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Be A Better Birder: Duck and Waterfowl Identification

Lesson 5: Identifying “Not Ducks”

Welcome to Lesson Five in the waterfowl identification series. Hi, I am Kevin McGowan. This is our final lesson. We will be going over the not-ducks today, things that look like ducks, swim like ducks, act like ducks, but aren’t ducks at all. But some of them are related. That means and geese, and .

Remember that I say to break it down. Break your thing, your categories down into subcategories, and then try to identify from there. Don’t try to identify all of them, pick a category and narrow it down.

This time we’ll be dealing with the swans, geese, and not-ducks. We will be going over 20 species in these three groups in this session.

Start with swans. Swans are kind of easy. They’re big, long-necked, and they’re white. We have three species to deal with in : two native and one introduced. Let’s start with the introduced one, that’s the basic park , the . And it’s big and all white, with a long curved neck. That’s one of the things that you may notice, the “swan-like” neck. The Mute Swan has an exaggerated curve in the neck that’s a little different than the other two. Also note that it’s got an orange bill with a black face and a big swollen knob on the top of the bill. The male’s is a little bigger than the female’s, but otherwise the two look alike. Often we will see these with their heads and necks stained, kind of yellow or rusty. That’s just from foraging. Don’t worry about that. When the male is displaying he usually holds his wings fluffed up over the back in kind of an aggressive posture. One of the things to note with these guys is that they do have a relatively long tail for a swan. These guys can occur anywhere; they are the park swans. There are breeding populations along the Atlantic coast and in the Great Lakes. Remember white wingtips in flying swans.

Trumpeter Swan is another big swan. It is as big as a Mute Swan. But look how different its profile is. It has a long straight neck with very little curve to it. And an all-black face and bill. No yellow or orange on the bill. Although at times you can see a little bit of orange or pink along the gape of the bill. Be ready for that. These guys also get their head and necks stained rusty fairly frequently. The eye is contained within the black of the face. That’s going to be important; we’ll talk about this in just a minute. These guys are fairly noisy. Mute swans aren’t quite mute, but they certainly don’t honk the way the other two species do. Their wings are noisy; they do rasp, make a raspy noise in flight, not whistling like the goldeneye, but more of a raspy thing. The Trumpeter Swan was previously found in the northern Rockies to . Now it’s been introduced into the Midwest and eastward, and so you never know when this guy is going to turn up. So, be ready for Trumpeter Swans.

Tundra Swan looks very much like the Trumpeter Swan. It has a black bill and face. Size is a little smaller, but that’s really hard to tell. Note also that these guys have a yellow spot in front of their eye. It’s kind of variable, with different birds having it to different degrees. Sometimes it can be really yellow, and sometimes it’s completely missing. These birds, true their name, breed on the tundra and then come through most of the rest of North America in migration into winter. So, if you see large, large flocks of swans, chances are they’re Tundra Swans.

So how do we tell Trumpeter from Tundra? They both have black faces. It can be a tricky ID. But look them in the eyes. The eyes have it here, just like we talked about some other birds. If there is yellow on the face, if there’s yellow in front of the eye, that’s definitive. That means that this is a . The Trumpeters won’t have that. Unfortunately, there are, fairly frequently we find Tundra Swan’s without yellow. But the way to look at these guys is that, two things really. The Tundra Swan has more of a rounded head, and a bit of a dished profile, whereas the Trumpeter Swan’s is more or less a straight line all the way down flattened. The Tundra Swan is just a little bit cuter than the Trumpeter Swan. The other big thing, and this is one that I really like to use, is can you see the eye? If you notice the eye standing out away from the black, then it’s probably a Tundra Swan. Notice how the black seems to constrict in front of the Tundra Swan’s eye. And then the eye enlarges at the back. Whereas if we look at the Trumpeter Swan on the other hand, this is kind of a straight line right there, and it is not really opening up so much as it is moving back at a slightly different angle. And that to me is a really good characteristic.

