Today's weather was similar to those of late but with the influence of a weak low pressure system that moved into the area early in the afternoon which increased the activity this morning. Winds were from the south most of the morning with a mid-afternoon shift to the west but even that could not hamper the will of the birds as they must have realized this could be the only good day to move soon. In a true testament as to how improved the day was, I managed not to bring out the chair at all, that's a first in almost a week.
As one would expect Aythya ducks were the dominate birds on the move with in excess of 1000 birds from that genus seen today. Greater Scaup were the most common duck with 413 while American Wigeon claimed the number two spot at 206, just ahead of Redhead which rounded out the top three at 191, also seen in numbers exceeding one hundred birds were Mallard (169) and White-winged Scoter (111). The most interesting duck seen today was a male Wood Duck that flew past with a ball of scaups early in the morning while single Northern Shoveler and Blue-winged Teal this afternoon were the first of their species in quite a while. Loon and grebe numbers were nearly the same as they have been over the past few days.
For the first time this year I was unable to find a shorebird today though another juvenile Sabine's Gull and a single unidentified jaeger were a nice consolation. Also seen for the first time in a little while were a few Bonaparte's Gulls that joined the Ring-billeds feeding off the point.
The only non-waterbird of note today was a Black-backed Woodpecker that made a quick appearance on the Merlin pole late this morning, otherwise it was pretty much the same in the woods.
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1 comment:
This is very helpful. We come up there to hunt ducks every year around the 21st-24th. So we check out this page to find out how many ducks are passing through. So we like to look at this to know kinda if were going to do good this year. Thanks :)
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