Today on November 21st, I took care of some things I needed to take of, and I also went to Lake Pleasant for several hours to do some birding. With it being the second of my usual days off of my Wednesday and Thursday "weekend" my average tendencies would usually take me into the borders of Gila County. In the life of birding, Mother Nature has the dominant say in things, and she has thrown rain at Arizona for the past two days. Not just some rain, I'm talking A LOT of rain. While I wish the rain came on days that I was working, I'm glad that Arizona is getting rain regardless. I didn't go birding at all on Wednesday, and I made sure that today, Thursday, would be different. The storms that have come through have brought in some notable rarities. Caleb found Heerman's Gulls and Surf Scoters in Yuma County's Martinez Lake yesterday, Bill Lisowsky found Red Phalaropes and Surf Scoters at Patagonia Lake, and today Kelly Wright really hit gold as she found 2 Brants and a Pomarine Jaeger at Roper Lake State Park in Graham County! A lot of birders have checked water bodies over the past 48 hours in hopes of finding something good that has blown in by the storm. I chose Lake Pleasant for my search today, and I was hoping that the storm brought in some rare birds. Whether or not the recent weather brought anything additional into Lake Pleasant, I knew that it already had two male Barrow's Goldeneye that were hanging out with a flock of Common Goldeneye. Barrow's Goldeneye is an awesome duck, and is one that I don't cross paths with very often. It is worth a trip to Lake Pleasant by itself.
After scanning Lake Pleasant, it was really slow. The Goldeneye flock was the only highlight, and both male Barrow's Goldeneyes continued. After I scanned the flock, I realized that it got even more awesome. It wasn't just a Goldeneye flock, but it was a solid Bucephala flock!
Bucephala is a genus of ducks, and there are three species of them in North America. They are represented by the very closely related Common and Barrow's Goldeneyes, and also by the similar but much smaller Bufflehead. These ducks favor cold waters, and nest in tree cavities in forests of the North. Barrow's is the only Buce that doesn't solely use cavities, and the Bufflehead is small enough to use old Northern Flicker cavities. The males of each species are incredibly striking, and in my opinion, the females are pretty good looking too. Here at Lake Pleasant, in one small cove, it was really fun to observe all three species in a flock that totaled 21 birds, where the males of each bird stuck out from the numerous Common Goldeneye females. There was an adult male Bufflehead, two adult male Barrow's Goldeneyes, and eighteen Common Goldeneyes represented by a male who was almost full adult and seventeen females. These birds weren't all that close to my camera for me to get the best shots, and they were pretty shy when I went down to the water. I love seeing examples of something like this-all in one solid pure flock of one genus. I'll close this short post with a selection of pictures. This was an observation that I really enjoyed.
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| Male Bufflehead on far left, two male Barrow's Goldeneye on far right, male Common Goldeneye left of Barrow's. The rest of the birds are Common Goldeneye females. |
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| Bufflehead male with Common Goldeneye females. This picture shows how small of a duck the Bufflehead is. |
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| All three species in close proximity of each other |
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| Probably my favorite picture of the outing |
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| Actually this is probably my favorite picture |
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| Flight time. Bufflehead on left, Barrow's Goldeneye in middle, Common Goldeneye on right |
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