River Otter emerging from the ice, American Woodcocks peenting

Last night around 7:30 I heard two American Woodcocks peenting in the field next to our house. One of them was sounding close by from a low lying area, still covered with snow. I didn't have any boots on nor a flashlight on me, so I didn't go any further, but I'll try again tonight, hope to see it and maybe even get a picture.

This morning looking from a window we watched a River Otter emerge from a hole in the ice on the pond behind our house, its backside still covered with ice...

taking a good look around

doing some exploring

and lounging on the edge for a few moments

before diving back in and vanishing

First of the year Red-winged Blackbirds, and how to prevent window strikes

This morning while sitting at my computer reading the NYT I heard the familiar Konkaree outside, the first of the year for me: Three pairs of Red-winged Blackbirds were busy working and picking over the grassy field next to our house.

The crab apple tree with the feeder was a-flutter with Chickadees, Tufted Titmice and a couple of Gold Finches still in winter dress. A White-breasted Nuthatch extracted a seed and then flew off to a nearby twig.

On a different, and sad note, a bright red male Cardinal  struck our picture window in front and dropped down dead. In the fall I had drawn patterns on the outside with a soap bar, along with affixing two "Warning Web" decals from Droll  Yankees to the outside glass. It looked goofy but it must have worked since we hadn't had any strikes all winter. But the window had started to look so grimy and the decals had acquired brown stains along the edges, that I finally decided to clean it ---to my great regret. I did some research and came up with a different solution: I bought two Feather Guards from Birders' Digest. Those are 5' strings with colored feathers attached to them which are hung from the window with suction cups. Supposedly this warns the birds off by motion, color and loose feathers, to which birds have natural, probably predator induced aversion.
I'll report back on the success.

Canada Goose with head tuft

Yesterday I observed a Canada Goose with a peculiar head tuft pursuing another goose, presumably a female, on the Power Canal in Turner's Falls, MA. I took some photos and submitted a couple to the avian forum on Naturephotographers.net. The responses were interesting.

Here is the most interesting response:

"I think Jim DeWitt is spot on, in the sense that the term "tumor" means literally "a swelling or lump"! As a veterinary pathologist (Ret.) with particular interest in wildlife diseases and more than two decades of specific interest in avian diseases I must say I've never seen such a lesion in any bird. However, the feathers growing at the site in question are of a size and pigmentation quite different from those normally produced in that species in that particular feather tract. It thus is strongly suggestive of a congenital anomaly (which could include, but probably doesn't in this case, a genetic mutation) resulting from displacement of cells from a site destined to be in another another feather tract to this site early in embryonic development, probably within the first day or two of incubation. Without the opportunity of thoroughly examining the affected tissues under a microscope, I can only suspect that this is, in technical terminology, an example of a epidermal heterotopic pterylogenic hamartoma ( a mass characterized by anatomically displaced but otherwise normal and functional skin and feather follicles from another feather tract). There is another condition ( which IS documented in birds) characterized by the growth of multiple feathers from a single feather follicle. However, in this condition of follicle polypterylosis the basic features of the feathers so produced as regards pigmentaion and size are generally consistent with others produced in the same feather tract, save for some physical deformations associated with developmental crowding in the distended follicle.


Yeah. That was probably overkill, as my grad students and residents used to say....
Dave Graham, South Dakota"

What do you think?

If it's due to a gene mutation and inheritable, and is attractive to female CG,  we may soon see little goslings with head tufts and perhaps observe the process of evolution close at hand :-) !!