| Photojournal
- 16
October 2004
Oye
Como Lake
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The 16th of October
was a Saturday after a busy week at work. My sleeping had been
a bit erratic during the week and so I slept in on Saturday. Then
I went to, you guessed it, my usual brunch at the Golden Pita.
It was fabulous (it always is). After brunch, around 3pm, I went
for a brief photo outing to Como Lake. Como Lake is a small lake
in Coquitlam moderately near the Burnaby border. It generally
has a few ducks and geese and a few other species.
On this day, there
were a number of American Wigeon hanging around the lake. American
Wigeon are ducks with a light blue bill and a buffy crown.
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| The lower
part of their head is mottled and they have a dark green eyepatch. |
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| Well, that
describes the male. The female is similar without the crown or eyepatch.
Here's a pair, male and female. |
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There's another type
of wigeon that's occasionally seen in North America, the Eurasian
Wigeon. The male Eurasian has the buffy crown and blue bill, but
has pale gray sides and wings, and a red-brown head.
So at first, when I
saw the wigeon below, I thought I might have some sort of hybrid
wigeon...partway between Eurasian and American. I've never seen
an orange eyepatch mentioned for American. After mulling it over
for a while, though, and talking with some fellow birders, I think
that what I've got here is just a plain ol' American Wigeon, but
somehow the light is playing tricks with the eyepatch, making
it appear orange. There just aren't any other marks that seem
Eurasian about this bird.
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| It was interesting
to see the orange where I thought there should be green, though.
Here's a close-up where part of the eyepatch seems orange, and part
seems yellow-green. |
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Wigeons are neat little
ducks, anyhow. Especially when they get to vocalizing.
There were only a few
Canada Geese at the lake; I've been there before when it was overrun
with them. This one came up to see if I was distributing food.
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| There were
plenty of Rock Doves hanging around, though. Each one seemed to
have its own individual character...I could photograph them all
day and never get bored. They have such nice color combinations,
like the green, white, grey, red, pink, and yellow on this guy.
Not to mention the little hints of purple. |
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| And of course,
Rock Doves have lovely pink/red feet. It kinda brings back fond
memories of the foot quiz, doesn't it? Actually, the feet on this
bird were noteworthy, as one of them sported an anklet.. |
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The anklet's on her
right foot, so she must be engaged. The guy must be pretty cheap,
though, because I don't think that's real gold..
And speaking of the
foot quiz, can you guess who else I saw at the lake? It was our
old friend, the American Coot.
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Strange old coot, isn't
he?
Out on the middle of
the lake, there were a few Ring-necked Ducks having a rest. That's
a female on the left, with two males.
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At first, I had thought
that these ducks were scaup, either Greater or Lesser. Scaup look
similar but have a greyish back. I was all concerned with which
scaup I had (they're a bit difficult to distinguish) and overlooked
the obvious dark backs on these ducks. My friend Ilya set me straight.
The other surprise
of the day was a Double-crested Cormorant. Typically I find these
guys on larger bodies of water.
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Catching him on this
little lake meant that I got a few reasonably close shots of him,
like the one above. The light was pretty good, so you can clearly
see the feathers on his wings, the orange around and on his bill,
and his vivid green eye. He was a great find.
That was it for my
day; I only spent a little over half an hour at the lake before
I had to head off.
Wishing you willions
of wigeons,
Tom
P.S. I must congratulate
my niece Sydney on her correct answer to foot quiz question #2.
Well done, Sydney! She's a girl after my own heart...
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