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Posted by Toe on 17:23:10 11/30/09
After a disappointing morning at Lucky Hammock yesterday, where I failed to find a White-crowned Sparrow or any other year birds, I was beginning to think I wouldn't add any more year birds this month, or the rest of the year for that matter. This morning I drove Rickenbacker Cswy in search of loons or sea ducks and again came up empty. Bummer.
This afternoon, after picking my daughter up at school, I decided to stop at the canoe launch at Old Cutler Road and 173 St. This spot can be OK as you get a very distant look out into the bay when it's calm. This afternoon it was smooth as glass and with excellent light. I could see detail on Boca Chita Key, over 10 miles away! Off to the Southeast, in the direction of Boca Chita but much closer, I spotted a Common Loon working its way on the surface, occasionally dipping its head under the surface as it swam. As I followed it in the scope, I see it approach a flock of tiny ducks. Buffleheads! Wow, I wasn't expecting that one. There were 8 in total, and as the loon approached they kind of swam away from this thing that completely dwarfed them. I called Trey at home, and he drove over in 1.75 minutes. We soon had both our scopes on the birds.
I forgot to mention on my recent post about the Scoters and Horned Grebe, you definitely need a scope for this location, as most of the best birds I've seen here are pretty far away. I am using a Celestron 102mm, F5 telescope with correct image diagonal (most telescopes invert the image), which when coupled with wide-angle Celestron eyepieces gives a decent image at high power without losing light and keeping a wide field of view. Today I was using 50X+ and could see a good amount of detail on the birds even though they were about 1 mile away. The lack of any wind also kept the image very steady.
My only disappointment, though, is than in all my scanning over the water, I again failed to see a single White-crowned Sparrow. Darn!
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