Monday, January 16, 2012

Scaups

I had a great day birding in the West Valley: Roma, Salineno, and Zapata, Texas. I saw a few new birds (brown jay, white collared seedeaters) and some familiar favorites (vermillion flycatcher, hooded oriole). I'll probably post those pictures later. What I'm currently interested in is these guys--they're Scaups for sure, but there are two types (Greater and Lesser) and the differences are slim. When I saw these guys, I knew right away they would be tough to ID so I took a ton of pictures. These are just a few, cropped and zoomed. This first one is a female for sure and I think it's a Lesser:

The rest are below. I've been leaning toward Lesser for the lot, but if you know, comment and weigh in.

And another:
And yet another:
And one more:
I'll let you know if someone helps me with the ID on Whatbird.

2 comments:

  1. Good luck scaups always confuse me!

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  2. Thanks. The word from WhatBird is that at least 2/3 are Lesser, but no one's sure about the other third. That's sort of what I was thinking too, so I figure I'll count the Lesser for my list and then wait to see a Greater somewhere down the line.

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