to nature -- I met one. (Pretty sure it's male.) Here he is perching, 'way up.

Since they mostly eat fish, I do wonder what he was eating, here, but mostly I just like his beak.

The kingfisher ponders life.

Kingfisher and his punk crest eye me dubiously.

Thing Two:

I've been seeing some hooded mergansers around, which are great and wonderful ducks whose crest expands and contracts with their mood. (I had not encountered them much before mid-November.) I know the males have this white head, but I didn't know what the females looked like, and all the males I was seeing were accompanied by smaller, brown fuzzy birds.

So I was like, "...Are they having *ducklings* at *this time of year*? Weird."

That would indeed be weird! And the answer is no! They're not ducklings -- it's just the females are smaller and their heads don't have the white markings, they're just brown and fuzzy. Also, in comparison to our more frequent mallards, even the male mergansers are pretty small.

I'm enjoying watching them -- they're shyer than the mallards (who are in their turn shyer than Canada geese), so they often notice me before I notice them, and start motoring away, thus making themselves more obvious to me. (But very much harder to photograph.) They also dive for food with great rapidity and energy -- they're basically pescatarians, and dart around underwater a lot.

I assume what's going on is I'm seeing them more because they're migrating to slightly warmer climes, but they may be being more obvious because they're pairing up for the spring. Not really sure, but *something* changed.

Anyway. Size comparison here -- Canada goose, female merganser in back, two mallards.