mixed habitat & densely vegetated hiding places

Presenting my first lifer of 2026: Harlequin Duck!



They usually winter on the sea coast and are rare in landlocked Vermont, but occasionally one will stop off on Lake Champlain for a while and all the birders come running. The lake is at least an hour drive for me so I can't always just drop everything and go when there are interesting waterfowl, especially if it's off some remote point and you can barely see the bird through a scope anyway.

Then last year there were these two male Harlequins who decided it would be fun to hang out at a lakefront park in a little cove right by the parking area, posing and diving about ten feet away from people. Wonderful! Except! This happened immediately after I had major abdominal surgery and could not get out of bed, let alone drive to the lake. I did look for the ducks several times when I was recovered enough, but I never saw them.

But this week... guess who's back?? It's assumed that these are the same birds since they're so rare and even more notable to have a pair of males, right at the exact same spot.



They'd been seen a couple of days in a row by the time I was able to get out there to look for them, but I really tried to temper my expectations. They are wild animals and can go where they want. It would be a nice walk in the park, and maybe I would see something.

Much of the park was very icy, so "nice walk" was relative. Fortunately I had spikes for my boots. When I got there, there was a group of birders who had been looking for the ducks for a while, and they said they hadn't seen them. We walked up and down the park, from the cove to the frozen beach, where there was a raft of many Common Goldeneyes and some Mallards and Greater Scaups.



All very nice, but no Harlequins. After a while the other birders gave up and left. I was getting hungry, so I left the park and got some lunch. In the parking lot there were a bunch of Ring-billed Gulls fighting over some discarded food.

Since I hadn't gone far and it was an hour to drive home, I decided to check the park one more time. It was supposed to rain soon and clouds were gathering, making a drearier scene.



As I was walking along the path between the beach and the cove, well—there they were, swimming and diving just a dozen yards or so off the shore.



I really tried to contain myself, but it was an emotional moment! They were SO BEAUTIFUL, pictures really don't capture it. They can dive fully under the water to forage, and they'd dive down at the same time and pop back up at the same time, totally synchronized. When they were up they'd swim along and dip their little faces in the water to filter food from the surface, also synchronized!



I felt bad that I was the only birder there! I kept looking around at all the people walking dogs, walking kids, jogging, completely oblivious to the VERY SPECIAL DUCKS that were right there!! Sometimes when birding you do get non-birders coming up asking "what are you looking at?" but nobody asked and I was a little disappointed. But that is okay. I finally saw the ducks. And just in time, as they seem to have moved on again, probably to the coast where they're normally supposed to be.

Other birds added to my year list since last update:
Rock Pigeon - I reminded myself to add this when I saw them in town because I sometimes forget the urban birds.
House Sparrow - Same.
American Robin - Not all robins leave for the winter, some individuals stay where they are.
Pileated Woodpecker - We see these large woodpeckers in the yard sometimes, though they're too big to visit the feeders. I heard one calling and then spotted it flying from tree to tree.
Brown Creeper - I see one pretty regularly in our yard now. It doesn't come to the feeders but it's not too hard to spot creeping up the trees since they're bare.
Golden-crowned Kinglet - Seen in a mixed flock of other winter songbirds in the woods.
Red-breasted Nuthatch - Same.

So that's 28 species so far for 2026.