One of the other things that these guys have going for them for ID is their sounds. They both honk, but they sound different. The Trumpeter Swan is a bigger , has a more rumbly noise. The thing that I like to use is a as a marker, because most people are familiar with Canada Geese. And Trumpeter Swan has a lower call than the goose, and the Tundra Swan has a higher one. Let’s listen. Here’s Trumpeter Swan.[sound] Kind of low and resonant. Let’s listen to the Tundra Swan.[sound] Higher pitched. And so that’s something that you can use to identify these two birds; Trumpeter has a deeper voice.

I do not recommend looking at the forehead to distinguish the two species. It’s a popular field mark, but it’s unreliable. It’s hard to see, and it’s hard to know if you actually saw it. For me, it doesn’t seem to be reliable. The way it’s stated is that the Trumpeter Swan’s forehead, if you’re looking at straight on, has a V-shape. And the tundra’s has a U shape. As I say, I don’t really believe it. Let’s take a look here. Here’s a swan that looks to have a fairly strong U shape. But in fact that’s a Trumpeter Swan, a typical Trumpeter Swan. Here we see this is clearly a Tundra Swan here, with yellow in front of the eye, with a nice V-shaped forehead. So I don’t trust that, I don’t think that’s the way to do it. I think it’s more, look for the head shape and the eye prominence.

Juvenile swans can be confusing. Especially because Mute Swan’s bill starts out dark, and then turns orange. It gets paler. Whereas the other guys, both other species, start pink and then turn dark. So it’s kind of confusing. You’re going to see juvenile swans with a mixture of light and dark on their bills. Eye prominence is still a really good clue for Tundra and Trumpeter, especially when they’re really young. Look at this. You can see that on a Tundra Swan juvenile the eye doesn’t even look like it’s connected to the black of the face, whereas on the Trumpeter Swan it is. So that can still be a good characteristic for these two. Also the Tundra Swan gets white faster, so in the late season, in the late winter, if the bird is still dark all over it tends to be Trumpeter Swans. The juvenile Tundras are already white. Shape is still good to tell Mute Swan apart: it has a real curvy neck, even as a kid, and it does still have a longer tail.

Ok. Here’s a quick quiz. Got to test you. What’s this swan? Have you decided? Obviously it’s a black face, so it’s got to be Tundra or Trumpeter. You have a 50-50 chance.

And it is a Trumpeter Swan. Did you get that right? There’s a small point of confusion here, possibly. There’s a small bright spot on the bill. That’s simply a highlight, a reflection of the sunlight off the wet bill. This was a sunny day. So be careful. There are places to be confused about these things, but still a very flat profile, and the eye is pretty much the same width as the end of the black of the face.

Alright, let’s turn to the geese. There are six common species of geese, and a couple more rare visitors. The sexes all look alike. Here we get lots of patterns of black and white. But watch for white besides the face. All of these birds have white under the tail, but look at the sides too. Notice that the Greater White-fronted Goose has a thin broken line going up the side. Brant have these kind of messy white patches on the side. The blue form of the Snow Goose can have these little frosting marks. And watch for the pattern of the cheek patch or neck patch too. Where’s the white on the geese? It still works.

Start with the . This is pretty familiar to most people because they have been widely introduced, reintroduced, across the continent, and they are present in parks, and all of that now. Very familiar white cheek on black neck. We call this the neck sock, the dark of the neck stops at the chest. And there’s lots of variation in these guys, both in size and darkness. Some of them have very dark chests, other ones are white. Some of them have a line going through under the chin, and other ones don’t. So expect a bit of variation with these guys because there are a large number of described subspecies. Again males and females look alike. The juveniles tend to start out smaller, but they get to be adult size by the end of the winter.

