September 24, 2009

It was a gorgeous day with mostly sunny skies and temps in the mid 70's. Unfortunately the calm weather and SE winds made for a poor waterbird movement.

Waterfowl: Aythya continue to move with 25 Greater Scaup, 6 Lesser Scaup, 10 Redhead, and about 60 unidentified aythya. Loons were moving a little but not nearly as much as yesterday-- 16 Red-throateds and 35 Commons. Red-necked Grebes made a poor showing with 35 birds. Wigeon were the most common dabbler with 27 followed by 6 Mallard and a few teal.

Shorebirds: A decent day with the highlights being a dozen American Golden Plovers, about 10 Sanderling, and a Pectoral and a Baird's Sandpiper.

Other: The highlight was the number of American Pipits coming in off the lake. Groups of 15-25 came in all morning, some of which landed on the beach and some of which continued south. I counted 131 total. A decent number of Horned Larks (see photo below) and a few Lapland Longspurs were present.

Tom Prestby

Waterbird Counter