Missed the King - 18 Mar 2014


While conducting a photo outing with a class this morning, Brian Zwiebel found a juvenile male King Eider at Bolles Harbor in Monroe Co., MI. Greg Links refund the bird, and posted to Facebook by 10 am.  I ran down there after work w/ the hopes of seeing the bird, but neither Skye Haas, Kevin Walsh nor I were able to relocate the bird.  It is suspected that the bird drifted north of the peninsula it was swimming earlier in the day.

Bolles Harbor itself was quite active, though.  With ice finally breaking up on the Great Lakes, the wintering waterfowl are staging near shore in big numbers.  Hundreds of Greater and Lesser Scaup, Common and Red-breasted Mergansers, Common Goldeneye, Bufflehead, Hooded Mergansers, Ring-necked Ducks, Tundra and Mute Swans, Redhead and Canvasback were swimming in the harbor.  Up to 30 Bald Eagles were spotted on the edge of the ice flow in Lake Erie.  I would count another 60 at Sterling State Park on the way home!


As I walked back to the car I spent a few minutes digiscoping a Greater Scaup and Bufflehead that were swimming in the canal about 200' away. Ring-billed and Herring Gulls were milling around the parking lot in their spring-best outfits, and looked quite handsome in fresh alternate plumage.



Bolles Harbor Boat Launch, Monroe, Michigan, US
Mar 18, 2014 2:30 PM - 3:30 PM
Protocol: Traveling
0.2 mile(s)
9 species (+1 other taxa)

Canvasback (Aythya valisineria)  50
Redhead (Aythya americana)  36
Greater/Lesser Scaup (Aythya marila/affinis)  300     ice breaking and waterfowl staging. MIxed raft of Lesser/Greater scaup numbering hundreds. Counted by 10s, then 50's.
Bufflehead (Bucephala albeola)  10
Common Goldeneye (Bucephala clangula)  23
Hooded Merganser (Lophodytes cucullatus)  12
Red-breasted Merganser (Mergus serrator)  40
Ring-billed Gull (Larus delawarensis)  7
Herring Gull (Larus argentatus)  4
Bald Eagle (Haliaeetus leucocephalus)  29     Exact count on ice flow edge.

View this checklist online at https://ebird.org/checklist/S163080640

This report was generated automatically by eBird v3 (https://ebird.org/home)