Next up is the Cackling Goose, which looks like a little cute Canada Goose. It’s a small version of the Canada, and in fact it used to be considered the same species; only broken out as separate relatively recently. But remember size is only good in direct comparison. What we want to use here is the shape of the bill and face, short neck, and triangular bill. The Cackling Goose is just cuter than the Canada Goose, which has a less rounded face, a longer, lumpier bill, and isn’t so diminutive. Isn’t so round. Which is what we mean by cute. You can use size in direct comparison, although sometimes when a Canada Goose has its neck pulled in and a Cackling Goose has it out, it can be a little confusing. Also watch for other things. Note that there are a few more stripes on the back, and maybe a different color of Cackling Geese. When they turn up in the East as rarities, they have a few more things that make them stand out than just their size and shape. But when they’re out in the big flocks in the West where they normally winter in numbers, they won’t stand out so much as a stray bird like we get in the East. Again, remember, use comparison with what you can. Around here when we get big flocks of Snow Geese coming through, there’s very often a small Cackling Goose following along with them.

Cackling Geese do have shorter necks than Canada Geese and here’s a tip for how to identify them when they’re foraging. The Cackling Goose has a short enough neck that it just barely reaches the ground. Whereas the Canada Goose has a long neck that is so long that it’s longer than it needs to reach the ground and it bunches up on the neck. And you can see up here on the top, here’s a nice bend to the neck and not a bend on the smaller Cackling Goose.

Next up is Greater White-fronted Goose. This is more of a Western species. In the East, we get it every year; we get some from the west, and some from the East, we get a few from Greenland. But still it’s not a very common bird east of the Mississippi. West of the Mississippi, it’s far, far more common. Notice that it looks a lot like a barnyard goose, but it has a white face patch. Which can be shown by a barnyard goose, but usually isn’t. This is the “white front.” It’s right behind the pink or orange bill, before the black mark and the rest of the gray face. Notice that this guy has white under the tail. It does have a white rump the way a Canada Goose does, but unlike a Canada Goose, it’s got brightly colored legs and bill. Notice also, and this is a key one, this is a characteristic I always like to hear people tell me when they think they've seen a white-fronted goose in the East, is that they have black marks on the belly. You can see from this picture on the left that that can be fairly variable. But in fact the domestic geese almost never have that mark. Watch for that. It’s great when you can see it.

Ok, Snow Goose. There are a couple of varieties of Snow Goose. There are differences in size, with the Lesser and Greater Snow Goose. Look over here at this picture that I managed to get of a Greater Snow Goose in the front, and a Lesser Snow Goose in the back. We have both of them flying through Central New York. Notice that there are two forms, that what we call the blue goose, and the Snow Goose. The white form is pretty much all white, but to distinguish it from the domestic geese that can be all white, look it’s got black wingtips. It always has black wingtips. Remember if there are white wingtips involved, it’s probably not a wild bird unless it’s a swan. The blue form, notice is fairly variable. It always has a white head, but it can have either, this guy right here has a white belly, whereas you can see the one over here on the bottom right has a dark belly. So there’s variation in the amount of darkness on these birds. So be ready for that. Note that they do still, they also have black in the wingtips, and kind of a silvery contrast with the dark primaries and secondaries in the blue form. Ross’s Goose. Aren’t they cute? This is the cute form of the Snow Goose. Again, it’s tiny in comparison with the Snow Goose, but you can only use size when they’re directly beside each other. The key here again is the bill shape. This is a cute little guy with a short, triangular bill and a very round head. Again this one is more common in the West, but it is becoming more common in the East. We see a few, now we’re starting to see a few pairs coming through with the Snow Geese as both of their populations increase breeding in the Arctic.

