Friday, May 8, 2009

Loons Present, Ducks Absent

Not including yesterday's stinker the loons keep coming fairly consistently. Still haven't had one of those really big loon days I keep hearing about, but there's still 3+ weeks left so who knows what will happen. Hopefully the ducks do not have a 3-day weekend in mind...

Weather: Partly cloudy, very calm in the morning with the wind picking up later in the day, mostly from the NW. Temperatures into the middle 50s. There was another period of fog, only for about 10 minutes, in the afternoon.

Waterbird Count: 163 common loons, 14 red-throated loons. Also 6 double-crested cormorants, 5 RB mergansers, 3 RN grebes, 2 common mergansers, 1 great-blue heron. Also 7 dabbler sp, and 1 duck sp.

Shorebirds: There are now 2 male piping plovers on the beach. Also 4 killdeer.

Gulls: I went out on a limb and counted 11 herring gulls today. 99% of the time I see herring gulls doing nothing even close to migrating, but a group today may have actually been headed to Canada.

Other Sightings: Impressive raptor day. There was a kettle of at least 100 at one point. Mostly broad wings, and also red-tails and rough leggeds. Bald eagles and golden eagles were also thrown into the mix. There was also a flock of 100+ blue jays that flew over the pines, though they were minus 1 (the unfortunate blue jay I saw get snatched off the feeder by a sharpie yesterday morning).

This tired waterbird counter is taking another day off. Ken is filling in again, it's supposed to be a bad weather day but lets hope for the best.

Andy N
Waterbird Counter

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