Birding December 2014
December was pretty busy, I didn't get out birding as much as I wanted and that mirrored in my new birds count. I added only two new birds into my 2014 year list.
Duval County Christmas Bird Count was scheduled on December 27. This year I participated in Little Talbot team with three other team members. Park rangers let us use their vehicle to travel back and forth on an island. Little Talbot is about 5 miles long and it would be hard to just walk all day long.
We had a fun day out there. I personally added two new birds to my birding list - Surf Scoter and Pomarine Jaeger.
9 Surf Scoters flow by with many Black Scoters. Surf Scoters white vertical face patch was clearly visible.
I was scanning the horizon for birds I noticed big dark pelagic bird with heavy body and strong slow wingbeats flying at distance. Lora got the bird quickly into scope view and after little time bird landed into water to rest and gave us better view to see details.
It was typical Jaeger looking bird with light colored neck ring. It had heavy body, shorter tail and bigger head. Lora was confident to ID it as Pomarine Jaeger because of strong slow flight pattern, heavy body and dark large head, despite lack of experience from my side.
New yearbirds in December:
- Surf Scoter - Little Talbot SP - 29 Dec. 2014
- Pomarine Jaeger - Little Talbot SP - 29 Dec. 2014
Complete list of my 2014 Duval County Year Birds - 248 species