Snow versus Ross’s. Again size can help when they’re right together, but make sure you’re looking for a tiny little goose and not just a slightly smaller goose. You will see two different sizes at least of Snow Geese in a flock if you get Greater and Lesser. But the Ross’s is smaller than that, it’s a duck sized bird. Couple of other things to watch for. The Snow Goose has a dark line across the [bill] at the gape, sometimes called the grin patch. Notice that the [Ross’s Goose] does not have that, but instead it has kind of a greenish, sometimes kind of warty, little patch at the base of the bill that the Snow Goose doesn’t have. Also notice how the bill and the face come together. Note that on a Snow Goose there’s essentially a U-shaped border, and usually has a little bit of a, you know, Schmutz patch, or something like that, a little grin on the back of the face. Where with a Ross’s goose, the border of the bill with the face is almost always a straight line, very sharp. Now you can see some hybrids, these two forms do hybridize, and you get a diminutive goose with the bit of a round facial line and a dark grin patch, then you probably are running into a hybrid between the two.

Okay. New , November. Both forms are in here, can you find them? Wow! Lots of white birds. But it takes some looking through. Here’s a, I’m going to change to a little bit broader pointer so you can see. Here’s a Ross’s Goose pair over here. Here’s a little Ross’s Goose tucked in there. Here’s a straight-bordered bird there. Here’s another one over here. And this guy right here is not a Ross’s Goose; that’s a nice Snow Goose. This is a nice mixed flock of birds.

Alright. Move on to the last wild geese and that’s the Brant. These are again a small goose, a little cuter than the and the white-fronts, but not as cute as the Ross’s or the Cackling. Strictly coastal, you only find them in saltwater, most of the time. They breed up in the Arctic, and then winter on the coasts. There are two different forms. The one on the west is known as the black-bellied Brant. You can see here that it’s got a black belly. Whereas the light-bellied form on the East has more of a strict cut off, a sharp cut off at the neck sock and the chest. Notice that the neck sock goes way down onto the shoulders on these guys, and is not cut off the way a Canada Goose would be. These guys also, the Brant have white on the neck near the face rather like a Canada Goose, but remember the Canada Goose has a big white cheek which covers the whole part of the face. Whereas in the Brant, the white on the neck is going to be farther down. Also, just to make things a little more confusing, juvenile Brant don’t have that. The bird dead center is a juvenile Brant, and he doesn’t have those white marks yet. And he has more striping in the wings. The wings of the adults tend to be plain. Brant travel in large groups, in rather messy flocks. They don’t stay in a nice straight V the way Canada geese do when they fly. They are far, far more likely to look like a swarm of bees than they are a nice V of geese the way we typically think of them. Notice also that white patch on the side. It’s hard to define. It looks like somebody’s swashed a bunch of paint on it with a paintbrush. But that does show up from a distance.

Okay. Just like with the dabbling ducks, we have to talk about domestic geese, because there are a lot of strange looking creatures out there. Just like the dabbling ducks, two different species of geese have been domesticated: the standard Graylag goose, which is common throughout Europe, and then the Chinese Swan Goose. This is a Swan Goose over on the far right. See that it has a little dewlap of stuff there; it has a bulb on the top of the bill, rather like a Mute Swan. It tends to be a little smaller headed, longer necked. Unlike the Muscovy and the domestic breeds, these guys actually breed together relatively frequently. Again parks and ponds, where they are friendly to people, and asking for food. That’s a good sign that they’re not wild. They are generally fat, with this full diaper look, and they usually have colorful bills and legs, and often white wingtips. Remember, white wingtips. That’s a domestic clue. Some of these birds do have white in front of the face like a[Greater] White-fronted Goose, but compare the domestic Graylag with a [Greater] White-fronted Goose, and you’ll see that their shape and posture and specific markings vary quite a bit.

And just to keep things even more confusing, we’re starting to see a lot of Canada X domestic goose hybrids. Usually the Canada Goose heritage is obvious in the dark head and sock on the neck, and then the big white cheek. But they often have colorful bills and legs, and that’s a sign that they’ve got some domestic goose in their background. This is happening more and more as these Canada Geese become resident in lots and lots of places.

