Tuesday, October 20, 2009

October 20, 2009

Winds shifted to the ENE today and skies were mostly cloudy. The wind shift did not bring a push of waterbirds, in fact it was a very slow day.

Waterfowl: Very slow. The most common species was Long-tailed Duck with 92 seen, almost half of which was represented by one "bailout" flock with 10 minutes left in the count. Red-necked Grebes had an OK day with 63 migrating by. Scoters, Mergansers, and Scaup were all noticeably scarce with only single-digits of each moving by. 16 loons were seen-- 10 Common and 6 Red-throated.

Gulls: Nothing unusual. Herring Gulls seemed to be moving.

Other: A few large groups of Pine Siskins came in off the lake and a Northern Shrike spent a good amount of time hunting the beach.

Tom Prestby
Waterbird Counter

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