Western Grebe, Pac Loon

Highlights from Lake Red Rock this morning included the below Western Grebe:

We also had:

Greater Yellowlegs (1)

Snow Bunting (8)

Common Loon (80+)

Horned Grebe (10+)

American White Pelican (200+)

At Saylorville this afternoon, we counted 283 COMMON LOONS from one location! I'm sure there were more up the lake but we only counted from Cherry Glen...

Also, we had decent looks of the continuing PACIFIC LOON. It was all by itself between Oak Grove and Sandpiper Beach.

Update - 2 Nov 09

It's been a while since I've updated my blog. My apologies!

We went back up to Kossuth County on our way to Minneapolis to see if any more Smith's Longspurs were around but alas, we only found 1500+ Lapland's. Perhaps the Smith's moved on?

Here are a couple pictures of the habitat the Smith's were in:

We also birded Clear Lake twice this weekend. Highlights included a WESTERN/CLARK'S GREBE and WHITE-WINGED SCOTER. I only managed one terrible digiscoped picture of the scoter before a boat flushed it:

Can you say Cackling Geese? These were along the shore of Clear Lake. Take your pick:

And not really bird related... but a couple days ago from the dam at Saylorville, apparently the Army thought it needed to practice water retrieval for fire safety. Or maybe it was training for new pilots? Either way, this helicopter was picking up water and dumping it along the shore on random things:

And lastly, who knew there was a National Hobo Museum? Well, we found one along our drive in northern Iowa!

SMLO & CCLO - 24 Oct. 09

We made the drive up to Kossuth County this morning to look for Smith's Longspurs. The corner of 270th St. and 120th Ave, as Matt Kenne previously posted, was loaded with longspurs.

There were several large flocks of LAPLAND LONGSPURS, easily 300+. We also flushed several small flocks of SMITH'S LONGSPURS rather quickly. However, it took some time before seeing one perched! At least 50 were present.

However, 2 CHESTNUT-COLLARED LONGSPURS were most notable. We first keyed onto these 2 birds by the distinctive flight call. I got a decent look at the tail pattern as they circled us a few times before joining a different flock of longspurs. We were unable to relocate them.

Here is a SMITH'S LONGSPUR in flight:

It took some patience, but I eventually saw this SMITH'S on the ground:

Other birds of interest included:

5 Gray Partridge

1 Le Conte's Sparrow

Also this rather late SEDGE WREN:

Lastly, there has been no sign of yesterday's SPOTTED TOWHEE in the yard.

Sp. Towhee - 23 Oct. 09

A male SPOTTED TOWHEE visited my feeders in west Ames this morning. Here are 2 pictures:

WCSP - 22 Oct. 09

Well ok, so maybe this post isn't full of photographs of rare/uncommon birds. Instead I'm going to focus on WHITE-CROWNED SPARROWS.

Yes, I was waiting and waiting to find this species in my yard but it just wasn't happening. Now, I'll admit that it actually took me a bit of effort to actually find WCSP's in Iowa! Shameful, I know (they just aren't as common here as other places I've lived). However, we finally got lucky the other day and ONE showed up in our yard amidst 20+ White-throated Sparrows. Here is a very poor photo of it (it was dusk already, had to crank the ISO up to 1600):

Then I was thinking... "Hmm, I really like WCSP's." Here's one from Whitefish Point, Michigan:

Lastly, anyone care to guess the latitude that this WCSP was at?

Yep, good ol' 71 degrees North. The few White-crowned Sparrows that show up regularly in Barrow, Alaska must represent some of the most northerly records of this species?