There are some wild hybrids that occur but they are relatively rare, rare compared to ducks, certainly. Both of the parents of geese take care of the kids whereas in ducks it’s just the female, so they’re, ducks are far more likely to fool around than are geese. This is one of a Canada X Snow Goose that’s been turning up more and more, probably as the Snow Geese get to be more and more numerous up on the Arctic. Rather variable, but often with the white head and a very Canada-looking body. Often the dark tail and sometimes a white rump. So be ready for that one too.

Alright. Let’s do a little waterfowl watching here. This is, can you tell how many waterfowl are here? Let’s first say, not the Ring-billed Gull, I don’t care about the Ring-billed Gull; we’re looking at the waterfowl we’ve been covering. And what do you see? I see five species of waterfowl. Let’s go from the left; we can do this methodically. Here’s Canada Goose. That’s one. A bunch of right here. That’s two. More geese, more Canada Geese and more Mallards. And then, here, see this guy over here? It’s looking away from the camera so you can’t see the facial pattern, but note the white line down the side that points this out as a Greater White-fronted Goose. So that’s three. Then, being as this was taken in Ithaca, you always have to watch for the big dark . And then, ooh, a confusing one. Do you remember from your dabbling days? What are these little guys down here? You can’t see much but you can see this white patch. A sort of a round, not quite white patch in front of the tail. Bonus points if you identified that as Green-winged Teal. Not as cold a scene. How many non-ducks here? There’s one big obvious one right in the front, a big Swan. Is it a Trumpeter or Tundra? Come back to that. Obviously Canada Geese in the middle. Did you notice the Snow Goose in the back? Snow Goose, Canada Goose, and this is a Trumpeter Swan. You cannot see, distinguish the eyes from the face. That’s a Trumpeter Swan. And there’s actually a duck in here. Bonus for you guys if you noticed the American .

Alright. As I said not everything that swims is a duck or a goose or a swan. And it’s important to distinguish the, what I call the not-ducks. And here bill shape is key. We’ve already talked a bit about cormorants, , gallinules, and little about gulls. Their shapes are different and their bills are quite different. So we’re going to talk now about loons and grebes. There are three species of common loons in North America, two rare ones. The sexes look alike, but the winter and summer are different. Summer ones are fairly easy to distinguish; it’s the winter ones that that are the real challenge. Loons as a group tend to be found on larger bodies of water. They breed in fresh water but they winter primarily in salt water, mostly offshore. How do we tell these winter loons apart? Just like the swans, I want you to look them in the eye to tell each other apart.

Let’s start with Common . It is the most widespread of the loons in North America and the biggest one. It’s a big, long, low bird with a big spear-like bill. Note that it has a big interesting triangular mark on the neck in the breeding . Very pretty with these stripes. And then in winter plumage it has another triangle, shaped differently; points backwards this time. But also has this broken neck, broken dark light with a triangular gap out of it in the winter. That’s a key characteristic to watch for with these guys. Note also when you look them in the face you can see their entire eye. Well in, not in summer plumage, it’s really hard to see in summer plumage, but note in the winter that the eye is completely surrounded in white, but it’s white crescents. So it’s, the eye is in the dark of the face, but it’s surrounded by white crescents above and below. And that means you can see its eye relatively easily.

Red-throated Loon is found far more on salt water and really big lakes. Its scientific name is stellata, which means it’s covered in stars. And look you can see on the back of the adult birds in winter lots of these little spots. Pacific Loon is not going to have that; Common Loons don’t have that nice little “stellation” all over the back. In the summer, it does have a red throat. Note that it has a fairly clean face, with the eye fairly visible, and a nice red throat. In the winter it still has a fairly clean face with a very prominent eye, although the throat is white on adults. The eye really stands out. And this, for most individuals of the Red-throated Loon in the winter, it’s clear that the dark eye is in the white part of the face, not in the dark part of the face with outlining. The other characteristic shape thing for these guys is they typically swim with their bill held up at almost a 45° angle off the water. Watch for that. A distant loon with a white face and prominent eye and a bill held up is likely to be a Red-throated Loon. Juveniles and immatures lack the distinct black and white neck and can be a little confusing with Pacific. But again their eyes are very prominent and they typically hold their bill up above the horizontal.

