This morning, thousands of geese were flying over the yard, so I decided to retrace the trail Chris Anderson blazed east of Sioux Falls on Sunday to see if I could spot any migrants. Almost everything I saw was a FOY! Thousands upon thousands of geese and ducks. A few thousand at Wall Lake NW of Sioux Falls sat on the ice edge and shared it with an adult Bald Eagle. The waterfowl did not seem to mind the eagle, but when a pair of Rough-legged Hawks flew over, they all spooked. A few slides: http://www.flickr.com//photos/siouxfalls/sets/72157629530992781/show/ Locations: Grass Lake, Weisensee Lake, Fensterman's Slough, Lake Vermillion, Wall Lake, Dewey Gevik nature area, and many un-named wetlands. Many of the large waterfowl groups were too far for binoculars to distinguish. A good scope would have added many species. Much of the water was still frozen. See location map at: http://www.leifericson.org/sfbc/id9.html
Species seen include: Bald Eagle- 2 adult Rough-legged Hawks- 2 Red-tailed hawks-3 A. Kestrel- 1 Sharp-shinned hawk-1 W. Meadowlark- 3 Robins- many Ring-billed gulls- many Snow and Blue Geese- tens of thousands White-fronted Geese- many Canada Geese- thousands Cackling Geese- many Ross' Geese- many Green-winged teal- many Coot- many Ruddy Duck- many C. Merganser- hundreds A. Widgeon- 50+ largest grouping of these in a few years N. Shoveler- hundreds Mallards- thousands RW Blackbirds- hundreds Killdeer-2 Canvasback- many L. Scaup-many Redhead duck- many Gadwall-many Bufflehead-3 Crow-5 Starling-many Horned Lark-5 Common Goldeneye-4 Mick SFBC --- Please contribute your sightings to our list; it is only as good as members make it! --- Birding channel recommendation for FRS/GMRS radio use: Primary selection; channel 5/0 , alternate selection; channel 6/0 --- This mailing list is sponsored by the Iowa Ornithologists' Union. Membership available on-line at http://www.iowabirds.org/iou/PayDues.aspx. ----- You are currently subscribed to ia-bird as: [email protected]
