I spent a good part of the day looking for ducks and geese in various water bodies around the metro area. Starting in my "backyard" at Lake Como, I found 4 Cackling Geese among a few hundred Canada Geese, plus a Gadwall, and several Shovelers. Other sites and birds included:
Lake Vadnais - LONG-TAILED DUCK - still present in the southeast corner of the lake; however it and the numerous goldeneyes were tucked up far against the north shore of the southeast portion (right along the walking/biking trail, so it was pretty difficult to find and I had to scope through the ducks for a good 10 minutes before spotting it. Other ducks in the southeast part of the lake included Canvasbacks (~25), a few Redheads, Buffleheads, and Lesser Scaup, plus hundreds of Ring-necked Ducks. I didn't see the solitaire mentioned in the previous post, but I wasn't looking for it either! Lake of the Isles - Empty, no scoters, just Mallards and Canada Geese Lake Calhoun - Mostly empty, except for two Horned Grebes Lake Harriet - Canvasbacks (3), Red-breasted Mergansers (6), Ruddy Ducks (2), and a fly-over of 45 Tundra Swans. Old Cedar Avenue Bridge to Bass Ponds, MN River National Wildlife Refuge - Trumpeter Swans (12) and nearly every dabbler, including numerous Green-winged Teal, Wigeons, Pintail, a couple American Black Ducks, etc. There were >100 Tundra Swans resting in Long Meadow Lake farther north towards the Bass Ponds area. Passerines included Northern Shrike, a single Rusty Blackbird, a late Golden-crowned Kinglet, and a fly-over group of ~80 Snow Buntings. It was a good day for waterfowl in the area as a total of 22 species of ducks/geese/swans were found. The only "common" ducks not seen were Blue-winged Teal, Greater Scaup, and Common Merganser. Scott Loss St Paul ---- Join or Leave mou-net: http://lists.umn.edu/cgi-bin/wa?SUBED1=mou-net Archives: http://lists.umn.edu/archives/mou-net.html