Pacific Loon, true to its name, has a restricted range, and is more, much more common in the Pacific in the winter. And, but a few more and more these days are showing up in the East. The Pacific Loon has a rather curved profile and notice the very curved head. I think they’re one of the most gorgeous birds in their breeding plumage with this lovely gradation of shades of gray onto their, from their throat to their back. They also have an iridescent purple throat patch. Note they have a relatively small, but pointy bill that they tend to hold on the horizontal. They can, in the winter show a dark chinstrap like this individual here, but they don’t always do that. And sometimes you can see one where it doesn’t exist because there’s just shadow on a sunny day. Two things to notice for the winter Pacific Loon, notice that there is no white chunk out of it the way a would have. It’s very even marking all the way up the dark and light, even all the way up to the face. And that the eye is positioned right on that line across the dark, dark and light juncture. But unlike the Common Loon, Pacific Loon usually has a white arc under the eye but not over the eye. So if you can see the eye really well, think Common Loon. Well, pretty well, think Common Loon, really, really well, Red-throated Loon, and if it’s a little bit hidden then think Pacific Loon.

Alright, let’s turn to the grebes. There are seven species in North America. Two of them are widespread and the others are somewhat restricted. They go from little to fairly big.

Start with the littlest one, this is Least Grebe, the grebe that has the most restricted range in the US, just barely making it into south . A few turn of along the border, southern border every now and then in other states too, but mostly you have to go to Texas for this. They’re widespread in the Neotropics. They are very small, they’re very dark, they have a black face in breeding and a white chin in nonbreeding season. They also have a nice little tufty rear end, a little white tuft. Grebes, well, they don’t just have short tails, they have no tails, and so they have these, either a rounded rear end or usually with these little guys, a fluffy or tufted rear end. Watch for that.

Pied-billed Grebe is the most widespread of the grebes. It’s a little bigger than the Least Grebe. It’s found in a variety of habitats: small ponds, large lakes, even out on the ocean. In breeding season it has a black throat and a white shaped bill, well a bill like a chicken’s, not shaped like a chicken. That’s pale with a black ring around it, that’s the pied bill that gives it its name. It loses some of that color in the wintertime when it just becomes a dull horn color. They’re not a whole lot different in the winter but they are relatively dull. Bills pale, they lose that nice black throat that they use in the breeding season for display. Again usually shows a fairly square white tufted rear end.

Horned Grebe is the next most common and widespread of the grebes in North America. It’s found on larger bodies of water than the Pied-billed Grebe. They’ll turn up occasionally on small ponds but they tend to like lakes and the ocean, larger bodies of water. They have a very dramatic difference between the summer and the winter. Almost as much, or probably even more than the loons do. In the winter, it’s all black and white. But in the breeding season they have a reddish neck, black face, with these nice orange horns or tufts off the top of the head. They can have a white tuft at the rear, but it tends not to be prominent. They do tend to have a lighter neck. Lighter, we will talk in a minute in comparison with the next species. and again they can. But they have to change from summer plumage to winter plumage and back. And so you can see in the winter plumage a big, white, triangular cheek that turns into, eventually turns into an all-black cheek. So there’s going to be a little bit of molting madness when they’re making these transitions, so be ready for that. But this nice little black and white, with a big white triangle in the winter, in a white chest, and a small bill, that’s a . Here are some of these guys transitioning. Notice that the white triangle is gone on this guy but it’s starting to get into the black mode. Very odd little birds.

Eared Grebe is more western in distribution. And it tends to be pretty black in breeding season. No red on the throat, and just wisps of the yellow, not the big yellowish horns that the Horned Grebe has. Notice that in the winter it turns as dramatically different as the Horned, but it’s not nearly so cleanly black and white. Notice that if we look at this winter face it’s not a white triangle, it’s actually almost 3 separate patches of white. And I tend to think of it like these are the ears, like it has little white ear patches. Hence the Eared Grebe. This has a little more tufted rear end than the Horned Grebe but not quite as much as a Pied-billed Grebe.

