Early week lull

Rough-legged Hawks

The past few days have all been without any great highlights as the high pressure system is still influencing the weather on Lake Superior.  Each day has seen a different wind selection with west on Sunday, north yesterday, and south today and as one might assume the overall number of birds has decreased each day this week.  The next two days are suppose to see a short series of fronts move into the area so hopefully my next posts will be with better news.

On the duck front yesterday and today were quite poor with Long-tailed Ducks and scoters accounting for most of the birds seen as there numbers continue to increase and hold steady respectively.  Sunday had a larger duck movement which was mostly Aythya ducks which totalled about 900 birds.  All three days have seen small numbers of Black Scoters (with 12 on Monday) and there have been Ring-necked Ducks on two days which are the most uncommon species to be noted recently.  Loon numbers are still low with an average of 22 Commons and 3 Red-throateds while grebe numbers are about as expected with 29 Red-neckeds and 4 Horneds on average each day.  There continues to be no shorebirds or unusual gulls around the point as of late though a light-phase adult non-breeding Parasitic Jaeger made a fairly close pass of the point on Sunday morning.

Sunday and Monday both saw the arrival of another late fall/winter species when a group of 7 Rough-legged Hawks flew in across the lake on Sunday afternoon and a pair of Snow Buntings appeared along the lake shoreline on Monday morning.  Other birds making appearances include a Northern Goshawk all three days, a Black-backed Woodpecker on Sunday, Orange-crowned Warblers on Sunday and Monday, and most other late fall passerines on at least one of the three days.