The Vista Village Creek

I've been visiting the Vista Village Creek in downtown Vista a few times with my parents.  I've been looking for an adult male hooded merganser.  Right now, there is almost always a female and immature male (see the bottom of this post), but I haven't seen the adult male yet.  He's been there, though, because my parents saw him once.

The Vista Village Creek is a small, artificially-made park, but sometimes there are interesting birds, especially in the early morning or when it isn't crowded.   I've seen green herons fairly close up there, and there are also the mergansers.  My parents saw Townsend's warblers there as well.  Below is a view from the park.

In the early morning there aren't many ring-billed gulls.  There are usually only two or three.  Later in the day, there are many more of them.  Below is an immature ring-billed gull.  Immature ring-bills have pink legs and beaks, a dark tip on their beak, and dark eyes.  They also have some brown on their wings.

Ring-billed Gull

Today, there was a great blue heron standing on a rock in the creek.  It just stood there for a while, looking at me.  Then it crouched down to hunt.  I don't know what it's eating there, but it caught something in the water.  Below is a photo of it.

Great Blue Heron

All day long, there is a large flock of mallards at the creek.  In the early morning, they are up on the grass, but as more people come by, they move to the water.  Even though mallards are common, they're still very pretty ducks, so below are a few photos I took of them.

Mallard

Mallard

Mallards

Before I saw them at the creek, I'd never seen hooded mergansers before.  Hooded mergansers are found in the southeast and west coast of the Untied States in the winter and the northeast and southern Canada in the summer.  In parts of the eastern United States, they are around all year.  Females are brownish gray with darker backs and white below.  They have a brown crest, yellow-edged beak, and dark eyes.  Immature males are similar to females, except their beaks are black and they have brown or yellow eyes.  Adult males have black backs, white bellies, reddish-brown sides, yellow eyes, and a white crest.  Both males and females are small with fairly long tails and thin beaks.  They eat small fish, crustaceans, and insects, and they nest in trees.  Below are two photos of the immature male, and a photo of the male and female.

Hooded Merganser

Hooded Merganser

Hooded Mergansers