Laura Stenzler and I spent today circling the lake clockwise. Stewart
Park had considerable new ice and a greatly reduced waterfowl
population including numerous Hooded Mergansers and couple of Common
Goldeneys.
We drove up the west side directly to Lower Lake Road, hoping to find
Snow Geese close in (and a Ross's with them). From Woolfy's, the geese
were way out - approximately half way across. Then of thousands of
them still around, but we did not linger to count. There was a good
variety of waterfowl at that end, including Redheads, Ring-necked
Ducks, Canvasbacks, both Scaup, all three Mergansers as well as a few
Goldeneye, Tundra Swans, and a small flock of Ruddys.
We drove through the Mucklands, noting the low water level in the
fields (no Pintails, Mallards, or Black Ducks). There was some open
water at Knox-Marsellus, and we found a large group of Northern
Pintails. Tschache also had open water, and we scoped through a large
number of American Wigeons but had no luck with Eurasian.
Back down the east side of the lake, we stopped at the new development
just opposite Letty Cook Woods and spent a good hour picking through
the dispersed raft of ducks: similar species to the west side and no
Eurasian Wigeon. The raft of Snow Geese was slightly closer to us at
that point, but still too distant to make out any small geese. Shortly
before we left, Dave Nicosia arrived with his group. I'll be
interested to hear if they found anything new.
Off the boathouse at Aurora we found a single Eared Grebe but no
Horned Grebes.
And the highlights of the day were a fly-over Peregrine Falcon at the
Montezuma Winery and a pair of Wood Ducks swimming across Factory
Street pond in Union Springs.
Bob McGuire
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