Black-bellied Whistling-Duck at Pipe Creek

Friday, August 13, 2010: Today, ace birder Larry Richardson (former director of the Lake Erie Nature and Science Center, and former board member of BSBO) found a Black-bellied Whistling-Duck at Pipe Creek Wildlife Area, on the east side of Sandusky, Ohio. This strikingly patterned tropical and subtropical duck is known to wander, and indeed there had been records from some surrounding states and provinces within the last few weeks. The bird was seen by a number of birders during the day, and was still present in the evening. It was associating with Mallards on a small island near the north dike of the wildlife area (on Unit B, as shown on the map linked below).

Pipe Creek is at the base of the causeway that goes out to the Cedar Point amusement park. Here are directions from our BSBO birding pages: From U.S. Highway 6 on the east side of Sandusky, turn north on Cedar Point Drive, then turn right at River Avenue (just after the McDonald’s). The small parking lot for Pipe Creek is at the end of River Avenue. Impoundments are good for shorebirds, waterfowl, and wading birds, while the woods hold fallouts of songbirds during migration. Note that traffic going to Cedar Point can be very heavy on warm weekends. For a map of Pipe Creek from Ohio's Division of Wildlife, click here.

Arctic Tern at Maumee Bay State Park

Wednesday, August 11, 2010: Maumee Bay State Park, on the Lake Erie shoreline in Lucas County just east of Toledo, Ohio, is a superb place to study terns in late summer and early fall. The concentration of Common and Forster's terns there often reaches 200-300 individuals, offering a fine opportunity to compare their plumages, shapes, and flight patterns.

I went to the park today mostly to look at juvenile Ring-billed Gulls, but while I was there I scanned through the flock and was surprised to find an adult Arctic Tern resting with the Common and Forster's terns. This species is generally quite rare in the interior of eastern North America; Ohio had only a few previous records. The Arctic Tern was present for at least half an hour, long enough for me to shoot some photos and call some other birders, but by the time anyone else arrived, the bird had disappeared. Fortunately it came back in mid-afternoon, and many other birders got to see it late in the day.

Field guide treatments may emphasize bill colors: usually solid red on adult Arctic Tern, red with a black tip on Common Tern. However, many adult Commons in late summer become entirely red-billed. The Arctic Tern present today, however, had a very dark bill, which is an uncommon phenomenon for so early in the season but more expected later on in fall.

Here are some photos and some discussion of how today's bird was identified.

While standing, this bird was noticeable by its overall dark gray look and its short legs, but these are both tricky points. Both Common and Arctic terns vary in their overall shade of gray, and Common Tern can look shorter-legged depending on its posture and the position of its feathers. To confirm the I.D., it's very helpful to see flight pattern.

Here, with the bird taking off, we can see that all of its primaries are about the same shade of gray on the upperside, rather than having the outer primaries much darker than the inner ones. And the trailing edge of the primaries (outer part of the wing) is traced by a narrow black line. On Common Tern, there is a broader, smeary dark trailing edge but it involves the tips of fewer feathers.

Here's another angle showing the relatively uniform color on the upperside of the wing and the narrow black trailing edge on the whitish underside of the wingtip, as well as the strong wash of gray on the underparts. Notice also that the wings appear to be set far forward on the body, an illusion enhanced by the small head and long tail.

This photo compares the Arctic Tern (above) with a Common Tern, perhaps a two-year-old bird rather than a full adult, with a different shape and different wing pattern.

With practice, the wing pattern of Arctic Tern can be seen from a number of different angles.

In this photo, the Arctic Tern is seen flying with several Common and Forster's terns. The differences in shape and wing pattern are evident here.