So when we compare these guys straight up, well in breeding plumage, they’re not that hard, but in winter they are. So watch for the white triangle on the, big bold white triangle on the face of the Horned Grebes and the kind of ear patches on the Eared Grebes and that’ll help tell them apart. Also notice that the Eared Grebe tends to have a dark throat and dirty chest, whereas the Horned Grebe tends to be whiter on the throat and chest.

Right, Red-necked Grebe. Again another western form that we do see a bit in the East but it’s far more common in the West. This guy is a little bit bigger, this is just about duck sized. And we can see red-necked? Yeah, it sure is in the breeding season. Red neck, bright white cheek, and a nice dark cap. But, in the winter it doesn’t make quite as dramatic a change as the last two species, but it definitely gets dull and it gets sort of a dirty cheek. Notice that it looks like it’s, it can look like a triangle, but it tends to be more of a trapezoid, sort of squared off at the back. And it’s often very dirty. One of the ways we can tell it from the Horned Grebe is, like just like Downy and Hairy woodpeckers, the bill sizes are different. And you notice that the bill on a Red- necked Grebe, if you folded that bill backwards it would almost reach to the back of the head. It’s almost the same distance. Whereas on a Horned Grebe the bill is tiny. It wouldn’t come near the back of the head. Also, like the Eared Grebe this tends to be little duskier on the throat in the winter than the more bright white of a Horned Grebe.

So we can compare these in winter plumage. This is kind of a bad photo but it shows what we need to see. There is a larger Red-necked Grebe in front which is good. Use size when you can, but only in comparison. A smaller guy in the back. We have a dirty neck, we have a bill that’s just about as long as the head. Here we have a nice white triangle on the Horned Grebe. A tiny little bill that if you folded it back, it’s not coming anywhere near the back. And that’s how to how to tell these guys apart. Also the Red-necked Grebe is a long and low in the water and the Horned Grebe is a lot more compact and slightly rounded

Alright. Let’s turn to the big grebes. Western Grebe and Clark’s Grebe. The next two species are rather large. They’re tall as a duck. They have a very distinctive shape. They have a long swan- like neck, but that is not a swan bill. That’s a sharp pointy bill that you wouldn’t want them to stab you with. Western Grebe and Clark’s Grebe were considered the same species for a while but now we consider them different. And they have some subtle differences. They’re relatively easy to distinguish from the rest of the grebes because of that long swan neck. Notice in the Western Grebe, again look them in the eyes, the eye is contained in the dark of the cap in Western Grebe. There are some variations in that. There can be some white in the cap and it can be slightly confusing, but in general the eye is in the dark of the cap. The bill is kind of greenish. It’s not ever very bright yellow or anything like that. One of the things that I noticed on this is that, notice that the dark of the shoulder comes down to the water. And even where it’s not, where it’s showing white sides, the dark is coming down. To me it looks like they have a shawl over their shoulders or something like that. You know, imagine your grandmother with her shawl draping over her shoulders.

Contrast that with Clark’s Grebe, which has usually white along the water and no white coming over the shoulder. Also the, well, probably the first thing you’re going to notice is that you can see the eyes on these guys. Because they have white that completely encircles the face. Remember Clark’s is clean face and the western is worse. You can’t see it so well. Again large bird long swan like neck. Clark’s Grebe has brighter yellow bill and those mostly white sides. Cleaner overall. Clark’s is cleaner on the shoulder and on the face.

Again straight up, side-by-side. Bright bill with the Clark’s, dull bill with the western. Eye in the dark, western; eye in the light with Clark’s. Dark to the shoulder, in western. White on the shoulder with Clark’s. Dark sides and white sides. But you have to watch out, there are hybrids. These guys do hybridize so you might see individuals that are somewhere in between.

