Birds of Hutton Lake NWR

The temps have been climbing into the 50s, and yesterday at Hutton Lake National Wildlife Refuge, just southwest of Laramie, the birds were ready for spring. The five lakes of the refuge were still more than half-frozen, but numerous species had already migrated this far north to rest for part of their journey. 

The water must have been cold--I heard very unusual creaking and booming sounds from the melting ice--but it provided ample room for hundreds of waterbirds. In the next picture, Canada geese, Branta canadensis, stand on the ice with mallards, Anas platyrhynchos.  The mallards have been around town since late January, and Canada geese are often found in Fort Collins and other parts of Northern Colorado during the winter, so I was not too surprised to see them.  A new species for me, though, is the canvasback, Aythya valisineria, which can be seen swimming in the foreground of the following photo.

Canvasbacks spend the winter in Mexico or thereabouts, so they've had a bit of a journey to get here.  The males are distinctive, with a reddish-brown head and white body.  Both sexes have long sloping foreheads to long black bills.   Whatbird.com reveals the origin of their common name:  "One of the largest North American diving ducks, it gets its name from its pale gray back and white sides which are delicately dotted and lined in a wavelike pattern resembling canvas fabric."

From a distance, canvasbacks could be easily confused with redhead, Aythya americana.  Redhead males also have a rusty-red head, but have grayish bodies and more of a standard duck profile.  Both sexes of redhead have blue bills with black tips.  While walking around one of the lakes, a very large flock of redhead took off and zigzagged back and forth overhead.  The sound of all of their wings was impressive.

Female redhead are naughty.  Like the cuckoo, the redhead female sometimes deposits her eggs in other species' nests, in the hope that someone else will do the hard work of raising her offspring!

At Hutton Lake NWR, I think I also spied a couple of northern pintail, Anas acuta, and and American wigeon, Anas americana, but, as they were pretty far off in the distance, I wouldn't commit to those identifications.  I did snap a pic of four bufflehead, Bucephala albeola, the smallest diving duck in North America.  One male was leading around three females.

The last time I saw bufflehead was at Christmastime on Hilton Head Island, SC.   While not terribly likely, it is possible that these could be the same birds!

Besides the waterfowl, the refuge was filled with horned larks, singing and flitting about the open ground.  And high up in the sky, a bald eagle, Haliaeetus leucocephalus, was making the rounds.  This was the first bald eagle I've seen this year, and it is always uplifting to see one of these huge birds soaring majestically overhead.