Hey all, I was at the North Ottawa Impoundment for just shy of 9 hours today, most of which was spent either actively searching for or looking at the Whistling-Duck. When Joe Conley found the duck originally, it had been in Cell C on either side of 250th street (the main east/west road in the middle of the impoundment). Robert Freeman and I got there around 11:30am today and parked at the west pavilion and started walking the impoundment roads and scoping ducks. The duck wasn’t in Cell C but we did get some crushing looks at Least Bitterns in the south part of Cell C right off the road. We eventually found the duck in the northern part of Cell A4 in a large flock of ~250 Mallards. Also present in this flock were Northern Pintail, American Wigeon, Gadwall, Wood Duck, both teal, Northern Shoveler, a single male Lesser Scaup, Hooded Merganser, and a surprising female American Black Duck (cold dark brown, no curl in the tail feathers and no white on the speculum). Despite the number of Mallards and other ducks present, the Whistling-Duck was most easily picked out in flight, even when all the birds got up in one mega flock, as the white wing stripe is quite evident. When in the water, it rarely had its neck extended and was slightly smaller than the Mallards around it, so it blended in remarkably well. It also frequently whistled while in the air, which could be heard even at a great distance away. It stayed in Cell A4 most of the day, until the group of Mallards flew into the north part of Cell C, which is easily viewed from 260th street, where it spent the rest of the day sitting on a sandbar with a smaller group of Mallards. Also present in the north part of Cell C on a different sandbar was a late (early?) Willet. Also somewhat surprising to me was the large flock of shorebirds still present at the impoundment in south Cell C. Nothing too unusual in the group, but it was about 40 Lesser Yellowlegs strong with a couple of Greaters and a handful of Wilson’s Phalarope. Another somewhat notable bird was at least one Snowy Egret that was flying around most of the day, but landed briefly on the sandbar just north of 250th near the dead tree in Cell C, before settling in to the southern part of Cell C.
For those trying tomorrow, don’t give up too early; it took Rob and I nearly 3 hours of walking to track the bird down today. Also a word of caution, do not drive down the roads of the impoundment right now as they are incredibly muddy due to recent and continued rainstorms. The material is almost more like wet concrete and it sticks to everything. You will get stuck and will almost certainly need to call a tow truck. You’ll also destroy the roads with ruts and make the people who manage the property angry. If/when you do walk in, I would recommend boots or wearing a shoe that you are ok with getting absolutely caked with mud. And look out for Least Bitterns, we had 4 today. Best of luck to anybody else that goes and looks for this apparent 13th state record. I’ll upload some photos to the eBird checklist, but also here’s everything from the day with approximate numbers. https://ebird.org/view/checklist/S57671539 Happy Birding! Best, Alex Sundvall Sent from my iPhone ---- Join or Leave mou-net: http://lists.umn.edu/cgi-bin/wa?SUBED1=mou-net Archives: http://lists.umn.edu/archives/mou-net.html
