Yesterday afternoon (30 March) I counted more than 4,500 waterfowl in the Duluth Harbor between Hearding Island and the Park Point Recreation Area. East winds and rain during the preceding 24 hours, and dissipating fog into early afternoon on the 30th, undoubtedly forced diving ducks from Lake Superior and more open areas of the Duluth-Superior Harbor including Allouez Bay (WI) to the more sheltered parts of the Duluth Harbor. Most noteworthy was the high number of goldeneyes, though it should be noted that up to a thousand overwintered in the Duluth-Superior area during the mild winter of 2011-1012. This count of goldeneyes is my personal high for Duluth, but there are five bigger spring high counts in the state -- including Jan Green's report of 2,000 goldeneye in Duluth, 18 April 1961. The overwintering Barrow's Goldeneye was not seen during yesterday's survey, though it was relocated as recently as 22 March near the Duluth Rowing Club on Park Point. We normally expect peak numbers of scaup during the third week of April with Greaters outnumbering Lessers, so it will be interesting to see what happens over the next few weeks during a spring migration that is everything but normal. Extraordinary numbers of Canvasbacks and Redheads were found earlier in the week in the Duluth Harbor, and hundreds of Tundra Swans have been seen on the St. Louis River, Allouez Bay (WI), and the Duluth Harbor. Here are some of my Duluth Harbor totals from the 30th.
19 Tundra Swan 33 Canvasback 270 Redhead 44 Ring-necked Duck 427 Greater Scaup 936 Lesser Scaup 627 scaup sp. 400 Aythya sp. 200 duck sp. 1563 Common Goldeneye -- Peder H. Svingen Duluth, MN [email protected] ---- Join or Leave mou-net: http://lists.umn.edu/cgi-bin/wa?SUBED1=mou-net Archives: http://lists.umn.edu/archives/mou-net.html
