Not Much

Today was a bust. The weather was quite pleasant (once it warmed up a bit), and winds were coming 10-20 mph from a south direction most of the day. However, this did little to help break the slow streak for this spring (which now stands at 39 hours).

Weather: Sunny, with only a few occasional clouds. Wind fluctuated a bit during the day, from S, SE, ESE, and finally SW directions. It was quite chilly in the morning but once thing warmed up it was a refreshing (albeit strong) breeze.

Waterbird Count: 25 Red-breasted Mergansers, 22 White-winged Scoters, 11 Double-crested Cormorants, 9 Common Loons, 4 dark-winged scoters, 2 Canada Geese and 1 lone Long-tailed Duck.

Shorebirds: 14 Dunlin, 2 Killdeer. Some visitors from the University of Minnesota stopped by today to check out the Piping Plovers.. They found a male and a female that seemed to be paired, and another male without a mate in sight. Could be he's going stag for the spring, or there's a nest hidden somewhere.

Terns: 1 Caspian, possibly the same one milling around for a few days.

Other Sightings: American Pipits, some sharpies zipping around the beach at near ground level, and lots of Blue Jays (I estimated around 200 in the flock above the trees).

I'm tired of putting my foot in my mouth so I'm just going to give the forecast for tomorrow and NOT comment on what I think will happen. Possible showers (40% chance) in the morning, high near 45 with N winds 5-10 mph. Pretty chilly so I could definitley do without the rain, we shall see.

Quick update: I finally looked through some old spring data (back to 2004) to see if there were any other mid May slumps like this one. There's nothing even close to whats going on this spring. Unless the skies literally darken with ducks and geese in the next 13 days, this is going to be one heck of a down year.

Andy N
Waterbird Counter