2014

Early birders assembling for the Christmas Eve edition of the walk saw two of the big white-headed gulls – one Western (black wingtips) and the other Glaucous-winged (gray and white wingtips) engaging in what looked like a  serious fight in the water in front of the nature center – no blood, but solid beak grips at the wing-to-shoulder joint and much flapping effort to push each other underwater. You don’t notice how big those gulls’ beaks are until they get them gnashed in all the way through the gape, which runs well back behind the eyes. Flap! Splash! Plop! Oh – there’s one broken away… nope, here it comes back, chomp! Flap! Splash! You tired yet? Yeah, this is gettin’ old…. So off they swam, side by side, one of them twirling a leaf in its beak.

What was that all about? Who knows? It wasn’t anything anyone watching had ever seen before. The birds were of what humans regard as different species, but the big white-headed gulls don’t seem to care about that – so perhaps it was a couple getting acquainted.

And beyond that, it was still quite a morning. We saw the Western Bluebird flock again, apparently thoroughly settled at the lake – a new species there, first glimpsed in 2013, then seen raising a family this past spring. The almost-resident Red-tailed Hawk (a beautiful dark-morph bird) was sitting in one of the cormorant nests on the island, looking for all the world like a hook-billed mama hen – and not bothering the cormorants at all, as they’re all out of the nest (and either sitting on the floats or fishing in the lake). Two female Hooded Mergansers were swimming between the islands, their red-brown crests almost glowing in the gray light, along with the usual round of scaup and goldeneyes and coots and Canvasbacks and Ruddy Ducks and large and small grebes – 45 species all told.

But no Tufted Duck; he hasn’t been seen at all this year – even on the Christmas Bird Count, for the first time in what someone said was 20 years, and at least half a dozen to my certain knowledge. Even without him, though, and with the wind rising sharply toward the end of the morning, it was another good day at Lake Merritt, where when you come right down to it, every day you don’t fall in is a good day….…