I spent Sunday, 12/5, observing and filming the biggest bird spectacle in MN, and I went south from the Twin Cities! =20
I went to Lake Pepin and down to Weaver Bottoms to see the waterfowl that stage up this time of year. I passed Lake Pepin and saw so few waterfowl in my frequent stops that I counted Eagles (38, of which only 12 were dark juvenile). The wind chopped the lake into whitecaps, and the birds were not visible with binos from where I stopped. I got to the Weaver Bottoms and there were by my estimate, 3,000 Tundra Swans. The best vantage point I had was from the cemetery to the west. The Mature White Cedar there held a large flock (20+) of feeding Pine Siskins. =20 On the way back the ducks were closer to the western shore and I saw first large rafts of Canvasbacks and Common Goldeneyes. The Can's engaged in a skirmish line feeding behavior, I am not certain what I saw, but here is how I interpreted it. A narrow strip of water was brownish, contrasting to the grayish blue of the surrounding waters. Canvasbacks that were swimming in this water, which I estimated to be about 70 feet long and about 10 feet wide, numbered to about 1000 birds. I was focused more eon behaviors than numbers this day. There were some Lesser Scaup, Goldeneyes and Ring-necks mixed in, but the flock seemed to be 80 % Can's. The ducks dived frenetically; it appeared there were about 25% submerged at any one time. The ducks were diving as quickly as they could. I am familiar with Gizzard Shad, a silver shiner, so the brown color to the water had me confused, was it a different fish or organism they were feeding on? I do not know, but I presume the school of fish was being fed on from below, hence the schooling together, then the pack of diving ducks fed until full. I wasn't sure Canvasbacks eat fish, I must check this out. My guess is this was what was happening. Further north, near mile marker 70, I came into view of Merganser hordes. Common Mergansers occupying the water space, evenly spaced, I guessed every 15 feet as if on a grid, there was a bird. I do not know how many Common Mergansers there were, but I filmed them as they lifted off and flew, sea-duck-like, 3 feet over the waves, to the east and eventually out of view on the Wisconsin side. I filmed it and I estimated my field of view filmed 4,000 birds a minute fly by, and my filed of view was about 10% of what I could see of the flock, so a conservative and amateurish guess is more than 40,000+. Because of the waves and the wind and me having out my camcorder rather than my scope, there could have been many more than that, but there were certainly at least that many there. Again, my video is very poor quality; I zoomed in too much which "zebra's" the screen when there is so much texture and movement. The colors separated a bit, and it is all very fuzzy, but it is clearly a huge flock of waterfowl. I was lucky to have captured it, even if blurry; it is a cool thing to see. I found a red-phased Eastern Screech Owl road-killed North of Redwing, just south of the shortcut to Welch. There are some deer stands visible on the hills to the West. It was badly crushed by a car, so I did not pick it up. Mark Alt Brooklyn Center, MN Hennepin County.
