Clarification from someone who knows. -----Original Message----- From: John Schladweiler [mailto:[email protected]]=20 Sent: Monday, December 06, 2004 11:58 AM To: [email protected] Subject: Re: [mnbird] the biggest news in MN Birding
Mark,=20 My thoughts are that the cans and other ducks in the flock were not eating fish. Cans are almost entirely vegetarians as are ring necks, although they will eat zebra mussels. I think they were probably over a bed of some type of submergent vegetation. The brown coloring could just be sediment stirred up by their feeding activity. John >>> "Alt, Mark" <[email protected]> Monday, December 06, 2004 >>> 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. _______________________________________________ mnbird mailing list [email protected]=20 http://www.mnbird.net/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/mnbird
