Nice post. The ruddy duck mimics are sleeping female Redheads. I noticed some
of them today, too. We saw no real ruddies in the millpond today. The wood duck
was in the outlet stream of the millpond that drains out under the entrance to
the business at the end of the deadend street north of the pond.
Sent from my iPhone
On Mar 1, 2014, at 2:26 PM, Suan Hsi Yong
suan.y...@gmail.commailto:suan.y...@gmail.com wrote:
Three hardy souls joined me on this cold breezy day for a CBC field trip. The
lab parking lot saw much activity from tree sparrows, juncos, and goldfinches.
Our first stop at East Shore Park found the ice too far out for decent views of
buffleheads, goldeneyes, and mergansers, but Myers Park had plenty of waterfowl
huddled north of the spit at Salt Point for great views. A young GLAUCOUS GULL
flew about and landed on the water; also present were several RED-BREASTED
MERGANSERS and at least two male NORTHERN PINTAILS, one accompanying a female.
We drove around to Salt Point for better looks at the gathering of aythyas,
many redheads and canvasbacks, some scaups (the ones I ventured to ID were
greater), and a few ring-necked ducks. I happened to notice one among the
canada geese looking quite small, only a notch bigger than the neighboring
mallards, and am quite sure it is a CACKLING GOOSE.
From there we drove up Salmon Creek to Indian Field Road, our convoy briefly
merged with Jay's car, but struck out on snowys or much else save for a few
horned larks scattering as we drove by and never giving good looks, only
teasing us with their beautiful songs seeming to emanate from empty-looking
fields.
We cut across to Aurora and headed for Union Springs where Mill Pond was packed
with canada geese, which presently took off in a spectacle of cacophony.
Towards the far side of the pond were RED-NECKED GREBES (one for sure, probably
two) and a HORNED GREBE along with aythyas and gadwalls and American wigeons,
one of whom was green-headed but lacked a white pate. There were also a few odd
brownies that suggested ruddy ducks, but now I'm not sure. No wood duck.
Factory pond hosted some up-close gadwalls and a ring-necked duck; beyond the
park was a small area of open water in which was a lone sleeping swan amid
ducks and geese.
Dorie's was empty of customers but had good sandwich, coffee, and dessert.
From the boat house were about a dozen more tundra swans among a fairly rich
variety of canadas and aythyas and a flock of black ducks. Long Point State
Park also held a good raft of aythyas, and not too far beyond were about eight
WHITE-WINGED SCOTERS which dove in unison each time a harassing herring gull
hovered close.
A pretty good outing for a late winter day.
Suan
--
Cayugabirds-L List Info:
Welcome and Basicshttp://www.northeastbirding.com/CayugabirdsWELCOME
Rules and Informationhttp://www.northeastbirding.com/CayugabirdsRULES
Subscribe, Configuration and
Leavehttp://www.northeastbirding.com/CayugabirdsSubscribeConfigurationLeave.htm
Archives:
The Mail
Archivehttp://www.mail-archive.com/cayugabirds-l@cornell.edu/maillist.html
Surfbirdshttp://www.surfbirds.com/birdingmail/Group/Cayugabirds
BirdingOnThe.Nethttp://birdingonthe.net/mailinglists/CAYU.html
Please submit your observations to eBirdhttp://ebird.org/content/ebird/!
--
--
Cayugabirds-L List Info:
http://www.NortheastBirding.com/CayugabirdsWELCOME
http://www.NortheastBirding.com/CayugabirdsRULES
http://www.NortheastBirding.com/CayugabirdsSubscribeConfigurationLeave.htm
ARCHIVES:
1) http://www.mail-archive.com/cayugabirds-l@cornell.edu/maillist.html
2) http://www.surfbirds.com/birdingmail/Group/Cayugabirds
3) http://birdingonthe.net/mailinglists/CAYU.html
Please submit your observations to eBird:
http://ebird.org/content/ebird/
--
