Ankeny & Baskett Slough NWR's

I headed down to the Ankeny NWR and Baskett Slough NWR this morning... Unlike my last visit to the area I barely saw any birds of prey, but I did see a nice variety of ducks and geese..

In Pintail Pond were a male and a female Bufflehead..

Also quite a few American Coots.



Off to the right of the pond were some Green-winged Teals and American Wigeons...

In another area of Ankeny were three Great Egrets:

A bunch of sparrows flew about the berry bushes..
Looks like two Golden-crowned Sparrows and one White-crowned Sparrow?

At the next pond overlook were lots more geese and ducks...
Canada Geese, Tundra Swans, Northern Pintails...

Quite a few Ring-necked Ducks.

Canada Geese..

A Yellow-shafted Northern Flicker.

Back in the pond were a few Hooded Mergansers and Mallards...

Next stop was Baskett Slough NWR where it had started to drizzle..
The water was pretty far from the viewpoint and the grey, rainy day did not help my pictures...

It looked like there were lots of neat little shorebirds mixed in with the ducks and geese, but they were just too far away for me to identify..

I'm not sure about these guys (besides the Green-winged Teals in the background)..  Ah, the guy on the right is a Gadwall (thank you everyone!).


That was about it... I saw a few Red-tailed Hawks but nothing like all the hawks, kestrels, falcons, etc I saw on my last visit.  It was nice to see so many kinds of ducks though...

Comments

  1. Hi Jen. Lovely selection of water birds.
    Final picture query: Right hand duck with black tail coverts plus small white triangle on secondaries plus flat head is a male Gadwall. The one to left with spatula shaped bill is a female Northern Shoveller.

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  2. Hi Jen, I agreed with the duck IDs - Gadwall & female No. Shoveler. Your right hand sparrow is a juvenile White-crowned, adult in middle. Gadwall also in background of 1st photo w/the Bufflehead. I was surprised to see the yellow shafted flicker. I thought they were pretty much eastern.

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  3. You are really getting your ducks down. Great job! You do exactly what you're supposed to do.....get out there and look! You can't learn this stuff from a book.

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  4. Oh, and I agree with Chris...the yellow-shafted flicker is not common, though I understand the Willamette Valley sees a number of wintering ones.

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