As part of my efforts to pay more attention to what’s around me, here are the birds I’ve been seeing lately:
- Red-breasted Merganser
This one was new to me. Check out its crazy head feathers! Love it. There were a few of these down by the mouth of the river today. Possibly yesterday as well, but I’m not 100% sure that what I saw yesterday was the same bird.Bonus: While looking up which merganser I saw today, I saw pictures of the Common Merganser, which I’m about 90% sure is something I saw last summer but couldn’t ID. - Robins
No link for robins, because, I mean… robins. Anyway they’ve been back at least since Pi Day; I saw them when I was out snowshoeing in the blizzard. Very Oswego, that–spotting a traditional spring bird in a howling blizzard. - Crows
Always crows. - Seagulls
Always seagulls, too. But there are kinds! Specifically, I think these kinds: Ring-Billed Gulls and Herring Gulls.The other gulls, that are speckly brown all over, are juveniles, I think. At least I know now that they’re not a different kind! - Mourning Doves
I don’t feel like I usually see these around town, but maybe I just never noticed before today because they’re so normal I take them for granted? - Ducks
What kind of ducks? The normal kind, which apparently Audubon Society won’t uncover for you under a search for “duck”–no, you have to know to put in Mallard. Duck snobs. - And a fish: Brown Trout?
I’m not 100% sure that the fish I saw someone catch yesterday was a brown trout, but the time of year is right, according to the New York State Dept. of Environmental Conservation. And the pictures when I Googled it also look about right. So we’re going with it–I saw a brown trout breathing its last on the sidewalk.