Alright, let’s a do quick thing here. What’s this bird on the left? Hard to tell when it’s just sitting out there all by itself. What you see to make an id? It’s got a pointy bill. But is not huge like a loon. Looks like it has a white, maybe a triangle maybe a trapezoid on the face. And if we fold the bill back, it looks like it’s almost as big as the head.

So I’m thinking Red-necked Grebe here. What else can we tell? You know what these guys are over here? Use what you can for size comparisons. hese are . Buffleheads are small and a Horned and Eared grebes are small. This bird is clearly bigger than a . This is in fact a Red-necked Grebe

Here’s another winter scene in Ithaca. What do you see here? How about this grebe? What can you tell on this one? Well, it doesn’t have, it’s got kind of a dirty face that looks like it’s got white in blotches, maybe like in Eared Grebe. Little bitty bill is not going to fold back on the head. And how big is it? Well, this is a right beside it. Ruddy Ducks are small ducks that would be smaller than a Red-necked Grebe, so this is an Eared Grebe.

Okay, here’s your final exam folks. Not really. There really is a final exam that you should want to take. But here we are with the last slide the last scene in the course. You may want to make this full-screen if you haven’t already. What you see here? They’re bunch of things. I’ll tell you I see two geese, one swan, three dabbling ducks, and four diving ducks. Wow. Can you find them all? Well let’s look for Canada Goose is obvious all right off the bat. That’s one of our geese. Here’s a young Snow Goose with the dusky head, but still a Snow Goose. Note that is has black wingtips, so it really is a Snow Goose and not an all-white domestic. So those are the geese. Where’s the swan? Well it’s kind of hard. It’s back here. White swan against the white snow and ice, and that can be difficult. Now what species is it? I don’t know. Its head is down so we can’t see the bill. I can’t really tell how long the tail is, so this goes down as swans sp. [species] That is, we don’t know what swan that is.

Alright let’s look for some dabbling ducks. You know that there’s always going to be a Mallard somewhere in most of these pictures. Here’s a Mallard here, and because this is winter in New York here’s an American Black Duck right beside it. And what do you see? Anything else? Uh, oh, I’m going to have to clear this. How about this guy right here? You see that? Dark head with a white stripe up the back? It that looks like he has kind of a long tail. That’s a . Very good, very good.

Alright. Let’s turn to the divers. I’m seeing a bunch of these guys; these are Redheads. Gray sides, rounded head. I can’t really see much in the way of color, but Redheads they are. Let’s see, if we look around, yeah, it’s harder to see. Lots of ducks sp. By that I mean sp species. Some duck, we know it’s a duck, but we don’t know what. Ah, I see one up here. Notice that one has a dull head and dull sides, but its flatter headed than the Redhead, this is a female Canvasback. If there was a male in there, it should stand out with his gleaming white sides, but I don’t see it. Okay I have been ignoring his little black and white thing in the front. Notice there’s white spot somewhere on that head; this is a female Bufflehead. All white. Mostly white on the chest and sides, with the little white spot on it. That’s a Bufflehead. Almost there. One other species left. Have you found it? I’ll give you a hint. It is not actually swimming. It’s on the ice, sleeping. Here’s a black and white duck with black back, gray sides, and a white shoulder. You can’t see the ringed bill but this is a Ring-neck Duck. So, did you get them all? Very good.

This can be quite a challenge, and you’ve done great with this stuff. So we will be wrapping up with this lesson, but there still are more exercises for you to participate in, to help learn the not- ducks. We have a few things it will be nice for you to go through, I think you’ll enjoy. And then there is the final exam. Don’t panic about the final exam. It’s just going to be fun, more questions and more photos to look at. So I hope you’ve been enjoying this course. I hope you got a lot out of it. I hope it helped make you a Better Birder, and I hope to see you in some of these courses again.