Photo of the Week: Harlequin Duck

A small dark brown and blue duck with white bill, white spot behind the eye, and vertical white band along the back of the head swims slowly in the river, near the shoreline with tangled branches in the background.

What a surprise my friends Donna and Bill had when they learned the small dark duck they saw at a nearby inland lake was a Harlequin Duck.

A sea duck typically seen in northwest North America, Greenland, and eastern Canada, the Harlequin Duck winters along the coast of Atlantic Canada and New England as well as the Pacific Northwest coast.

The Harlequin Duck my friends found is a rare bird for southeast Michigan and the first time the bird was sighted in Washtenaw County.

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Photo of the Week: Juvenile Red-tailed Hawk

Large dark-brown hawk with white specking on back and dark banded tail perched on the crossbar of a wooden utility pole looks over its shoulder and down at the trail below.

On this morning’s Washtenaw Audubon birding hike through Nichols Arboretum in Ann Arbor, Michigan, we had an interesting encounter with a young Red-tailed Hawk.

One of our group of 20+ folks spotted the hawk from a good distance away, perched on the crossbow of a utility pole adjacent to the trail.

We carefully watched from afar as one of the more advanced birders in the group quickly identified it as a juvenile Red-tailed Hawk.

How could they tell so quickly it was a juvenile? And a Red-tailed Hawk?

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Great Backyard Bird Count 2023

Red-headed black and white bird perches on side of tree in the bright sunshine, blue sky in the background.

Join me and thousands of other folks who enjoy birdwatching this weekend for the 26th annual Great Backyard Bird Count.

Every February people around the world join together to share their love of birds by watching and counting as many birds as they can and reporting them online.

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